After a nine hiatus following their last true story game and a thirteen year break since
the last half life game, Valve is finally back, and Alyx is finally here.
Well actually, the game actually came out all the way back in March and it's already
halfway through June--but better late than never.
Anyways, I’m going to be giving you my two cents on the game after giving it two full
playthroughs as well as sharing why it might just be the game that VR has needed all along.
Let’s take a look.
Welcome to top spec--your one stop shop for tech content.
Before we jump into this review, know that this video will spoiler-free the entire way
through except for one small portion where I talk about the game’s ending.
But don't worry I'm going to give you a big timestamp on the screen like this to skip
to.
Outside of that, there's obviously going to be gameplay footage throughout this entire
video as some game mechanics and chapters being discussed, so if you don't want any
spoilers at all maybe this video isn't for you.
First, let’s talk about that reveal.
People had very drastically different reactions when the new half life game in thirteen years
had finally been announced.
Some people were extremely surprised, some weren't because they had been datamining it
for years.
"And also seen within the many beta updates throughout the last month is this line.
Enable motion on Physcannon grab (This also applies to the HLVR hand interaction).
This is the first time we have seen anything related to HLVR in the year of 2018."
Many were disappointed to see it was a VR exclusive game, and others brought in that
fact with open arms.
Personally I was really hyped for it because I am a massive VR nerd, so I really respect
Valve for having the courage to release a new game in their franchise on an entirely
new platform.
Speaking of platforms, I played the game on my HTC Vive with a pair of index controllers,
so I didn’t get the same experience you might have gotten playing it on something
like a full kitted Valve Index kit--but I got pretty damn close.
Anyways, let’s start by talking about the game’s mechanics.
The gravity gloves are perhaps the best mechanic in the game.
I reallycan’t explain how great it feels to be able to tug at any object in the near
distance and bring it to you at your will.
The game actually also requires you to catch the objects after pulling them to you--although
the hitbox is extremely forgiving.
Inherently, this does add a little bit of a learning curve, but anybody should be able
to pick it up within minutes, and it just adds so much depth to the game.
In the middle of a firefight, you can pull ammo off of the back of a Combine Soldier,
you can tug grenades out of the air and throw them back, there’s really just so many different
creative uses and I think they're amazing.
There’s also the wrist pockets which allow you to store items which ends up being extremely
helpful.
There’s also only two of them which forces you to prioritize what you think is important.
When you play a traditional game, reloading becomes second nature.
All you have to do is click R and can go back to fighting.
But In Alyx, reloading is an entire process.
First you have to eject the magazine, pull another one over from your shoulder, put the
magazine it into the gun, and cock it back.
Initially this might come across as needlessly meticulous, but eventually you get so good
at it that it's nearly as second nature as just hitting a key on your keyboard.
Also the tangible feeling of reloading a gun is not something that a traditional game can’t
replicate, and the guns in Alyx are among the most polished I've ever used in a VR game.
The only criticism I might give the game in terms of its weaponry is that there is such
a small collection of guns.
They start you off with a pretty crappy pistol , but as the game progresses you unlock an
SMG and a shotgun.
All of these feel great to use and reload, but part of me wishes there were more weapons
to try out.
Especially compared to the previous half life games which had loads of weapons to discover.
However, the guns that are in the game are insanely polished and quality is always more
important to me than quantity.
Resin is a type of item that is scattered across the entire game that allows you to
upgrade your weapons.
The lore behind it isn’t really explained, but regardless I had a very fun time searching
in all the different nooks and crannies to see if I could find some of it hidden.
I personally love exploring games and seeing everything they have to offer, but if you’re
not the patient type you’re probably going to find resin a little bit annoying because
it can slow you down so much.
My first playthrough of the game actually took me a little bit over 17 hours while my
second was just over 8 hours, and the only difference between those two playthroughs
was that the first time I was highly focused on finding as much resin as I possibly could.
Keep in mind, I also was able to fly through the puzzles in the game just because I had
gone through them already, so that’s also a contributing factor.
An often overlooked yet extremely important mechanic in VR is locomotion.
Unlike traditional games, VR games don’t exactly have one type of movement set in stone.
