Half-Life – Page 7 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

March 30, 2020

Community Download: Is Half-Life: Alyx The Best VR Game Ever Made?

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published (usually) every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate. For today’s Community Download, we want to know if you think Half-Life: Alyx is the best VR game ever made. Why or why not?

Half-Life: Alyx [read our review] is out and it’s real. After many, many long years Valve has finally released a new Half-Life game. Even though you don’t play as Gordon Freeman and instead take on the role of Alyx Vance, it’s as crucial to the franchise’s overall storyline as any other entry and is packed full of amazing moments.

Valve is one of the companies most involved with the early days of consumer VR that we find ourselves in right now. From influencing Palmer Luckey on his journey to co-found Oculus, establishing their own tracking system in the SteamVR lighthouse base stations, co-producing the HTC Vive, releasing The Lab, creating the Valve Index, and now launching Half-Life: Alyx, Valve is at the forefront of modern VR.

Just like the original Half-Life ushered in a new era of narrative first-person shooters and Half-Life 2 took PC gaming to new heights, Half-Life: Alyx is poised to have the same effect on the VR market. It may not be the first 5/5 review score we’ve given at UploadVR (that designation belongs to Asgard’s Wrath, followed by other games like Pistol Whip) but it may very well be the most important one.

From the looks of it, judging from the reception so far, Half-Life: Alyx is definitely a massive hit — even according to Steam user reviews. So, the question is: Do you think Half-Life: Alyx is the absolute best VR game ever made, to date? Why or why not?

Let us know down in the comments below!

For more on Half-Life: Alyx, check out our roundup of coverage right here.

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March 30, 2020

Half-Life: Alyx Mod Recreates Half-Life 2 Environments And Assets In VR

A new mod for Half-Life: Alyx recreates environments and assets from Half-Life 2 in VR, using the Source 2 engine.

Created by Vect0r, the mod is just a showcase for now and won’t be released to the public. It features the outdoor area of City 17 which Gordon Freeman runs through in the beginning of the game and shows some other Half-Life: 2 assets. So while it’s still exciting, the mod is just a demonstration and doesn’t represent a fully playable VR version of Half-Life 2 just yet.

As you can see, despite running on the new Source 2 engine that debuted in Half-Life: Alyx, the ported assets and visuals in the mod don’t look nearly as polished, for very understandable reasons. “I took the original map file and converted to Source 2 format and added to Half-Life: Alyx,” said Vect0r, in the video description. “In process, I converted assets of Half-Life 2 to Half-Life: Alyx as well. Things I was able to do was very limited since Valve didn’t share SDK with the public yet. [sic]”

Obviously substantial work would be needed, particularly with lighting and other effects, to properly port the Half-Life 2 assets into Source 2, for VR or otherwise. That being said, the mod does allow the player to use the reload and eject mechanic from Alyx, which is exciting.

While it’s just a demonstration for now, it bodes well for the future. It would be amazing to play through Half-Life 2 in VR using Alyx’s gunplay and mechanics. A group of developers is working on porting the original game to VR more fully, though.

If you’ve finished Alyx and you’re desperate for more Half-Life in VR, the original Half-Life game has been ported to the Oculus Quest and is fully playable, from start to finish. You can read a guide on what you need and how to set that up on your Quest here.

Would you like to play Half-Life 2 in VR? Let us know in the comments below.

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March 30, 2020March 30, 2020

Half-Life: Alyx Is The Highest Rated PC Game So Far In 2020, According to Metacritic

One week after release, Half-Life: Alyx currently sits at number one on Metacritic’s list of Best PC Video Games for 2020. The game has an average score of 93, which is higher than any other PC game released this year so far, including traditional non-VR games.

Although you could argue that VR titles are a whole different category of game, Metacritic counts them as PC entries and so they compete with any other PC release in a given year. With this in mind, it’s impressive that Alyx has hit the top of the Metacritic charts for the year so far. That being said, it is only March but games like Doom: Eternal are providing stiff competition. However, many movies, TV shows and video games are being delayed and impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. With the fate of scheduled game releases now uncertain, who knows what competition Alyx might face throughout the rest of the year.

