Half-Life: Alyx review — VR's defining shooter is deeper than you think

Source: Nick Sutrich/Windows Central

13 years is a long time to await for a sequel. But information technology turns out that thirteen isn't an unlucky number after all, equally Half-Life: Alyx has delivered exactly what many had hoped for. Just as we'd expect from Valve, Half-Life: Alyx breaks new footing in story-telling, atmosphere building, and setpiece design. It'south the true hallmark of the company in every way.

If you're reading this, it's probable you already have the gaming PC capable of running a game similar Half-Life: Alyx. If that'south the case and y'all haven't had the opportunity or desire to pick upward a VR headset before, do it now. One-half-Life: Alyx is worth the price of entry alone. With the diminishing cost of entry for VR headsets, it makes more sense now than e'er to own one, and I call up you lot'll sympathize why past the cease of this review.

Unravel the tale of The Citadel

Half-Life: Alyx

Bottom line: A groundbreaking experience that makes the world of Half-Life more tangible than you lot could imagine.

Pros:

• Astounding visuals that bring the earth live dissimilar anything earlier information technology
• Groundbreaking audio design
• A thoroughly creepy and tense xv-hour adventure
• Story-telling that brings VR'due south immersive nature to the forefront
• Thoughtful mechanics and puzzles that play to VR'southward strengths
• Environmental interaction goes in a higher place and beyond what's nevertheless been seen in VR

Cons:

• Extremely linear story
• No melee combat options

Half-Life: Alyx the realism of the world

Source: Nick Sutrich/Windows Central

13 years is an eternity in game pattern, particularly when you consider the technical gulf achieved in that timespan. Every bit ever, with a Valve game, Half-Life: Alyx has been crafted because it can attain something valuable with a new blazon of technology that wasn't available the last time Valve put something incredible together: VR. Just equally the Half-Life series helped pioneer scripted events, facial animations, real-time physics, and heed-bending narrative, One-half-Life: Alyx crafts a world in a truly tangible style that simply cannot exist washed exterior of VR.

Now that may sound similar it's waxing poetic, but it'south really not. No matter how good graphics become, no matter how realistic animations are or how disarming surround interaction is, playing a game on a flat display can only experience then real. There'southward no mode to understand this concept until you've played a game like Half-Life: Alyx in VR. While previous Half-Life games utilized groundbreaking concepts or engineering science to create a convincing world in the past, none of them have felt every bit existent as the 1 in Half-Life: Alyx.

While previous Half-Life games utilized groundbreaking concepts or engineering science to create a disarming world in the past, none of them have felt as real as the one in Half-Life: Alyx

Take the enemies, for case. When you play older Half-Life games, headcrabs and zombies are simply cool enemies. Barnacles are just those icky-looking things hanging a cord-like tendril downward from the ceiling. Vortigaunts and Combine are simply cool sounding creatures or enemies that add a piffling alien flare to the science-fiction earth of Half-Life. But not in Alyx.

The first time you lay optics on a zombie, slowly making its mode toward you lot with a headcrab precariously perched on its skull, in the dimly lit corridor of a ravaged subway system, yous'll truly understand the terror that exists in this world. When I stepped downwards into that subway car and opened the doors to notice seven zombies mindlessly bashing their heads against the tiled walls, I was befuddled.

Source: Windows Key

Even the deed of healing is disgustingly glorious. Watching a behemothic grub get squashed inside of a tube and and then watching its secretions and juices flow into the needles that poke into Alyx'due south hands is mesmerizing and horrifying.

I had no idea Half-Life was this scary. And this comes from someone who experienced the original One-half-Life in the 8th grade in the late 90s. And I'thou someone who jumped at the opportunity to upgrade their PC multiple times, just to squeeze every ounce of operation and item out of Half-Life 2 just half a decade later. I love Half-Life, and I idea I understood the lore and universe, but this was something entirely different. This was real.

Half-Life: Alyx intelligently designed, thoughtfully crafted

Source: Nick Sutrich/Windows Central

Making the earth of One-half-Life feel more tangible starts with how you view the world around y'all. Traditional games that you play on a Television or monitor oft have a heads up brandish, or HUD, which displays relevant information like wellness, ammo, a map, etc. These sorts of things don't piece of work well in VR considering you lot don't have a fixed space to display them. Valve got effectually this in ii ways: placing information on relevant items, and queuing up audible dialog when it makes sense.

