I don’t often pre-order games, but after I saw the initial gameplay footage for Half-Life: Alyx, I immediately pre-purchased it. This was based on my experience with how well my virtual reality library rendered, and there was already something about Half-Life: Alyx that my instincts perceived as a “must-have” game.
Full disclosure, I am an early adopter of VR, and I believe in VR’s place in mainstream gaming. I’m also open to the possibility that the game might just end up looking better than it plays. But I’m hopeful that my instincts are right, and this game sets a new standard for VR gaming.
Meanwhile, the Half-Life intellectual property for me, is just more icing on this already delicious looking virtual reality cake. Now let’s go see if this cake is an actual lie…
So far, so great! The only thing that seems to be holding me back from fully enjoying this game is my own VR hardware and battery life limitations for my particular setup. The game itself is fun, fluid and it looks amazing.
The time and space between loading screens is utilized creatively and efficiently for well paced exploration, puzzles and combat. On the normal difficulty setting, combat is still easy enough. However, the scarcity of ammunition leads to creative approaches to combat and puzzles.
After playing a more roguelike and survival based VR game like The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, the horror, logistics and character states like endurance are much more tame in Half-Life: Alyx. And while this is understood to be the different genre of action/adventure, I couldn’t help thinking of a perfect marriage between the two for a future VR game.
Finally, I could tell that my experience Half-Life: Alyx was lacking because I was not playing the Valve VR controllers. I also found out that my fully wireless VR setup has about a 2.5 hour limit for my headset, controllers, and wireless microphone. But thanks to in part to swapping batteries and plugging in my controllers, I was able to keep playing for a total of almost 4 hours.
I’m very much looking forward to more!
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