Locomotion can actually be a very difficult thing to get right in VR, but Valve clearly
did their research and really implemented enough options to make everybody happy.
Alyx gives you four movement options: blink, shift, continuous, and continuous hand locomotion.
The first two are both teleport based; blink fades your screen to black for a fraction
of a second and then teleports you to wherever you desire.
It was the option that I chose to play the game with because I felt it to be the most
comfortable and I’m also not a big fan of smooth locomotion--more on that later
Then there's shift, which is very similar to blink but instead of your screen fading
to black the camera quickly slides to wherever you're trying to go.
I tried out this one out but I get sick pretty easily from VR so this one didn’t go over
too well with me.
Then there’s the two continuous locomotion options.
All that continuous locomotion means is that you just move the character around with a
joystick, and the only difference between these two is that one moves you around based
on the angle of your head and the other moves you based on the angle of your hand in relation
to the headset.
Viewers of VR gameplay typically tend to like this option the most because it looks more
cinematic and its more what they're used to, but I have a number of gripes with it.
First of all, you have to have a very tough gut to play with it.
I personally haven’t been able to get very far in boneworks because its only form of
movement is smooth locomotion, and I just find it very disorienting to see your character
moving around without you actually moving around in real life.
Also, Half Life Alyx was not designed to be played with continuous locomotion, so there’s
a number of quirks that you’ll encounter if you choose to play with it.
But anyways I’m not going to delve any deeper into the types of movement, if you’d like
to hear more about the that Valve made a great video on that so be sure to click the card
in the upper right hand corner (whichever my right is).
There are a number of puzzles in the game that really explore Alyx Vance’s “tinkerer”
side.
Some notable examples include using rewiring circuits in the wall to make them functional
again, using alyx's multitool to disable tripwires, and whatever you'd call this one.
I loved all of these puzzles, but there was one in particular that really started to irk
me as the game progressed.
It’s this “bullet-hell” type one; you essentially just have to avoid these red dots
and get from point A to point B, but as the game progresses the trails on the red dots
get longer and you have to do the puzzle more times.
It doesn’t particularly get more difficult, but it does get more frustrating and easier
to mess up.
I also have an HTC Vive which makes use of Valve’s lighthouse system which is still
to this day the best system available tracking, so I can’t imagine what it would be like
to play these puzzles on something like a Windows Mixed Reality Headset.
If you happen to lose tracking for even a fraction of a second and your controller drifts
off you'll have to redo the entire puzzle, and it just gets so frustrating.
But other than that, everything else was amazing.
I don’t have a ton to say here that hasn’t already been said, but I think that I still
need to give the game’s visuals a major shoutout.
Seriously, a valve game has never looked better and source 2 is an insanely powerful engine--especially
for VR games.
Considering it’s been 16 years since the original source engine was released this should
be no surprise, but I’m genuinely taken aback by how great they were able to make
this game look AND perform.
I should also mention that Alyx is the first proper game to release on Source 2 if you
don’t count Dota 2 or.. yeah that one.
Anyways, Alyx runs very solidly.
I played the entire game on my razer blade 2019 that has an RTX 2060 inside, and frame
drops were very rare.
I did play the game on the lowest graphics setting that was available, but honestly the
differences between the lowest graphics setting and the highest graphics setting are almost
imperceptible unless you're really looking for specific details.
The only gripe I had with the game’s performance was the loading screens.
Now loading screens are nothing new for half life games, but I felt that they appeared
too often and that they could go on for minutes on end.
Perhaps my blade was just struggling to load these scenes, but regardless this was the
only thing that I felt really took me out of the game.
Other than that, that’s really all I have to say about the game’s performance.
So now we’re about to move into spoiler territory, so if you don’t to have this
game spoiled, please skip to this time or click the link in the description.
Ok now that they’re gone, holy ****. I think that the new Valve has finally learned to
count to three.
If you haven’t seen the ending yet, you need to experience it so go ahead and click
the card in the upper right hand corner and see the end of our livestream.
