Half-Life: Alyx (VR)

Yeah it took me a while to get used to right stick for movement, felt alright after about 30 mins though.

 

Oh bloody hell it took me this long to notice but each hand has 1 storage slot, not just my right hand

 

I am still downloading it......can't wait.

 

Hahaha same here, but you're not gonna be gripping much with your gun hand anyway so I guess it'd never come to mind. Which controllers are you using (I think you're Vive wands), and how is it? Index took some getting used to because you have to click the trigger on your grabbing hand to hold some heavier objects, but the muscle memory is built up now so it's second nature.

In regards to the game... my god, just finished the hotel section and a bit of combat with the combine outside - amazing. I was a bit worried it'd be slow, but it soon picks up the pace after it gives you time to learn the mechanics. Wouldn't expect anything else from Valve tbh.

Also! Best settings for Index with a 2080Ti seem to be 90Hz + Ultra fidelity, runs with barely any reprojection and looks SO GOOD. Really amazed they've squeezed such good graphics and performance into a VR title.

 

Vive wands, works pretty well to be honest, honestly still don;t see the point of index controllers as yet.

I'm running a 1080 and with no framecounter really in game no real idea what I should run, just plopped it at 100% resolution high settings, seems to mostly run at 45fps which i'm really used to for VR by now.

 

Is it just me or is chapter 5 really _long_?

I'm already out of the

Spoiler

hotel

and I'm still in chapter 5 according to my save game. Is this a bug, or am I good? I just got the

Spoiler

smg

 

Have any of you gotten motion sick yet?

 

Yeah it's pretty long, there's a couple of combine sections then it ends. You good.

Not at all, but no VR stuff makes me sick so that's probably not saying much. Girlfriend is gonna give it a go tomorrow, so we'll see how she fares!


...made a stupid video about the dumb rat at 5am...

 

Damn this game does horror pretty good when it wants to.

 

I'm looking forward to the Source Port by the modding community!

 

Can't wait for Half-Game lmao

 

Finished it, I'll c/p my steam review here

 

I don't think they see the point. The environments really aren't designed for mouse/keyboard. It would be like noclipping through a map. Even if someone mods it so the combat works, the amount of enemies will make it laughably easy for traditional controls. There is also at least one whole chapter dedicated to a way of controlling the character (cannot tell more without spoiling) that you can't replicate easily with mouse/keyboard. Also: all of the puzzles (most of which are on the critical path).

I get the disappointment of people who want a slice of Half-Life after so many years, but I really think a non-VR version would be a horribly frustrating and possibly underwhelming experience. In the short term, a mod that allows you to view the maps is probably the closest modders will get. Anything replicating the VR actions on a traditional keyboard will need a lot of tweaking and custom code, imho.

 

I'm sure there will be an overhaul mod, that's what I'm waiting for at least.

 

Just finished the game, took about 9hrs 30 in total, bit disappointed I didn't get the full 16hrs other people say, but I'll definitely play it on hard too. Full playlist here if anyone wants to check out any parts of the game, you may be able to see why it won't "work" outside of VR.
It'll technically work, but you're not going to be playing the same game, it would be crap with mouse and keyboard. Play it in VR, don't ruin your experience with this game by playing a mod.
You gonna go play Half-Life 2 with a Guitar Hero controller because you don't have a mouse and keyboard?

 

I clocked in at 14 hours. Difficulty levels seem to effect it as I saw someone saying they played on east to get the story done asap and it took them 9 hours.

Performance in the end game really started to tank for me, had to drop settings to low and render resolution to 80%.

 

Why does 1080 having such a difficult time playing this?

 

No idea, it was fine for pretty much the entire game before that. This scene and the next one has a lot of enemies, explosions and particles everywhere

Index headset though so that's pretty high Res. I run it at 90hz mode.

 

I dunno, I was on normal. Gonna start a hard playthrough and

Spoiler

try to take the gnome through with me.

Btw when you say this game does horror well, did you mean

Spoiler

Jeff? Man that whole section was so procreating good, I was expecting a boring kite the monster bit, but it constantly surprised me. When you search around for Resin and there's little traps like a bottle rolling out of the cupboard you just opened, omg. When he gets in the lift with you, OMG.

All the little touches are insane and make it an absolute joy to play from start to finish.

One thing I noticed, picking up objects is FUN, they did it in a way that makes you feel really cool even when you're just whipping an empty can of beans over to yourself.
Throughout the whole thing I never felt that I was getting burnt out either, it constantly switches between puzzle/survival horror/action/exploration that you don't have time to get bored of one mechanic or section. Outstanding.

Can't wait to see what the modding community can do - outside of ruining the game with a M+KB mod.