Take Alyx'south gloves, for example. They're gravity gloves, which fits perfectly in with the Half-Life universe, as Gordon Freeman used a gravity gun throughout his escapades in all three Half-Life 2 games. You can use these gloves to pull distant objects right to your hands, making it less awkward to hunt for important objects like ammo and health. When you do collect ammo and health, you'll store it in 1 of two places: ammo goes in your haversack by dropping it over your left shoulder, and each glove has a pouch that will agree a healing item.

Physically separating these actions helps reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed in the game. You'll never reach over your shoulder for anything other than ammo, and you lot'll only ever pull healing items out of your glove pouch. Guns and tools are selected by clicking in the right stick and physically moving your right hand to your selection. It'south vivid, and, almost importantly, it'south less confusing than many other VR shooters I've played.

Inventory management is brilliant, and, most importantly, information technology's less disruptive than many other VR shooters I've played.

Similarly, health and ammo are presented in an obvious way without being in your face. Health and ammo stores are listed clearly on the back of the left manus, while the handgun has a visible number of shells left in the clip, displayed in LED right on the gun. Audible triggers alarm you to when you're getting low on ammo, which helps immensely when you're overwhelmed with enemies, and visual data would just be besides much to bargain with.

These audible triggers are immensely helpful and are presented in a way that sounds like you're talking to yourself. When you reach for shotgun shells, Alyx will say something similar "darn it, that'southward the last trounce," eliminating the need for clunky inventory management schemes and helping the player understand when they're in a compression. Y'all probably won't hear this too often, equally ammo and wellness packs are littered about the environment; you'll simply demand to be diligent and explore along the style.

Even puzzles take profound reward of the physicality and spatial awareness that only VR can bring. You'll be lining up lasers to intersect at important junctions, using Alyx's handheld scanner to manipulate electrical current through walls to open doors, and even operating heavy mechanical machinery by pulling handles, rotating gears, and using precise motion controls to line up parts and openings perfectly. These are all things that simply wouldn't experience the aforementioned without physically touching them in a virtual earth.

Source: Windows Primal

An 60 minutes or two into the game, yous'll come beyond a flashlight that can be equipped onto your left glove. The flashlight is automatically activated when in dark areas and presents another amazing way to utilize additional tools without calculation confusion. The flashlight is but there; point your left paw where you need to see, and it'll cast a spotlight in that direction. It's not disruptive, and information technology's non tedious. It'due south brilliant.

As you would expect in a showtime-person shooter from Valve, physics play a vital function in how objects can be interacted with and how they collaborate with the residual of the world. Simply nosotros've been in that location and done that in video games, correct? Many of the interactions yous'll find are intuitive and clever. Youll encounter things like wooden boxes that yous smash on the floor to open up, often revealing ammo clips or health syringes. Headcrabs can exist caught in metal buckets when you're low on ammo, and you tin can even wear hats and other accessories or draw with makers if it strikes your fancy.

One-half-Life: Alyx I had no thought VR could look and sound this good

Source: Nick Sutrich/Windows Central

Half-Life: Alyx is powered past the Source 2 engine, Valve'due south second-generation engine that debuted, to everyone'due south surprise, with DOTA 2 in 2022. Despite being 5-years-onetime, the Source 2 engine shines in VR; a medium that often doesn't represent the best in technical visuals because of its demanding performance. While most VR titles look similar they would run just fine on a Nintendo Switch, Half-Life: Alyx pushes the technical limits of what tin can currently exist achieved in VR and looks like what you would await from a high-end PC game.

Valve's artistry is second to none

These visuals are best appreciated when using a headset like an Oculus Rift Southward, HTC Vive Cosmos, or Valve Index, which feature super crisp display panels that help bring out the detail in the worlds. On top of that, Valve's artistry is 2nd to none, and information technology shows in every room you enter. Often, I establish myself reminiscing about Metroid Prime number, whose rooms were all handcrafted, and even a mundane hallway featured ornate details that would otherwise only non exist in other games. Alyx very much feels the aforementioned way, with conflicting plants growing out of places that simply wait natural and normal, giving the game an organic feel, as if it were existent rather than created with some digital tools.

The world is also littered with lore that might otherwise be lost on more than carefree developers. What appears to be Russian propaganda posters littered around the city requite hints at where Metropolis 17 might actually be located on Earth, or what events might have transpired before the conflicting invasion and Combine occupation occurred. In that location don't appear to be Elder Scrolls-esque novels roaming nearly that you lot can read, simply there'due south plenty here for someone who loves exploring to delve a bit deeper into.

