Rate top gamesHalf-Life: Alyx
About
Half-Life: Alyx is Valve’s VR return to the Half-Life series. It’s the story of an impossible fight against a vicious alien race known as the Combine, set between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2.
Playing as Alyx Vance, you are humanity’s only chance for survival. The Combine’s control of the planet since the Black Mesa incident has only strengthened as they corral the remaining population in cities. Among them are some of Earth’s greatest scientists: you and your father, Dr. Eli Vance.
As founders of a fledgling resistance, you’ve continued your clandestine scientific activity—performing critical research, and building invaluable tools for the few humans brave enough to defy the Combine.
Every day, you learn more about your enemy, and every day you work toward finding a weakness.
ABOUT GAMEPLAY IN VR:
Valve’s return to the Half-Life universe that started it all was built from the ground up for virtual reality. VR was built to enable the gameplay that sits at the heart of Half-Life.
Immerse yourself in deep environmental interactions, puzzle solving, world exploration, and visceral combat.
Lean to aim around a broken wall and under a Barnacle to make an impossible shot. Rummage through shelves to find a healing syringe and some shotgun shells. Manipulate tools to hack alien interfaces. Toss a bottle through a window to distract an enemy. Rip a Headcrab off your face and throw it at a Combine soldier.
Extra content for Index owners
Customers who have purchased Valve Index hardware by the end of 2019 will have access to unique bonuses starting early next year:
Explore environments from Half-Life: Alyx in your SteamVR Home space
Alternate gun skins to embellish Alyx's arsenal
Special Half-Life: Alyx-themed content for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2
Community-built environments
A set of Source 2 tools for building new environments will ship with the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy. Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game’s virtual reality gameplay tools and components.
System requirements for PC
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Core i5-7500 / Ryzen 5 1600
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: GTX 1060 / RX 580 - 6GB VRAM
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Half-Life: Alyx reviews and comments
While it is far from the first attempt to create a coherent FPS campaign within VR, Alyx manages to nail the core concepts so many other VR games merely grasped at - locomotion, interaction, motion-sickness avoidance, gunplay, and more are all tuned to perfection, so the mechanics of moving around in VR fade into the background and allow you to focus on the game's story and truly exist within its world - and at a 7-10 hour runtime, you're able to spend a great amount of time in that world.
Being a VR game - and intended as a potential jumping-in point to VR games as a medium - it's slower-paced and less intense than you might be used to - but that allows Valve to pace the game remarkably well, giving you a good mixture between puzzling, exploration, and, yes, gun-based combat. While it starts out simply enough, the game knows how to escalate - before long, you'll be thrown into spectacular set pieces with competent, well-armed AI and never quite enough bullets for them all.
A few flaws take away from an otherwise incredible experience- for example: the game continues the series trend of mixing up the gameplay dramatically in its final section, but this game's gimmick doesn't work nearly as well as Half-Life 2's Super Gravity Gun.
And, of course, there's a major barrier to entry for this game, in that you must own both a powerful gaming PC and a VR headset - but the Oculus Quest 2 alongside its native AirLink to connect to PC works perfectly, and is how I played the majority of this game. While this game benefits from running on the Valve Index and its Knuckles controllers as intended, neither are necessary and almost any combination of PC-enabled VR hardware will work. (There's even a supported mod to make this game work with the bHaptic force-feedback haptic vests, if that's your jam.)
But, if you can play this game, I'd argue it is an absolute must; it is one of only a handful of absolute essentials in VR and, I would argue, the finest Half-Life game ever made. I reached the credits feeling a mixture of unbridled joy and melancholy - because I've come away wanting nothing more than to play more of this incredible experience. But I know only too well not to get my hopes up for a sequel... because as Valve keep insisting, Half-Life: Alyx is not Half-Life 3.
They're right, of course. Half-Life Alyx is better than Half-Life 3 ever could have been.
Valve still can make single-player games
One of the best VR games ever where all mechanics work like a charm (ok except ladder climbing)
But the main thing - development of HL story
I went in expecting a decent story with gameplay a la a dumbed down "Boneworks".
I was truly, truly surprised by the characters, Alyx, despite having a different voice actor, talks as much as I'd expect a protagonist too, with enough flavor chatter with the guide/comic relief, Russel, to keep things feeling fresh and alive.
The gameplay, while not "revolutionary", is incredibly polished. Would I like to be able to put my gun down? Yes. Would I like to be able to HIT the enemies with something like the series mainstay, a crowbar. No melee leads to many situations where you round a corner only to realize that you're a foot from a zombie, with no quick way to dispatch of them, except with your shotgun that, at any given time, you only have 8 or so shells for. The gun design is incredible though.
A breakthrough in many a genre. Puzzles that engage, in a similar fashion to Resident Evil. A horror section that blends so effortlessly with VR that I doubt anything will match the incredible experience I had until someone like Capcom takes a stab at an ACTUAL VR focused game. I won't spoil it but it's probably the best fear I've felt in a VR game. Ever.
Leading into my next point, design. Everything is deliberate, everything was clearly labored over. During the "last hours" interview they noted that "in VR players tended to take much longer to clear a room, inspecting each thing manually." and that is DEFINITELY here. Obviously not every section of the game is a visual "showcase". But there's always going to be a place where you'll settle in and realize you are surrounded by assets of which more than half are thought out.
Before I delve into spoilers, I should note. If you are a Half Life fan. PLEASE. PLEASE. Take the time required to play this game. They say to play HL2:EP2. Do it. You will not regret it.
----Spoilers----
Okay so this is just me freaking out.
G-Man speech???? HOLY FUCK!!! I can now quote it word for word. Also, was it a retcon??? sure! Do I care? NO
Epistle 3 baby. Who gives a shit. Life is amazing.