2,329 people found this review helpful
373 people found this review funny
4
3
2
5
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 49.5 hrs on record (4.8 hrs at review time)
Posted: 24 Mar, 2020 @ 2:10am
Updated: 24 Mar, 2020 @ 1:55pm

10/10 would wait 15 years again.


EDIT: Well, this is getting more eyes than expected and that sounded bad.

In a nut-shell, I really love this game, here's my experience, spoiler free so far:

The first 10 seconds were breathtaking, literally. I've been playing VR since 2018, a lot of games, and while the first moments of it were amazing, the feeling of presence went down a bit as I went along, playing more games. But this, this is something else. The attention to detail is amazing.

Performance is fantastic, I don't really know how they manage to pull that quality and achieve steady 90 fps. That's a technical achievement for sure.

As for world interaction / controls, they are the best they can possible be. I've played Boneworks and having physics everywhere is kinda interesting, but just as a concept. Going up a ladder in Boneworks or climbing was awful. The rest was good.
HL:A merges the best of two worlds. There's physical interactions for moments where they are needed, but they won't get in your way at all. And I really love that, because is just a frigging game, not a simulation. For example, going up a ladder here, is simple. Opening a door too. It won't get smashed in your face, only features necessary collisions. Also I really love how they went all in and gave physic properties to some enemies. That increases immersion by tons!

The hacking puzzles, I had my expectations low, but oh boy, I was really wrong. They are quite fun to do, they are challenging but not tiresome. They provide random patterns so the challenge always stay fresh.

The sounds are amazing, I had to take my helmet because I thought a rat came into my room. Then I thought it was a faulty hard disk. Nope. It was the game. I believe the sound experiments they did with CS:GO carried over here and it really shows. Character voices were a bit loud tho.

The Half-Life winks are amazing. And for someone who played them all, spent 10 years making a HL mod and basically kickstart a game dev career, it was tear inducing.

My only complain is the ammo system. While I love the Tresspasser reference ("Two mags left!") I really wish I could store back some pistol ammo. I thought that was going to bit a bit more arcade-y, but it's okay, it really helps to build up some tension.

I was going to try the game for a bit, ended up playing like 5 hours straight. Couldn't really put it down.

The upgrade system is a nice addition. Also for the different enemy types.

It's an evolved Half-Life in every way, and is what I expected and much much more.

Now, I will get a bit sad for other companies, because they set the bar incredibly high.

AAA VR games will be like this, or better, and can't say how really happy that makes me.

Go and play it right now and be part of history as this is the VR break trough everybody expected.
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109 Comments
Box 8 Aug, 2024 @ 12:01pm 
Trish and tjdnorco there is a unaffiliated mod for Alyx thats lets you play non-vr I played the full game with it and it was great, the mod is Half-Life: Alyx NoVR !!!:steamhappy:
Trish_VR 9 Jan, 2021 @ 10:41pm 
tjdnorco, sorry, there's no way to play the game without VR. You can hack the game and play it like that, but it really lowers the experience.
tjdnorco 7 Dec, 2020 @ 11:00am 
I can't use VR for medical reasons how about a non VR version?
Fillywonk 22 Apr, 2020 @ 3:51pm 
Just out of curiousity, what are your specs?
waterdude551 18 Apr, 2020 @ 11:15am 
every game is an advanced point and click game.
ᴅe n_n ıs 9 Apr, 2020 @ 4:18am 
Looks like an advanced point and click game.
profile 1 Apr, 2020 @ 9:26am 
It's not a review, it's a whole essay lmao
JustCharnock 31 Mar, 2020 @ 1:45pm 
:steamhappy:
Stellifera 31 Mar, 2020 @ 10:42am 
I love the Half-Life series but VR is not my thing.
Bisho 31 Mar, 2020 @ 5:51am 
Played in a mates account man as my first cr experience it was wild so much fun