HL Alyx campaign mod roundup

[swaaye]

I've been playing through the various Alyx campaign mods over the past few months. The quality of these is great, some easily at Valve's level, and they are good for hours of fun.

From Here To There
You are Dr. Smithers from Black Mesa,
ex-scientist gone rogue after the resonance cascade incident.
Now, under-cover as a custodian, you managed to salvage crucial
hardware to rebuild a secret lab within a decommissioned subway station.

Once colleagues with the infamous Gordon Freeman,
you condemn him for the destruction of Black Mesa and alien invasion.
Now, your only desire is to find refuge in the Fiji islands after receiving a
postcard from your niece proclaiming that the Combine has yet to find its location.
And since local travel has been halted, you must find another way there.
Fortunately, teleportation is your specialty.

What could go wrong?

3-4 hours playtime
Currently in a sort of beta test but completely playable. Cool laboratory area, elaborate scenario, intricate maps and quite a focus on puzzle solving.

Steam Workshop::From Here To There

Steam Workshop: Half-Life: Alyx. Created by Chiuey - OPEN BETA *This campaign requires physical climbing of in-game ladders and objects. Start the campaign with the map "T-Day_Intro" Collect 80 total resin or more for a Bonus

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Cornered
Some weeks after her foray inside the Vault, Alyx Vance awakes one morning on the outskirts of City 17 in an unassuming apartment on the eleventh floor of a dilapidated tower block. With the Combine still on high alert and making every effort to hunt her down, she is attempting to lie low. But the unthinkable has happened: her location has been compromised, and an unfortunate case of oversleeping has left her with no time to escape... Combine soldiers closing in...

1-2 hours playtime
Amazingly detailed, especially the apartment. Intense combat to reach the ground floor.

Steam Workshop::Cornered

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White Corporation
Alyx was stolen from G-man's stasis and hired by a very secret corporation with teleportation technology. Alyx accepted the offer to work for this corporation, since the main goal of both of them is to defeat Combine. The first task for Alyx has arrived. She is sent to eliminate the weather control complex.

1-2 hours playtime
An older mod with a rougher look but wandering the town is great.

Steam Workshop::White Corporation

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White Corporation 2
Alyx Vance was freed from Gman's stasis and hired by a secret corporation with teleportation technology. This corporation is fighting the Combine invasion on Earth. Alyx must complete the next task.

1-2 hours playtime
The author's second outing is more refined in every way. Some intense street combat segments.

Steam Workshop::White Corporation 2

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C17YSCAPE
Taking place in City 17 during events between Half-Life: Alyx and Half-Life 2, you are a citizen who was just now captured by the Combine and and kept prison in a Combine-occupied building. You manage to get yourself free when the fields malfunction and shut down. However, you still need to find a way out of the building and escape City 17. Will you make it?

1-2 hours playtime
You wake up in a cell and have to escape. Some fun puzzling, dialog and intricate areas.

Steam Workshop::C17YSCAPE Update

Steam Workshop: Half-Life: Alyx. NOTE: Before playing, disable the addon "The Detonator" if you have it installed and enabled; it causes the map to break when using the health station at the end. This is a short two map campaign t

steamcommunity.com

Monomyth
Awakened from stasis, you are an unknown protagonist tasked with a single objective inside one of the Combine's most oppressive facilities: Nova Prospekt. Helping you with this task is a radio operator with intentions not quite clear to you except that he wants you to succeed with your objective.

1-2 hours playtime
Escape the prison. Dark, intense and detailed.

Steam Workshop::Monomyth

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LEVITATION
...begins right after Half-Life: Alyx.

Alyx returns to City-17 after meeting the G-MAN, and teams up with Russell once again. During her absence, a mysterious levitating building appeared in the Sector X region of City-17. Two key members of the resistance named Barry and Maya decided to infiltrate and investigate Sector X -- until their signal went quiet... Now, Alyx must save her friends, and possibly the whole resistance.

3-4 hours playtime
One of the most elaborate mods. Multiple locations including several outdoor areas that are really great. Voice actors do a pretty good job. I was not able to beat the final battle though lol.

Steam Workshop::LEVITATION (All 5 Parts)

Steam Workshop: Half-Life: Alyx. [b]LEVITATION[/b] is a community campaign featuring: [list] [*]New story (3-4 hours in length) [*]New voicelines [*]New character animations [*]Eight challenging levels [/list]

steamcommunity.com

 

[GhostofWar]

Gunman contracts is a really good mod aswell. I couldn't see anything about it posted so if anyone hasn't tried that yet it's worth the download.