The only other VR game to get close to Alyx’s score on the PC list is The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, which sits at 9th on the list with a score of 81. Console games, such as those on the PS4 or Nintendo Switch, have their own separate list. For comparison, the highest rated PlayStation 4 game on the list is Persona 5 Royal with a score of 95. After that is Dreams with 89, which we also know is receiving VR support at some point in the (near?) future. On Nintendo Switch, the highest rated title is Animal Crossing: New Horizons with a score of 91.

This means that, across all platforms, Alyx is one of the highest rated games of the year so far. Despite it being early days, that’s still pretty impressive. According to SteamSpy, the game is owned by over 500,000 people as well. However, that number comes with two caveats. There’s no way to verify SteamSpy’s data. Plus, the game was also gifted for free to owners of the Valve Index and Vive Cosmos Elite. Therefore, the number wouldn’t accurately represent sales, only those who own the game irrespective of whether they bought it or received it for free.

If you missed our Half-Life: Alyx review, be sure to read or watch it right here.

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March 28, 2020

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Adds ‘Bread Crabs’ And ‘Oberwurst’ In Half-Life 2 Parody Update

If you’re looking for something to play after finishing Half-Life: Alyx, physics playground Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades now includes a new mode that’s inspired by Half-Life 2.

For those of you unfamiliar, the game better known as H3VR from RUST LTD. is a kind of sandbox playground with a range of modes, tons of weapons, and an irreverent sense of humor that chooses to make non-playable characters look like hot dogs. An obsession with meat — and sausage in particular — runs throughout the game and its developers continuously update the title. In fact, this latest mode is the game’s 87th update. That’s an extraordinary number of changes since H3VR’s release in 2016 that, combined with the game’s large fan-base, makes it unlike anything else in VR.

Welldone Freemeat

The new update adds a new playable character called “Welldone Freemeat” to H3VR’s Take & Hold game mode. That’s the game’s tactical roguelike mode in which players become a character like a Cowboy, WW2 “riflewiener”, or a special operations commando to then fight through stages of increasing difficulty. The latest update features custom weapon progression with five new weapons inspired by Half-Life 2. The new weapons include a “custom Mp7 and a crossbow that grills and fires 2-foot long hot dogs,” according to developer Anton Hand. New “Sosig Soldiers” are there too (members of the “Porcine Oberwurst”) alongside new enemy types that include “the absurd Bread Crab and terrifying Meat-hack,” according to Hand, plus “even more stupid puns.”

You can learn more in Hand’s developer log video below. H3VR is available on Steam for $20.

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March 26, 2020

Valve Patches Half-Life: Alyx To Include Smooth Turning In Update 1.1

Just a day after release, Valve released a new patch for Half-Life: Alyx that includes an option for smooth turning instead of snap turning. While smooth locomotion was an included movement option in the game at launch, it was notably missing a smooth turning equivalent.

The patch released on Tuesday morning and addressed some frustrations from players that smooth turning was not an option at launch. Snap turning was enabled and had an adjustable turn angle, but this did not account for those who wanted full smooth movement, including turning.

In some ways, the smooth turning omission is reminiscent of the initial exclusion of physical crouching from The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners at launch, which was similarly patched into the game. While perhaps not on the scale of the heinous exclusion of physical crouching from The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Valve has responded incredibly quickly to the users who were upset at the smooth turning omission.

In light of the addition, the ‘Quick Turn’ option, which provided snap turning functionality, has been renamed to ‘Snap Turn’ for clarity.

The patch also includes a few other changes, such as “improved hand-over-mouth pose usability for Windows MR controllers” and “improved resolution of impact decals on enemies.” You can read the full patch notes here.

Half-Life: Alyx is available now for PC VR via Steam. If you’re looking to play the game on the Oculus Quest, be sure to check out our coverage of how the game plays on tethered via Oculus Link and wireless via Virtual Desktop. Or, if you don’t have a VR headset and just want to watch the story in full, check out our cinematic recording of every chapter with no commentary.

