News Half-Life: Alyx - Releasing March 23, 2020 on SteamVR

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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So what's your strategy for running out of ammo while fighting a headcrab?

Mine is "teleport back through half the level like an overexcited chicken, reload, slowly creep forward again". I'm pretty proud of that one.
I've not yet ran out of ammo (for all weapons, frequently for 2 and almost always out of shotgun shells) even though I hadn't realized the yellow boxes have resources, I thought they're just props. If that actually happens a lot they really should make it possible to deal with them with bashing them with objects or have more stuff you can trap them under laying around. But boy does it suck when I waste a full clip on an armored crab unable to get it right, lol.

Also you can stop (single) crabs from attacking by just moving over them, they try to get away first before turning back to jump attack and they are slow, lol.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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Oh he meant how you deal with having to reload in the heat of battle. Lol. Never mind then. Nah, reloading is second nature to me after all these VR FPS :D

Maybe that tip about headcrab behavior helps you, try it on the next, just moving along with it means it constantly just tries to get distance rather than attack.

That probably doesn't work for the real nasty ones though.
 
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Aelphaeis Mangarae

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Apr 21, 2019
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I pre-ordered the game, but unfortunately my internet chose this month to go to complete garbage so I've been unable to finish downloading it. And the Coronavirus crisis is severely impacting the usual routes of getting it fixed. Regardless, I am beyond pleased that Alyx has turned out well. I've been watching some gameplay footage in the interim and a few things strike me:

I think the lack of melee combat options is reflective of a complicated problem in VR design. Melee is super OP in games like Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. However, I find it a tiny bit disappoint that the (sequel/prequel) to Half-Life 2 doesn't let you attack enemies by throwing things at them. HL2's combat was really stodgy, but its saving grace was the sheer fun of physics-based combat once the gravity gun was introduced. In Alyx, you can stop headcrabs with a chair, but you can't squash them with a chair. You can't stun enemies by hitting them in the head with a brick. Yes, it's a balancing thing. But it feels like an unfortunate concession.

The performance requirements of VR are interesting. The visuals are top notch, but the lighting is pretty obviously baked for the most part. The flashlight works well, though. The biggest deviation from classic Source engine design I can see is the use of webms for ingame monitors. In Source games, TV screens were typically portals to hidden rooms. So when you saw Breen on the Breencast, he was standing in a room outside the map boundaries. I always liked that approach. But I'm assuming that it had a performance overhead, and they needed this game to look beautiful, be highly interactive, and also run really, really fast.

Not a fan of the Alyx Vance recast. I have nothing against Ozioma Akagha, and I think she does a solid job. But she's not Merle Dandridge and the recast feels pointless. She doesn't sound like a young Merle Dandridge, possibly because Akagha is in her 40s just like Dandridge.. I try to be chill about these things, though. Don't hate the playa, as they say. I know some people detest Arkham Origins for having Roger Craig Smith as Batman. But he did a good job. He's not Kevin Conroy, but he played Batman well.

My hope is that Valve releases high quality modding tools for Alyx and the community uses them to, for example, remake the old HL games in Source 2. I know that is underselling the work required, but imagine HL2 with Alyx mechanics. Imagine how absolutely awesome that would be. Yes, we have VR projects for both HL1 and HL2. But they're fairly vanilla. Imagine HL2 and its Episodes reinterpreted through a VR-oriented lens. While we're at it, I just hope Valve manages to foster the kind of modding community HL1/HL2 had the good old days.
 

Arulan

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Dec 7, 2018
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I'll post my comments in here as well.

I finished Half-Life: Alyx. It took me 30 hours according to Steam.

It was incredible. The first two Half-Life games are my favorite examples of the genre, and after 15 years they still managed to pull it off again, while continuing to push boundaries.

I love the feel of the weapons, and the physicality of the upgrades. The UI/UX design is just perfect for VR. The grabbity gloves is such a smart mechanic for VR. While room-scale movement and interactions is amazing, you don't always want to reach down to pick something up, get on your toes to reach a crate up top, or get on your knees. Being able to fling something towards you and catch it is a very smart solution to keep the experience flowing.

Personally I like to use teleportation with room-scale movement, despite not getting sick at all from continuous movement, and the attention to detail here is great. Enemies are aware of your movement throughout the teleport. The end of the teleport is accompanied with contextualized audio effects (clothing sounds, a thump when you land on metal, etc.) that really aid in mentally filling in the gaps of the (abstracted) movement you just performed.

I'm not going to spoil anything, but there are several really good chapters that I'm looking forward to revisiting.

That ending!

I can't wait to play it again.

So what's your strategy for running out of ammo while fighting a headcrab?

Mine is "teleport back through half the level like an overexcited chicken, reload, slowly creep forward again". I'm pretty proud of that one.
Use a trash can lid as a deflection shield. Grab it out of the air and throw it as far as I can, and then reload. Catch it in one of those large barrels. Throw a brick at it while it's leaping at me.

There is this part in Chapter 7 where a headcrab scurries about and drops a bottle, causing Jeff to become enraged. I just want to say that I love peeking up inside of ventilation ducts (and other similar things) in VR. Oh, and that headcrab is in there scurrying about.
 
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SaberVS7

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Jan 23, 2020
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Well, Chapter 7 was TENSE but I somehow managed to do it all in one go without getting killed.

It is somewhat terrifying knowing there's multiple things out there capable of making zombies beyond just Headcrabs. I assume he breathed too many of the spores or something?

Speaking of Zombies, odd as hell that there's so many Poison Crabs but no trace of Poison Zombies in any capacity. When Jeff exists they couldn't have been too much NOPE to put in the game.

And in one last note on Ch7 - Did that guy seriously go into the heart of the QZ just to loot booze? Is he an utter madman? I mean, as far as I can tell he's basically the Grigori of HLA from what I saw of him.

Anyway made it to CH10, absolutely hated that battle at the end of Ch9 - Was beginning to think it was an Infinite Wave of enemies that I had to try to find a window to hack the door during. Shame I can't go on tonight though, I'm feeling too tired and my eyes are burning too much for me to continue on until morning.
 
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Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
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Finished it today. Great game. Enjoyed it a lot. Took 10 hours which seems about right for me. I do 1-2 hour bursts so it was a few gaming sessions.

Lots of positives. It feels like the most visually 'clear' VR game ive played. Ive got a good system but still lots of VR games seem blurry.

I struggled with the Vive controllers but not too much to make it un-enjoyable. Mostly a lot of dropping things at my feet or ejecting ammo at the most inopportune times. I also kept taking screen shots as i fumbled with the buttons.

Really liked the ending bit. G-Man is cool. Great that it ties in with HL EP2 and that there seems like there will be another entry, whether its VR or pancake (i think most likely VR)
 

Amzin

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Dec 5, 2018
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It's the most polished VR game I've played, for sure, as far as being a "traditional" game (e.g. Pistol Whip is super polished but very specific), but I disagree it pushes any boundaries. It looks good, the feel is good, but it doesn't do anything new to VR and it removes some stuff from HL2 and from other VR games that I would much have preferred having. I'm curious to see what the modding community does with it because I'm pretty sure it won't be that hard to make it deeper and more interesting (some kind of melee or use for physics, even with big limitations, would help).

I've already said I was very disappointed that it was a faux survival horror (I say faux because it uses a director system, it seems), but even if the whole game was closer to an FPS like the last couple chapters, I'd have most of the same criticisms. The game just doesn't do anything new besides the level of detail in VR, which is not a mechanical thing at all.

To it's credit, it's probably one of my least-disliked survival horror games, and the action chapters I loved despite the relative shallowness.