Steam Workshop::Gunman Contracts - Chapter 1 - The Extraction

steamcommunity.com

 

[swaaye]

Gunman contracts is a really good mod aswell. I couldn't see anything about it posted so if anyone hasn't tried that yet it's worth the download.

Steam Workshop::Gunman Contracts - Chapter 1 - The Extraction

steamcommunity.com

I have tried them but not thoroughly enough to recommend. Need to get back to those.

I started the new Storm Drain mod last night. High quality stuff with some nice open outdoor areas and very intense combat. Though I'm not a huge fan of being dropped into somewhat contrived combat zone traps one after another heh.

 

[swaaye]

Storm Drain

Steam Workshop::Storm Drain

steamcommunity.com

1-2 hours play time

A nice mix of sunshine and underground in this one. Some intense combat with the Combine. A tiny bit of puzzling. I've also never seen so much ammo laying about.

 

[swaaye]

Resident Alyx Biohazard
2-3 hours play time

Steam Workshop::RESIDENT ALYX biohazard

steamcommunity.com

An extremely dark adventure through a couple city areas, a forest with cabin, and a crypt.

 

[GhostofWar]

An extremely dark adventure through a couple city areas, a forest with cabin, and a crypt.

This one looks a bit different to the norm, kinda how the bioshock one did. Will have to get to this one.

 

[GhostofWar]

That looks so freaking fun. The combat really seems designed from the ground up with VR in mind.

Putting my reply in here because it's just going to be about hla and don't want to possibly derail the psvr2 thread.

You can tell when playing, everything in the game has been thought about from a vr perspective. It's still the best VR game, re8 vr while very good still suffers from being a normal game first. The reverse is true though, playing alyx like a normal game (2d with ms/kb) is pretty dull because the combat is designed around well how fast a person can move etc.

It's all the little things that add up. Don't have room to carry everything, grab a bucket and carry it all in the bucket. Headcrabs being annoying, grab it out of mid air and put it in a barrel or grab a chair or chunk of wood and smack it out of mid air. Pick up a traffic cone and put it on your head, then when a barnicle grabs you it just takes the cone etc. It gets even cooler later on, without spoiling anything there's parts with gas in the game that make you cough, if you cover your mouth with your hand it stops you coughing. So many little details that make it all feel grounded.

I don't want to spoil anything incase you get a chance to play it one day, so i'll use a mod video to demonstrate the basic weapon handling/combat.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, interactivity is the thing that REALLY sets VR apart. Without that, VR can still be cool, but it's just playing normal games in VR and not actually really leveraging the cool things that make VR incredibly compelling.

For example, an old video from before HL: Alyx released, but shows just how much interactivity separates VR from normal games.

IMO, any VR game that doesn't feature interactivity with anything you might think to interact with is completely missing the point of VR. Of course, HL: Alyx makes extremely good use of it and why it's totally legit to call it the best VR game ever made even if it isn't perfect. Now if only it was actually possible for me to play it without having to have a vomit bucket next to me and suffer for hours on end if I try to play it.

Regards,
SB

 

[Karamazov]

immersion is also important, all "cockpit" games are massively better in VR than on a screen, even if you can't interact with every button/dial/gauge in the cockpit.

 

[ZebMacahan]

Putting my reply in here because it's just going to be about hla and don't want to possibly derail the psvr2 thread.

You can tell when playing, everything in the game has been thought about from a vr perspective. It's still the best VR game, re8 vr while very good still suffers from being a normal game first. The reverse is true though, playing alyx like a normal game (2d with ms/kb) is pretty dull because the combat is designed around well how fast a person can move etc.

It's all the little things that add up. Don't have room to carry everything, grab a bucket and carry it all in the bucket. Headcrabs being annoying, grab it out of mid air and put it in a barrel or grab a chair or chunk of wood and smack it out of mid air. Pick up a traffic cone and put it on your head, then when a barnicle grabs you it just takes the cone etc. It gets even cooler later on, without spoiling anything there's parts with gas in the game that make you cough, if you cover your mouth with your hand it stops you coughing. So many little details that make it all feel grounded.

I don't want to spoil anything incase you get a chance to play it one day, so i'll use a mod video to demonstrate the basic weapon handling/combat.

