Half Life: Alyx

honest thoughts?

Attached: box_art_flat.png (1400x1925, 2.59M)

combat was pretty lame. enemies were too bullet spongy and few, it would've been way better and more challenging and engaging if there were more enemies with less HP

Fun, but tame vr experience.
Shame about the 13 year wait and retcon.

Really good.

It's convinced me that VR is the perfect genre for survival horror.

this, alyx was the actual RE game this year

Yeah it was more horror than half-life.

I haven't played it and I don't have access to it, but story wise I am a bit worried. For an outsider perspective-- HL: ALYX seems to be playing it safe in the gameplay department, and that this game is just the testing grounds for future games. Hopefully they can improve upon the gameplay or A.I., because what I've seen the combine A.I. and it makes them look utterly retarded. Also the game should do a better job at visualizing the situation and the oppression of citizens

It proved videogames can't be scary, but it's thrilling as fuck.
10/10

Overall, it's fucking breathtaking. I've had a headset since day one with an original Vive and now a Pro, but this is the first game that made me really think that the medium is ready for the prime time. It's not perfect, nothing is, but it's an utterly engrossing horror title pretending to be an action sci-fi shooter, designed for VR with all the polish and care that a big dev can give. It's a particularly interesting feeling when you realize you're walking into situations using standard Valve design decisions, but recontextualized into VR. Getting to see all the visual design of the Combine and Half-Life 2 in general up close in higher fidelity was great too, they knocked the visual design out of the park.

Wish it had a melee system, wish it had more guns, wish it had more time fighting the Combine, but that doesn't detract from what an achievement it is.

A Silent Hill VR game with sound design on par with the original trilogy would be an instant masterpiece.

It's alright. The levels felt too small with some exceptions, antlions were a bit boring to fight. It's a good first example of a polished VR game.

Were't the antlions jumping at you in the trailer?

fantastic but a bit too safe, i wanna see the next game have more genre breaking shit like jeff.

First half is good, second half is absolutely fantastic

They don't really do that in the game, they walk towards you and you have to shoot their legs off, at which point they reveal their abdomen which is an instant kill. Maybe I'm conflating boring with annoying, I wasn't very good at shooting their limbs off, and I'd have preferred to just blast them to pieces with a shotgun like in HL2.

They still jump at you, but not on top of you

Stellar proof of concept for VR and the best first experience a newbie could have in the medium.

AI is worse than those from rail shooters like House of the Dead.

I liked the antlions. If you were precise, it took maybe three rounds to kill most of them. But when they were everywhere, you were moving and the pressure was on suddenly I was wasting whole AR mags without putting them down.

You lads should try out some of the console commands and spawn more enemies than normal in certain maps.

Dealing with 5-7 combine at a time is fucking great and getting flanked on all sides by antlions is max ludo. Heartily recommend that shit until they release the mapping tools.

Best VR-Game of the decade.
If you hate VR, this is not for you.
If you're VR-curious; if this game not sells you VR, no other game will ever do.

Not a retcon.
Retcon is DBZ showing us Goku screaming in pain as Namek explodes, and then showing that in Namek's final moments he didn't scream and instead went off to find a ship. In this example, Goku screaming never happened, despite us, the audience, witnessing it.

In Ep 2. Eli dies. In Alyx, Eli still dies, but Alyx is given a chance to prevent it. If it was a retcon, Eli would have survived without any in-universe explanation.

>If you're VR-curious; if this game not sells you VR, no other game will ever do.

what about half life alyx 2: barney?

It's worth remembering too that even if we take Epistle 3 as gospel for Valve's original plans, the only thing that's changed from them is Eli's fate. Alyx was always going to end up the G-Man's toy.

>no other game will
Vehicle games are a bigger point for a lot of people, VR makes jets and cars feel fast in a far more convincing way than a screen.