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March 26, 2020March 26, 2020

Here’s A Roundup Of All Our Half-Life: Alyx Coverage In One Post

It’s been a huge week for Half-Life: Alyx news and coverage. With the game releasing on Monday, we’ve had a bunch of posts from reviews to news and to analysis, covering all aspects of Valve’s flagship VR game.

If you missed anything, we’ve rounded up all our Half-Life: Alyx stories in one handy post, broken down by category. You can also see all of our Half-Life: Alyx related video content by checking out this YouTube playlist.

That’s a lot of content, and hopefully covers everything! Is there anything Half-Life: Alyx-related that we haven’t covered or that you want to know about? Let us know your burning questions and desires in the comments below.

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March 26, 2020

Rift S vs Index – What’s The Best Headset For Half-Life: Alyx?

True to Valve’s word, Half-Life: Alyx, out now on SteamVR, runs just fine on practically any PC VR headset.

But, as Valve made clear when it revealed Alyx late last year, the Index version of the game comes with some small extras that change certain elements a little. These are too minute to be considered game-changers, but do go some way to enhancing immersion.

So, how does playing Half-Life: Alyx on Oculus Rift S stack up to the Index experience?

The first thing to say is that I originally played all of Alyx with a Rift S because, well, I didn’t have an Index yet. Valve sent one over for testing, which arrived after my first runthrough. I’ve now played the entire game again exclusively on Index. I played on Normal difficulty on Rift S and Hard difficulty on Index.

Index’s initial benefits are the same as they are with any other SteamVR game. The headset is more comfortable than a Rift S, its resolution is slightly better, the built-in audio solution is much better and you can get a wider field of view out of the headset than the Rift S, should you so choose. For a game as high fidelity as Alyx, which is arguably VR’s best-looking game to date, this is a big advantage. The world of City 17 is clearer and easier to appreciate inside the Index, and the game’s top-notch audio design flourishes there.

Of course, Index also comes with a pair of controllers that are technically more advanced than the Rift S’s Touch controllers. Index features finger tracking, reading when your fingers are gripping the controller handle and when your hand is open. When it is open, the controller sticks to your palm with a strap. Touch has a more basic form of finger-tracking that can tell when your index finger is on the trigger and your thumb is raised, but your other three fingers are tied to the same detection sensor, you can’t move them individually.

On Index, this results in more intuitive grabbing of items and, yes, you can flip off a headcrab when it makes you jump. In terms of exclusive benefits, it’s ever-so-slight. You probably already knew that you can crush a can by squeezing your controller when holding it. It’s cool, but it has absolutely no effect on the gameplay itself. You can also activate Xen grenades — organic explosive green things — by doing the same. And, well, that’s pretty much it.

But it also just results in a smoother overall game experience. I found gripping the holographic orbs that house Alyx’s puzzles much easier with the Index controllers as opposed to Touch’s buttons. Also gripping your gun with two hands on the Index’s curved controllers feels much more natural than with the Rift S controllers, which bump into each other.

That said, it’s well-known that Index finger tracking can be spotty in places. Playing through the game again, I encountered some frustrating scenarios where a grenade didn’t leave my hand when I attempted to throw it and Alyx would make weird hand signs when my palm was either full open or closed. This didn’t happen often, mind you.

So, yes, playing Half-Life: Alyx on Valve Index is definitely the best way to see the game, but not by much. In fact, with Rift S at $399 and Index at $999 and with Rift S’s inside-out tracking, I would honestly advise picking up the Oculus option if you’re looking for a great way to get into Alyx quickly. Of course, both the Index and Rift S are out of stock at the moment, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. While you wait, why not check out our full review of the game?

Also, we played the game on Oculus Quest as well in both Virtual Desktop and Oculus Link modes and have a rundown of that experience as well.

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March 25, 2020

Here’s What Reviewers Are Saying About Half-Life: Alyx

The wait is over and Half-Life: Alyx is finally out. As expected, there’s been a bunch of different reactions and reviews from outlets all over the internet.

Half-Life: Alyx is undoubtedly one of the biggest VR releases in history. All eyes were on Valve’s flagship title upon release, as well as on the reviews that released alongside the game. We’ve got links to all the reviews from major outlets, including our own, and have picked select extracts from each to represent their thoughts on this monumental VR game.

