Valve announces VR-Only Half Life: Alyx. [2020]

[manux]

Alyx is freaking nuts. I can't yet review the game but from what I experienced is what I expected from vr years ago and never got before. Future is bright and I'm happy.

On the negative side it's a bit wonky(physics) and as you can peek everything 1mm away some textures are... well, but some things are so pretty, dare I say almost real. Game mechanics are solid enough. I was a bit worried on how the moving around works but roomscale+teleport+blinking is perfect combination of usability and ease. I'm getting 0 motion sickness so far. I like teleporting bigger distances and roomscale small distances. blinking is nice for rapid turning etc, less annoying than getting tangled with the damn cable all the time.

I also like that it's not holding your hand too much. You are dropped into the game and you will stumble around which is more fun than having an blinking arrow pointing go here, go there.

oh, and I'm playing with quest connected to pc.

 

[willardjuice]

Yeah simply put there's nothing else like this experience. It's awesome!!!111

 

[swaaye]

I suppose I should probably check this game out. I wonder how well it will work with the Reverb.

 

[orangpelupa]

Rrrrrr wanna play. But stuck waiting for other party to finish setup their video conference thingy and do a mock conference...

 

[xexuxjy]

I had a go late last night and got to the point where you get the gloves. Can only echo the comments above, it is simply stunning. No other word for it. My VR legs are really not too good though and had to stop after 1/2 hour. More today. VR sickness be damned

 

[manux]

I suppose I should probably check this game out. I wonder how well it will work with the Reverb.

Apparently it works other than you can only have open hand/closed hand(grip). No controlling individual fingers. Should not affect gameplay.

 

[manux]

I had a go late last night and got to the point where you get the gloves. Can only echo the comments above, it is simply stunning. No other word for it. My VR legs are really not too good though and had to stop after 1/2 hour. More today. VR sickness be damned

The gloves look so good, so very good.

It's full of insignificant details. In the first location, who took the pens and drew to windows? The globe and turning it. Such a good game. It's nuts how much they have put effort into things some people don't even try out/rush through. I'm going to enjoy this game and play it slowly.

 

[orangpelupa]

the game "low contrast" art style really hurting my eyes. i cant stop squinting. its also makes me nauseous

the atmosphere is REALLY top notch.

The positional audio is too sublime. Made worst by Oculus refusing to clone the audio to TV and Quest. So i cant "feel" the rumbles thru subwoofer.

 

[swaaye]

I played a bit but I had a bad headache last night so had to quit after only about 20 mins. It works great with the Reverb. There is a lot to interact with indeed but that's certainly not unprecedented in VR games. But it will be a blast to run around in a VR Half Life.

Visuals are obviously better than say HL2, but on Ultra this game is no problem for my 1080 Ti even at the Reverb's 4320x2160. I think the textures could be higher resolution. The game warned me about low video memory when I started but I saw no performance issues so I don't know what that was.

If you guys haven't tried the Westworld game that's worth a look too btw. Very story oriented and there's a lot to look at and play with. Nice sci-fi/western/horror things happening there of course.

 

[manux]

I played a bit but I had a bad headache last night so had to quit after only about 20 mins. It works great with the Reverb. There is a lot to interact with indeed but that's certainly not unprecedented in VR games. But it will be a blast to run around in a VR Half Life.

Visuals are obviously better than say HL2, but on Ultra this game is no problem for my 1080 Ti even at the Reverb's 4320x2160. I think the textures could be higher resolution. The game warned me about low video memory when I started but I saw no performance issues so I don't know what that was.

If you guys haven't tried the Westworld game that's worth a look too btw. Very story oriented and there's a lot to look at and play with. Nice sci-fi/western/horror things happening there of course.

For me it complained about too small swap file. Which was kind of odd, but neverthless I moved my swap file to faster drive and made it bigger. I suppose 16GB main ram is not enough for some later levels or something like that. I also have 1080ti and so far maxed out settings have worked great. No stutter/dipped framerates/...

 

[eastmen]

I had a go late last night and got to the point where you get the gloves. Can only echo the comments above, it is simply stunning. No other word for it. My VR legs are really not too good though and had to stop after 1/2 hour. More today. VR sickness be damned

Game is amazing , i find the checkpoints to be a good break point for me. Sometimes i go two check points. Also there are alot of options for what comfort, i like the fast teleport so far the best.

 

[Deleted member 2197]

 

[pjbliverpool]

This wasn't really on my radar until I read the impressions above. Guess I'll be checking it out!

 

[Davros]

My VR legs

can you move using wsad ?

 

[swaaye]

can you move using wsad ?

You wouldn't be able to do much with a keyboard. You need to be able to use your hands to interact with game objects.

 

[Davros]

so you have to teleport eveywhere?
Ive only seen a little bit of the above video but he seems to be stationary when interacting with things

 

[eastmen]

so you have to teleport eveywhere?
Ive only seen a little bit of the above video but he seems to be stationary when interacting with things

There is continuous which is just you moving around in a normal environment. Then there is teleport which you click some where and you move there. The new one is shift in which its like teleport but instead of fading out to black for an instant your pushed to your location

I use a mix of continuous and shift to maximize my space

 

[manux]

so you have to teleport eveywhere?
Ive only seen a little bit of the above video but he seems to be stationary when interacting with things

It's linear fairly decent sized levels. In theory you could roomscale walk everywhere but that is a ... a lot of work ... Teleporting bigger distances and then doing roomscale for small distances/adjustments is probably what most people would do.

There are places in that game that if I had no teleport and I had to run away from ... I would probably hit the wall running and there would be hurt in head and a hole in wall.

 

[orangpelupa]

I played a bit but I had a bad headache last night so had to quit after only about 20 mins. It works great with the Reverb. There is a lot to interact with indeed but that's certainly not unprecedented in VR games. But it will be a blast to run around in a VR Half Life.

Visuals are obviously better than say HL2, but on Ultra this game is no problem for my 1080 Ti even at the Reverb's 4320x2160. I think the textures could be higher resolution. The game warned me about low video memory when I started but I saw no performance issues so I don't know what that was.

If you guys haven't tried the Westworld game that's worth a look too btw. Very story oriented and there's a lot to look at and play with. Nice sci-fi/western/horror things happening there of course.

OMG i totally forgot that i've bought westworld vr. gotta try it later

 

[manux]

Alyx has some special logic on resolution side. It scales resolution down based on hw and also based on graphics settings. It might be better to have lower graphics setting to allow for higher resolution. It's worth to experiment with lower graphics settings instead of cranking it to eleven. The lower setting could actually lead to high res and sharper graphics.