Nah, but possibly Half Life ALYX: Blue Shift

this game definitely changes the story but that isn't to say it's a bad thing

the bit that they changed was the last minute of the last half life story we did witness, and they did it well by having a direct follow up to the story told in hl2 ep 1 and 2.

it's a change that makes sense within the rules of the universe, which all revolve twisted time shit and gman pulling a FAST one on everybody.

Attached: 17ec8a66525eb03f-600x338.jpg (600x338, 72.72K)

Is it just me or does G-man's relationship with Alyx make little sense.
Ep2: He claims to have "plucked" Alyx out of Black Mesa, seeing future potential.
In Alyx, he recruits her to do work.
At the end of HL2, he's willing to let her die in the citadel explosion.
In Ep2, he uses her to send a message.

Based on his comments about Gordon in Alyx, I'm under the impression that G-man in Alyx takes place after Ep1/2 (since Gordon wouldn't have had a chance to be "unable or unwilling to perform the tasks laid before him"). Perhaps he went back in time and got himself caught, intentionally or no.

And what's the most commonly accepted logic for Alyx being recruited 5 years before HL2, but being there in HL2, only to vanish at the end of EP2(Alyx)?

>And what's the most commonly accepted logic for Alyx being recruited 5 years before HL2, but being there in HL2, only to vanish at the end of EP2(Alyx)?
Simplest explanation is that it's the same mechanic by which Alyx was able to deliver his message to Eli without being aware of it. Memory fuckery, didn't know what happened. Another option is some kind of pocket universe fuckery, where Alyx's events didn't happen in the 'real' timeline and were just some kind of test.

that Tyler McNigger should stop being a pussy bitch and hand out the HLVR Beta for us to fuck with

It feels weird seeing so many people bitch about the ending, when it has me more excited to play more Half-Life than anything else has since ep 2 itself.

out of universe context, it's due to the episodes originally building up to Alyx's disappearance in a linear timescale culminating in Ep3, but even then the disregard on the Citadel was strange.
I often just view that as G Man was going to speak to her independently of Gordon or he knew the Vorts would save her.

Agreed on the timeline from the perspective of G man, I think 19 year old Alyx was selected to be the decider of the 'nudge' due to anticipating her to act a certain way that 24 year old Alyx would not have.

Gman can probably move back and forth freely through our timeline, so the games in release order represent the linear series of events from the Gman's perspective. I'm pretty happy for it to not make much sense to us, I like the idea that Gman is some entity that sees things on a different level so we can't understand the way he works

ALYX serves as a direct follow-up to Episode 2 in that it builds on G-man's intention to use Alyx (an important plot point in the episodes) and his relationship with Eli Vance. I honestly see the game as a sudden flash back Gordon sees during the events, then he comes to after Alyx disappears and Eli is actually alive.


>And what's the most commonly accepted logic for Alyx being recruited 5 years before HL2, but being there in HL2, only to vanish at the end of EP2(Alyx)?

I'm wondering this myself. I guess it wouldn't be to crazy to believe that G-man can erase or rearrange memories felt through time by those he enslaves.

It's great but doesn't work too well with my wmr.

Oh well.

One of the worst Half-Life titles. Worse than HL1: Episode 1.

The enemy roster blows ass. Electric Dogs only show up like 2 times during the whole game. Jeff is a bit uninspired as is. Headcrabs are way too easy to deal with. They are slow, unresponsive, and less aggressive. Could we have at least have some returning enemies or some interesting new ones?

Level design is a bit boring too. The world design is a bit weird like Dark Souls 2. Where the progression and how things connect just doesn't make any damn sense. Everything feels extremely small and compact.

There's like three weapons. The pistol will be used all of the time since it has a lot of ammo and is a great all-around weapon. The shotgun barely gets ammo and manages to have an effective range of 2 feet. Oh yeah, there's a plasma SMG. Did you know combine weapons like these plasma guns are genetically coded to the user or some shit? That's something they missed over HL2 and its episodes.