I do hope I get to play it one day. I havent bought a new computer in a long time, so maybe when I come around to doing that I´ll invest a little more.
Yeah, interactivite and immersion. I suspect the interactivity enhances the immersion?

I think a well done LA Noire VR only could be really awesome. No need for an open world, just do the crime scenes and police station and make sure the graphic fidelity is high. VR seem to be the perfect match for picking up evidence and investigating it. The firefights would fit the game because they would probably be very grounded.
Really high quality character models and facial animation with moody lighting would really suit the interogation sequences.

 

[GhostofWar]

I do hope I get to play it one day. I havent bought a new computer in a long time, so maybe when I come around to doing that I´ll invest a little more.
Yeah, interactivite and immersion. I suspect the interactivity enhances the immersion?

I think a well done LA Noire VR only could be really awesome. No need for an open world, just do the crime scenes and police station and make sure the graphic fidelity is high. VR seem to be the perfect match for picking up evidence and investigating it. The firefights would fit the game because they would probably be very grounded.
Really high quality character models and facial animation with moody lighting would really suit the interogation sequences.

Maybe when this deckard standalone kit turns up they might be able to do a slightly cut down alyx for it, I'm expecting an alyx sequel to ship with the deckard aswell. That said you don't even need a very powerful pc to get alyx running anyway by todays standards.

Valve even went the extra step and upgraded their animation system for hla because in VR skating npc's had an impact on immersion so they fixed it. This video goes through alot of the crazy details they added for immersion, just bail at the 7:50 mark after the bit about the animations when he goes into some minor spoilers, he gives a warning so you wont accidently stumble into them.

 

[Davros]

In case anyone didnt know Half Life 2 VR mod is free on steam

 

[ZebMacahan]

Maybe when this deckard standalone kit turns up they might be able to do a slightly cut down alyx for it, I'm expecting an alyx sequel to ship with the deckard aswell. That said you don't even need a very powerful pc to get alyx running anyway by todays standards.

Valve even went the extra step and upgraded their animation system for hla because in VR skating npc's had an impact on immersion so they fixed it. This video goes through alot of the crazy details they added for immersion, just bail at the 7:50 mark after the bit about the animations when he goes into some minor spoilers, he gives a warning so you wont accidently stumble into them.

That looks so awesome. I really love the art direction of Half Life2 and Alyx.

 

[swaaye]

The community is completely amazing.

Steam Workshop::Re-Education

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Steam Workshop::Buckshot Bugs

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Steam Workshop::Half-Life: Zheptics

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[pjbliverpool]

I do hope I get to play it one day. I havent bought a new computer in a long time, so maybe when I come around to doing that I´ll invest a little more.
Yeah, interactivite and immersion. I suspect the interactivity enhances the immersion?

I think a well done LA Noire VR only could be really awesome. No need for an open world, just do the crime scenes and police station and make sure the graphic fidelity is high. VR seem to be the perfect match for picking up evidence and investigating it. The firefights would fit the game because they would probably be very grounded.
Really high quality character models and facial animation with moody lighting would really suit the interogation sequences.

I got it recently after years of listening the the hype and gave it it's first proper run tonight. After hearing so often than Alyx is the pinnacle of VR and unmatched by any game before or since it would have been very easy to feel let down by the actual experience. Amazingly though, I have come away more impressed than I expected to be. This game is simply spectacular from a VR perspective. From an actual game perspective, so far at least, it's just HL2. So it's good, but by todays standards I wouldn't say it's stand out (so far - I'm pretty early on still). But graphically, and in terms of interactivity, and immersion, this game is on a totally different level.

 

[swaaye]

I got it recently after years of listening the the hype and gave it it's first proper run tonight. After hearing so often than Alyx is the pinnacle of VR and unmatched by any game before or since it would have been very easy to feel let down by the actual experience. Amazingly though, I have come away more impressed than I expected to be. This game is simply spectacular from a VR perspective. From an actual game perspective, so far at least, it's just HL2. So it's good, but by todays standards I wouldn't say it's stand out (so far - I'm pretty early on still). But graphically, and in terms of interactivity, and immersion, this game is on a totally different level.

I highly recommend Into The Radius too since I think you are a fan of Stalker. You get two games with it actually. v1.0 was open world and then they basically made a new world with 2.0 that's large split zones. It was too hardcore on the system requirements. 1.0 is still in the betas dropdown.