Sound, likewise, is being pioneered in Alyx in a way that most VR titles don't consider. The Source ii engine can articulate sounds based on physical interactions in the globe. Clothing rustling over your role player's body, for instance, is realistically modeled and aural in a subtle fashion that feels real, not pre-recorded. Environmental audio is eery and tense, with sounds that are calculated based on positions in 3D space. Some of these technologies are new, some of them aren't, merely all of them are used in a smart style to create a sense of realism and horror that nosotros've never earlier seen in One-half-Life or VR, for that matter.

Half-Life: Alyx getting around without getting put into the ground

Source: Valve

Move is one of the about challenging parts of VR. Information technology's why information technology took then long to get a "full" game in the VR space rather than a agglomeration of tech demos and shooting galleries. Valve, like most developers, has settled on two types of movement options: teleport, or free movement. Teleporting is the default pick in One-half-Life: Alyx and the one that feels most natural. You press the left stick in any direction, and a holographic pair of boots announced at the end of a trajectory line, letting you lot know where you're about to move to.

Polish locomotion works more like a traditional twin-stick shooter, where the left joystick moves your character around the world smoothly, while the correct joystick is used for turning. Regardless of the movement method you choose, the right joystick is used to pin your position left or correct, with the selection to "snap turn" in approximately 15-degree increments, or to merely polish plough as you would when playing any other offset-person shooter on a controller. Smooth turning was added via a post-launch patch, which was a pleasant addition for folks who adopt it.

While I usually prefer shine locomotion in VR games, the movement in One-half-Life: Alyx felt too wearisome to make this useful, which is why I prefer teleporting. When trudging through the thoroughly creepy quarantine zone and dodging headcrabs by the dozens, teleporting is just and so much faster and lets you move more freely up and down elevations, while polish locomotion requires a bit of finger gymnastics and additional patience.

Source: Windows Primal

One of the few irritations I had with gainsay was the sheer lack of melee options. In other Half-Life games, Gordon Freeman wields a crowbar that's incredibly satisfying to utilise. Other VR shooters, like The Walking Expressionless: Saints & Sinners utilize an impressive set up of physics to summate weapon weight and other statistics in VR. While Valve plainly experimented with melee weapons at the get-go of HLA's development, the idea was tossed out because Valve says that players kept thinking they were Gordon Freeman.

Non having a basic melee weapon of some sort is a huge missed opportunity

Regardless of the reasons for the decision, I feel similar not having a bones melee weapon of some sort is a huge missed opportunity. Yes, it definitely makes encounters with enemies more frightening and chaotic, and maybe that'southward what Valve was going for. Nevertheless, it would have been fun if the gravity gloves could somehow knock enemies over or otherwise dispense them. Even pistol-whipping enemies would have been fine. Annihilation to push them away while you reload would accept been immensely helpful and welcomed.

Throughout the game, you'll discover resin cartridges that can exist used at upgrade stations to add additional abilities to your weapons. Given that at that place are only three guns in the game, these upgrades are vital to keeping things feeling fresh, especially in the face of increasing difficulty every bit the game progresses. While zombies take one-half a clip to kill, they're stupid enemies and merely pose a threat when they're shut. The Combine are another story entirely, and you'll need all the smarts and weaponry you lot tin muster to acceleration them.

Half-Life: Alyx the masterpiece we wanted

Source: Nick Sutrich/Windows Fundamental

At around 15 hours, this linear story is an incredible addition to the Half-Life universe and 1 that proves its worth in every moment. It's an important entry into the story, especially to build Alyx's character and her involvement in the events surrounding the Citadel. Information technology too opens upward the gates for more games like it from Valve, although no one can seemingly rely on Half-Life iii happening at any time in history, much less in VR. Half-Life: Alyx'south biggest set back is the fact that the story is supremely linear and would accept little replayability if it weren't for the excellent mechanics and a disarming earth that makes you want to explore every nook and cranny.

Valve said its other VR projects heavily relied on HLA'south success, both critically and commercially, and the initial launch calendar week seems to bode well for that forepart. One-half-Life: Alyx has proven that we can not just get a new flagship game from Valve only that VR gaming can provide the compelling mechanics that many gamers said they would wait for before picking up a VR headset. It'south a must-play experience and a bully way to start your VR journey, fifty-fifty if it might spoil y'all with its unbelievably polished mechanics, story, gameplay, and visuals. This is the top-tier of VR right at present and the best unmarried-histrion VR shooter e'er made.

One-half-Life is dorsum!

Half-Life: Alyx

The story we never knew

Half-Life: Alyx is a bold improvement for Valve's previously-stagnant AAA franchise, described past Valve itself every bit its "flagship VR game."

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/half-life-alyx-review

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