Anyways, now I’ve never been a major fan of using time travel as a plot device in any
medium; I actually had the extremely unpopular opinion that last year’s Avengers: End Game
was extremely overhyped solely because the movie hinged so strongly on time travel, but
this is one of the rare examples where I’ve actually liked the way that it’s been used.
This game essentially rewrites the ending to half life 2 episode 2; the G Man prevents
Eli Vance from dying as a “nudge” to thank Alyx for freeing him from his prison.
Then, after you get attached to Alyx by literally seeing through her own eyes the entire game,
she gets “hired” by the G Man which we can assume means she’s now in some sort
of limbo state.
And then to top it off, Valve seals the deal with a post credits scene where you become
Gordon freeman for about thirty seconds and they basically confirm the story isn’t over.
Oh yeah..
And the crowbar.
Please let us play with the crowbar.
So yeah, without a doubt this wasn’t the ending I was expecting, but in all the right
ways.
Valve finally pushed half life’s story a “nudge” forward, gave us a hint of what’s
to come, and has reinvigorated one of their biggest game franchises of all time.
Alyx was a labour of love in every single way, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing
it.
Like the graphics, there’s not too much to say here that hasn’t already been said.
The soundtrack is outstanding, and while it might not be written by Kelly Bailey who did
all of the soundtracks for the half life two games, I believe it stands up and I think
they did a great job.
On a side note, Valve is actually releasing the game's soundtrack out on all platforms
in a chapter to chapter format, and they still hasn’t gotten to chapter 3 yet; they never
learn.
On a serious note, every firefight in the game is complemented by an equally high energy
music track and I think Mike Morasky did an excellent job of picking up where Bailey left
off.
Anyways, that’s all I really have to say about the music.
My first playthrough of Half Life: Alyx took me about 17 hours.
This certainly seems on the longer side compared to what I’ve seen on youtube, but I really
took the time to look for all of the extra little hidden easter eggs and resin as I possibly
could.
On the topic of exploration, one common criticism that I’ve seen Alyx getting is that a lot
of its levels can come across as pretty claustrophobic--and honestly I can’t disagree.
Compared to a game like Half-Life 2, the levels are a lot tighter and the larger, more dynamic
environments are certainly very spaced out.
However, I can’t help but think that this is intentional because Valve is so meticulous
with their level design, so let me explain.
VR benefits highly from smaller, more detailed environments instead of expansive environments
that you trek through in seconds.
Just think about it, most people who have a VR setup aren’t using the maximum playspace
that they can and even the ones that are are eventually going to reach one of the boundaries
of their playspace.
Alyx is designed so that you can teleport into a small area then then move around your
playspace to explore it.
I should also mention that Alyx is actually quite replayable despite being a story game.
Like I said earlier, there are tons of options for upgrading your weapons, and if you're
going through the game at a reasonable pace, it’s very unlikely that you're going to
get all of them your first time through.
Oh yeah, and I can’t forget about Chompski.
It’s certainly not the first time that Valve has given you an achievement for carrying
this stupid gnome throughout the game, but I love the fact that it gave me a distinct
reason to replay the game on a livestream.
It was equally frustrating and entertaining to constantly be keeping tabs on the gnome;
I was setting it down whenever it was possible and saving the game every few minutes.
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend trying to get it your first time through, but it
makes for a very interesting second playthrough.
"YES!
IM FINALLY GOING UP WITH THE GNOME!
GNOME VAULT OF MY OWN!"
The last thing I want to touch on replayability is the ever growing library of community made
maps.
I haven’t had too much time to check these out yet, but as Source 2's full set of features
are released I’m definitely going to in the near future.
I personally have a friend who made a map for the game before the official tools were
even available, so it's no doubt that the community support for Alyx is very strong.
And yeah if you want to give his map a try I’ve left a link to it in the description.
Half Life: Alyx reflects everything I’ve wanted VR to be for the last four years.
It is rich with content from start to finish, its mechanics are incredibly polished, its
graphics are straight out of any triple A title, and it's genuinely replayable.
Without a doubt, Alyx has been my favorite game I’ve played this year.
Valve is back, and I just hope it doesn’t end here.
I’m Aaron Post, and this has been a deep dive into Half-Life: Alyx, thank you so much
for watching.
We’ll see you next week.