Half-Life: Alyx

Unlike others I'm not going to talk VR beyond saying that the platform is the future & already owns simulation like flight & racing - & is how all revisions of past legendary games should be revisited

As with film & music, classic iconic games transport you to another place/time/feeling when replayed. The Soviet-esque Eastern Bloc dystopic vibe that HL2 built can now be experienced in an awe that'll never be available in 2D. Moreover, the tension, mystery, action, nostalgia, gunplay, puzzles etc are simply out of this world - you're in City 17

True VR can't be told. It has to be experienced.

When i was a kid, I never thought i would experience a game like this in my Lifetime, but Valve is always ahead of time, I really hope They get back to making a lot of games, or any VR game like Half Life Alyx. I think VR games should take notes from this amazing masterpiece

I thought long and hard before I purchased "Alyx" and that's because it requires a VR headset to play. I did not buy Valve's VR goggles, I bought Oculus Quest for $600, and it works just fine to play this game. But this review is about the GAME, after all, and what a marvelous game it is!

Once you get used to your VR headset, plus the clunky hand controllers that work along with it, you're in for some really good gameplay. Being a huge fan of Half life and HL2 + expansions, it didn't take long playing to realize this fits right in with the older versions, and even improves on them in a few ways, naturally. "Alyx" is a worthy addition to the Half-life series, and one can only hope that Valve is well into Half-life 3 (since the mere existence of "Alyx" basically implies that game too, will eventually get made).

The game starts you off in a dirty balcony, presumably somewhere in City 17, where you will presumably gain some familiarity with using your goggles and hand controls by doing some easy stuff: moving cans around, picking things up, opening doors etc. Then the tasks get progressively more complex along the way. The game design is quite well thought out, especially since every action requires using the awkward hand controls. And knowing this the devs designed the game to mostly NOT require you to do anything in a hurry. Most actions are done at a leisurely pace because its pretty much required. There are several moments in the game that did require speed of movement, and those are the ones i had to repeat over and over just because I kept getting killed. I never did get truly comfortable with the hand controllers not even by game's end.

And that's another thing I have to mention, is the length of the game - it is just too short! It's really not much longer than an HL2 expansion pack. And I could have gone for a lot more game, alas -

What I really want to discuss is, VR technology as it exists c. 2023. Considering the relatively large outlay for the game plus the VR goggles, I was rather disappointed. VR tech right now is really not much better than the effect you would get just by watching an old-time 3D movie, using those old cardboard blue/red glasses. The VR effect given by "Alyx" is certainly interesting to see, and it is novel and new.

But for the large outlay just buying all the stuff, I felt like it should have been a lot better than it was.

I didn't expect to put on the VR goggles and suddenly feel like I was living in "Avatar", but I was hoping it would be a whole lot more realistic than it actually was; perhaps a better sense of depth, being able to see off to the sides a bit, SOME THING mind-blowing...but no, it was just the old "creature from the Black lagoon in 3D" effect from the 1950's updated for the 2020's.

Ultimately I did not feel cheated, scammed, or let down too much by this game and I'd play it all over again (in fact it's almost a bit of a waste if you don't replay at least once). But IF you have to put yourself in a financial bind just to play Alyx, I say, DON'T. Save your money until VR improves a whole lot, or at least until the price of all of it comes down!

Should you invest in this game? ...will probably be the first question anyone has about "Alyx". The game itself is first rate, very much worth playing, and a worthy addition to the "Half-life" series. But there is only one way to play it, and it requires VR goggles. Consider that even modestly-priced VR (Virtual reality) goggles are at least $500 (Oculus Quest is the one I bought) with Valve's VR goggles offering being almost twice that. And after having played the game, the answer to the question "Is it worth it?" is really yes and no and depends, unfortunately, on how much discretionary income is available to you for buying the goggles since you cannot play "Half-life Alyx" without them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the most important question really might be this, Is VR c. 2020, really worth the expense? Considering what you pay ($500 and up, although almost certainly we can assume that cheaper used VR goggles will become available before too much longer) vs what you get (the VR experience c. 2020) - my answer would have to be no! My reason for this is because, while VR is certainly novel and new, it is not revolutionary enough to be worth causing yourself financial hardship to get it.

And if at all possible, do try VR goggles before you buy a set. The visual effect of VR really needs to be experienced to answer the question for yourself. And I repeat, the truth is VR right now is really nothing revolutionary. It's basically just optical trickery, which is fine, except I'd describe the effect as not too different from the old time 3D movies from the 1950's. These 3d movies required you to wear some paper glasses with red tinted plastic over one eye and blue over the other. And VR goggles are really not too different from old-time 3D. By showing one eye one perspective and your other eye a different one, and your grey matter does the rest. The result is certainly a noticeable visual effect, which makes it different from every other game you've played up to now - but paying the freight to get it may not be worth it to you.

There are plenty of images on line that will show you a very good representation of the 3D minus the goggles, and if anything the effect is kind of like watching the game action through a piece of glass a foot away, with more action happening 10 to 20 more feet away, in other words, two perspectives at once. The feeling of actual depth is there at times, it is interesting to see, and it does make gameplay more interesting. But the interface you have with the hand controllers is of necessity very slow. Navigating through this virtual world is awkward and clumsy. You cannot react quickly to anything in the game, and so almost everything that happens gives you plenty of time to react. This removes a lot of the tension from the gameplay but is probably unavoidable.

So whether this game + VR goggles is worth it to you, is something only you can answer. By the end of the game I did not feel cheated or disappointed, but just wanting more. It's obvious Valve left out a lot of stuff - landscapes, visual effects, et. al. that will surely be there when they finally come out with "Half life 3" (they have not announced it yet but the mere existence of this prequel game basically confirms HL3 beyond much doubt). I thought about this game for several months before actually getting the Oculus Quest to play it, I had modest expectations that were mostly met by this game. But if you're on the fence about it, and $500 will make a significant hardship for you, I'd tend towards the answer being NO! My reasons for that, beyond the high cost, is that virtual reality still has a very long way to go. Maybe in 5 to 10 years they will finally have something truly groundbreaking instead of 1950's 3D. But as of 2020, they are still a long, long away from anything truly revolutionary in the optics field.

This game captures everything about half life but in vr which (instead of most games which is just used for marketing) is used for the benefit of the game since you feel like your there.