As for the story, it's almost nonexistent and the characters are really lacking. The environmental storytelling and sense of mystery from HL2 didn't carry over.

Oh yeah. Fuck these minigames.

Everything about it just feels so neutered.

All of this aside, if you want a horror focused game about venturing into some weird exclusion zone with zombies and weird fungus shit or a horror focused game about biohazardous monsters. Just play TLOU or RE. It's the best VR title we have. But it's a 3/5 out of a sea of 2/5 games and shovelware.

Fuck that. Alyx is far superior to TLOU. Jeff alone BTFOs whatever semblance of clicker nonsense they can come up with and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

is this a joke

Attached: 23s4hdqrcbu21.jpg (567x393, 33.01K)

I'm guessing you played with music in your ears or just weren't paying attention, but they did point out the SMG you get isn't coded to anyone yet. it was basically a fresh one out of the box

very contrived, but they did at least explain it

I forgot this came out, lol

Play opposing force, zoom zoom

i did xoomer

it's still lazy, awful writing no matter what it's called

Then you'd know different POVs aren't new to the series

Really enjoyed it, super immersive and a blast to play. Best VR game I've played.

I didn't like how easy some of the AI was to cheese, Combine AI really needed an "aggro unit" that pushed you quickly. Teleporting really needed a cooldown based on distance traveled, you can beat too many units just by teleporting, but you felt forced to teleport because the normal movespeed is too slow. Should have been able to meet in the middle.

Really want the SDK to start seeing what modders do.

Jeff and the explosive barrel rooms were pure kino.

FUCK the "avoid the red orbs while dragging the blue orbs around the circle" hacking puzzle.

Really need to be able to "sell" upgrades for something else. I regretted the pistol reflex sight and the shotgun laser sight.

The shotgun laser is based as fuck when you combine it with the grenade launcher, plus at least one holo sight is handy for checking weaknesses.

Retcon was necessary to change the expectation for HL3. Even though it made me hype to Hunt Down the G-Man with Eli it pulls some pressure off Valve now that we have new info. You and Eli tracking down G-Man to the Borealis as Adrian Shepard is released from stasis and tries to kill you due to turning crazy from 20 years of awake stasis would be so kino.

But yeah the game was alright otherwise. Disappointed I can't melee with a crowbar. Jeff easily makes it GOTY though. A nice safe bet to get back to Half Life.

i never said it was new, i reference barney because of blue shift

I felt like I was enjoying playing a game again.

How does it feel knowing you actually played an RE game instead of a HL game Yas Forums?

why the fuck is Eli so young in the ending?
he looked old as shit in EP 2
also how does Russel see everything you do?

camera in the headset

doesn't look like that's the case

In Russel's lab you can even see his feed, coming from your head position. He mentions it constantly too.

alright

I see, it just looked like a standard headset when the drone gives it to you so I didn't realize

hard to notice at first, but yeah it's on the outside of the earpiece

Attached: headset.png (1920x1080, 1.32M)

Everyone keeps saying it's in higher resolution than hl2 but idk it doesn't feel like it in the headset. Don't get me wrong, it looks great and is immersive as hell but maybe I'm just missing a setting or something because how definitely looked higher res unless you're talking about the screen output and not the headset output

'higher res' doesn't mean what you think it does. All the assets are objectively higher quality than their HL2 counterparts. Higher poly counts, higher resolution textures, more detailed environments, better lighting and shaders, it's an objectively much more technically advanced game.
'Resolution' is just pixel count. It doesn't mean 'graphics quality' or something.

what did you think of this dude? I personally found him incredibly unfunny and obnoxious

Attached: Russel_bust.jpg (1440x1440, 404.52K)

absolutely HILARIOUS banter with alyx. Really complemented the whole horror feel as well with this guy wisecracking over the headset every five minutes

A little bit try harded some good banter but still tryharded

>could've gotten kleiner
>got this cunt instead
fuck these faggot writers