Half-Life Alyx 11

UploadVR — 5/5 Stars

How could we not shamelessly self-plug? Here’s our review if you missed it.

“Alyx is a triumphant return; a stunningly produced, meticulously refined capping off of the past four years of VR learnings. Its 10+ hours of best-in-class combat, evolving level design and, every so often, moments of truly inventive ideas swiftly establishes it as a new benchmark for the platform.”

IGN — 10/10

“Valve has set a new bar for VR in interactivity, detail, and level design, showing what can happen when a world-class developer goes all-in on the new frontier of technology. In a lot of ways, it feels like a game from the future, and one that the rest of VR gaming will likely take a good long while to match, much less surpass.”

Read IGN’s full review.

VG247 — 5/5 Stars

“When Half-Life 2 released, it revolutionised the first-person shooter … One of the reasons Valve never counted to three and gave us a proper sequel is the expectation that comes with it. The series’ core ideas have been refined and polished, and believable physics are no longer such a novelty in video games. Where is left for Half-Life to innovate? It turns out Valve just needed new tech. It just needed VR.”

Read VG247’s full review.

PCGamesN — 9/10

“While it’s probably impossible to satisfy nearly 13 years of expectations after the end of Episode Two, Alyx does its damnedest to open the Half-Life universe to new stories again. By the end, it feels like Valve is grabbing you by the shoulders, screaming ‘we are going to make more Half-Life games!’ It’s ever-so-slightly hammy, sure, but in a warm, endearing way that shows just the right amount of reverence to the stories that have come before.”

Read PCGamesN’s full review.

GameInformer — 9/10

“Half Life: Alyx is a must-play game worthy of the series’ legacy. Despite some puzzles and encounters that feel like filler, the overall experience is strong. The stunning setpieces, beautiful world, and smart writing stand out no matter the medium, and mark a return to form for Valve. If you were waiting for a killer app before you made the investment into virtual reality, this is it.”

Read GameInformer’s full review.

Eurogamer — Recommended

“There are Hollywood moments that will stick with me, but I also remember being in a room filled with oil drums while a tank of explosive gas was being winched up towards the mouth of one of those horrible limpet things that sit on the ceiling. That’s the kind of clock Valve likes to put in a scene to add suspense. Hitchcock would be proud: you can see all the moving parts and yet the magic is still there.”

Read Eurogamer’s full review.

What do you think about Half-Life: Alyx? Let us know in the comments.

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March 25, 2020

Watch The Entire Half-Life: Alyx Story Like A Movie

Earlier this week, Valve’s flagship VR title, Half-Life: Alyx released worldwide. Those who own VR headsets will no doubt want to jump in, and play the game. But what if you don’t own a headset or don’t feel like playing the game in full?

Half-Life: Alyx is split into chapters. While each chapter varies in length, most of them can be completed by an experienced player in about 20 minutes – the length of a short episode of TV. So to to help Half-Life fans who don’t own a VR headset or those who simply want to watch the story unfold without playing, we’ve compiled all of the game into videos below.

This footage was recorded on the Valve Index with no commentary and played in story mode, for the most cinematic experience possible. Story mode allowed our editor Jamie Feltham to move through the game as smoothly as possible, with a focus on showing as much of the world and as many details as possible to viewers.

The first embed below is a playlist that will play each chapter one after the other like a giant movie, coming in at a whopping 4 hours and 20 minutes.

The videos following that are each chapter embedded separately, like episodes of a TV show, allowing you to watch parts at a time or in small doses.

Half-Life: Alyx – Full Game Movie, All Chapters – Playlist

Chapter 1 – Entanglement

Chapter 2 – The Quarantine Zone

Chapter 3 – Is Or Will Be

Chapter 4 – Superweapon

Chapter 5 – The Northern Star

Chapters 6 – Arms Race

Chapter 7 – Jeff

Chapter 8 – Captivity

Chapter 9 – Revelations

Chapter 10 – Breaking and Entering

Chapter 11 – Point Extraction

Want more explanation on the game’s ending and what it means for the Half-Life series and for VR? Check out Jamie’s piece on just that.

If you’re looking for more Half-Life: Alyx content, be sure to check out our Half-Life: Alyx review or watch a video review on YouTube.

What was your favourite part of Half-Life: Alyx? Let us know in the comments below.

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March 25, 2020

Valve Talks Half-Life: Alyx’s Big Ending: ‘You Could Say The Team Is Issuing A Challenge’

Half-Life: Alyx has been available for a few days now and, although it’s quite a lengthy adventure, no doubt a lot of avid fans have already reached the mind-bending ending.

So, what the heck, huh?

After we completed Alyx we had the chance to sit down with Valve to talk about a lot of different aspects of Alyx. We’ll have the full interview up later in the week, but we couldn’t not ask the company about the game’s big ending. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, we laid out the ending here (obviously it sort of spoils everything).

Valve’s Greg Coomer had some interesting contributions about the different aspects of the ending and what it means for the future. We’ve got our excerpts of those questions below. If you don’t want to know what happens then check back here after finishing the game.

FULL SPOILERS FOR HALF-LIFE ALYX ENDING BELOW

Upload: So I’m glad I finished the game because I would be remiss if I couldn’t talk about the end with you guys. To me, that ending seemed like a bold, definitive statement that the next Half-Life game will be in VR.

GC: Valve is not quite ready to say that. We haven’t made actually any plans about medium [VR]. So I think we’ve– obviously we get that question from many people. Also like, what exactly is coming next for VR? Also what’s coming next for Half-Life? We really– we’ve been working on this for four years and we’re really excited because the reception before the game is out seems to be really quite positive, so far. I know our playtesting is good.

But really the entire team and the company is in a mode where we really want to see what the reaction to this title is before we make plans about what exactly we will do next.

Upload: Having said that, the decision to have this ending in the game is undoubtedly a confidence thing. When did you feel you had the confidence to put this ending in the game? Was it always going to be there or was there a point where you said “I think we can do this”?

GC: It was definitely an ending — I’m not on the writing team but it’s definitely an ending that has been a core part of the plan for most of the development of the game. So it wasn’t like we built the game as you’ve now experienced it and then thought hard about what should we tack on to the end. It definitely was something that was integral in the thing about how you get there and what the earlier stages of the product are.

Upload: Does Alyx remember the last moments of the game in Half-Life 2 through to Episode 2?

GC: We definitely get why you’re asking the questions, but that’s one of the things that the ending is really designed to leave unanswered, I believe.

Upload: There’s an interesting idea to Gordon picking up the crowbar at the end of the game. That could go down as a very iconic moment. And it’s interesting you decided to do that having not used melee weapons in the rest of the game. And so I wonder if there’s any kind of notion of what you’ll be able to do going forward in that handing of the crowbar or passing of the torch, if you will.

It’s like, “This is what we can do with VR tech today, by the time maybe another game rolls around…” I’m not asking you to say there’s going to be an Index 2 but the industry is obviously naturally going to progress on and it feels like you guys are already thinking about the kind of designs that will go along with it.

GC: We definitely are. You could look at — I mean a lot of the development of Alyx was done in concert with the team that was simultaneously building the Index. And I wouldn’t say, though, that the ending of the game was done deeply in concert with the people who are thinking about next-gen VR, but you could say that the Alyx team is issuing a challenge to the part of Valve which is working on next-gen VR solution to say “This is what we want from you, give us solutions that will let us build something like this.”

I haven’t heard someone else say that, but your question sort of made me think of the ending to our game in a different light.

—

So there you have it.

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Welldone Freemeat

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Valve Interviews — UploadVR

Half-Life: Alyx – Full Game Movie, All Chapters – Playlist

Chapter 1 – Entanglement

Chapter 2 – The Quarantine Zone

Chapter 3 – Is Or Will Be

Chapter 4 – Superweapon

Chapter 5 – The Northern Star

Chapters 6 – Arms Race

Chapter 7 – Jeff

Chapter 8 – Captivity

Chapter 9 – Revelations

Chapter 10 – Breaking and Entering

Chapter 11 – Point Extraction