Half Life Alyx and Boneworks - The two VR games that dare to be different. Okay maybe just one, but still. AKA Floop’s shill thread.

Is VR the big gay?

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Coolio55 said:
JESUS CHRIST. Bit the bullet and saw the ending.
It's AWFUL.
Once again it's a massive contradictive retcon even more blatant than Half Life 2's! Retconning a plot death is especially aggregious.
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Great job Gabe, hiring the mongoloids at Campo Santo sure is paying off. Half Life isn't fucking Metal Gear; writing a decent story for it could be done by a middle schooler.
 
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Super Hans said:
Great job Gabe, hiring the mongoloids at Campo Santo sure is paying off. Half Life isn't fucking Metal Gear; writing a decent story for it could be done by a middle schooler.
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Wolpaw and Pinkerton wrote Portal 2. Wolpaw wrote the original Portal. Some faggot from Campo Santo was not the deciding factor in time travel being a thing in Half-Life now.
 
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7 hours for the final count. Stopped halfway through Jeff because FUCK THAT SHIT

To be honest I don't even care about the ending anymore. This has been fun enough to warrant my purchase. My only complaint are the Poison Headcrabs. The overuse of them is pointless if they're as nerfed as they are now compared to HL2.
 
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I can't believe I'm saying this unironically but HL3 is confirmed. . 2020 what a year to be alive.
 
Superman93 said:
I can't believe I'm saying this unironically but HL3 is confirmed. . 2020 what a year to be alive.
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I'm not sure it really matters anymore, since it's been shown that all they need to do is gather up the Dragon Balls and wish for people to come back to cheat death. That erases the impact of HL2:E2 and reeks of lazy writing. G-Man is now a friendly time-travelling space wizard who somehow still got caught by the Combine, and the whole thing gives off some very worrying Starcraft 2 vibes. Not really looking forward to future content if it's anything like this.
 
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Chapter 7 is some straight-up bullshit. In a very, very good way. But I will figure out a way to skip this chapter on replays.
 
So I guess I broke the distillery puzzle? It seemed like I was supposed to turn the power on to operate the crane thing but I climbed on the grain pallet and I guess it just decided it don't need power to move and shot me right up to Jeff. Then it dropped 3 autosaves in the next chapter so I can't go back to figure it out for real. Thanks GabeN.
 
Finally finished. You know what? I didn't mind the ending. It was odd, sure, but nothing out of the realm of lore in my opinion. Felt like it happened too fast though.

Could definitely see why some people would be upset, but it was an enjoyable ride.

Doesn't even seem like a retcon to me because a retcon would be establishing something never happened without any explanation. Here G-Man seems to be "collecting debts". Theorizing that Eli made a pact to get Alyx out of Black Mesa, and never fulfilled his end of the contract. He took her as collateral.
 
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I'm not paying 2,000 dollars to play the new half-life game. I'm usely about 5 to 10 years late to the party anyway with Half Life/Portal games. The only one I bought on release date was Portal 2.
 
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Quijibo69 said:
I'm not paying 2,000 dollars to play the new half-life game. I'm usely about 5 to 10 years late to the party anyway with Half Life/Portal games. The only one I bought on release date was Portal 2.
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I get where you're coming from but you can get in for a lot less than 2000 if you're willing to compromise. Even if you want the Index specifically, I've been running Alyx at full res 120hz on mine with an i5-4590 and RX480, with only the occasional hiccup.

Assuming you don't have a medium to high-end PC from sometime in the last 6 years already (and you live in America), an office desktop with an older i5 or i7 can be had for around $100, sometimes less, a GTX-970, 980, R9-380 or 390 can all be had for under $150, add a PSU and RAM upgrade and you're looking at a VR capable build under $400. Used 1st gen VR headsets are in the sub-$400 range on auction by now (and of course the Rift S and Quest are $400 new), so you could have a total of $800 or less. Obviously not an impulse buy, not great if you're adamant about Alyx being the only VR game you're interested in, but certainly better than 2 grand.

I feel like I've said all this in this thread before. Anyway, long and short of it is Index is the pinnacle of PCVR right now and is priced to match, the lower and mid tiers are a lot cheaper than people realize and if you're just getting into VR now those lower and mid tier options will be just as impressive.
 
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Out of curiosity I watched the ending, I think the biggest problem with it is introducing the concept of non-linear time (that is always a source of plot holes) and makes me a bit worried that the plot would shift into character drama.
 
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TenMilesWide said:
I get where you're coming from but you can get in for a lot less than 2000 if you're willing to compromise. Even if you want the Index specifically, I've been running Alyx at full res 120hz on mine with an i5-4590 and RX480, with only the occasional hiccup.

Assuming you don't have a medium to high-end PC from sometime in the last 6 years already (and you live in America), an office desktop with an older i5 or i7 can be had for around $100, sometimes less, a GTX-970, 980, R9-380 or 390 can all be had for under $150, add a PSU and RAM upgrade and you're looking at a VR capable build under $400. Used 1st gen VR headsets are in the sub-$400 range on auction by now (and of course the Rift S and Quest are $400 new), so you could have a total of $800 or less. Obviously not an impulse buy, not great if you're adamant about Alyx being the only VR game you're interested in, but certainly better than 2 grand.
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Considering you got EXACTLY what I have I've now convinced myselt to take the plunge.
 
SiggyB said:
Considering you got EXACTLY what I have I've now convinced myselt to take the plunge.
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iirc windows mixed reality has even lower system requirements, however it ties you to windows. but you can get a lenovo explorer for like 150 bucks on sale, but if you're in the US I'd go for a samsung odyssey+. costs more but more comfort and technical features
 
Digging through the files is pretty interesting. You can find a .vpk viewer here.

Alyx's fullbody model has animations for some type of Manor. As do the soldiers. Don't think I've seen these before. Not much left of them.
A "Recon Soldier" appears in the viewer with fucked textures. It says it has animations attached but none of them work.
There is a black fast headcrab in the files that is fully rigged, modeled, textured, etc with animations. Don't think they're ever seen in-game. Looks more cartoony than the Poison headcrabs.
Russell is named "Lazlo" in the files.
Several HL2 models are present in the files - most likely leftovers from dev testing.
Gordon's suit is absolutely wrecked to shit
Although you never see it from the angle in-game, DOG has a...tv screen? solar panel? in a recess in his back.

There is also a console command for a dev-testing "non-VR" mode. Probably made it easier than setting up a headset every single time they started the game. It sucks complete ass though, no hands and invisible HL2 weapons, and most functions that utilize VR are unusable apart from basic interactables (buttons, doors, HL2-style "picking up physics objects", etc).
 
Okay, so about 6 hours in and I am at the Northern Star hotel. My thoughts: Visuals are amazing, especially when looking at things in the world up close. Easily the most impressive thing though in Alyx was how much detail they put in Alyx's hand when you grab individual items with a non-index controller. They didn't need to do that, but it's cool that they did.

Aiming can be finicky, but that is probably my controllers and Bluetooth adapter not liking at each other. Moving around is alright, though a bit jank with strafing. Reloading the Pistol was confusing, thanks to the instructions but I got the hang of it.

Sound design is top-notch as well, really sells the belief that you are in this hostile world. Headcrabs have a distinctive sound that will haunt me in my sleep now though. Guns and explosives sound really good as well.

Not going to lie, I really enjoy the character interaction of Alyx and Russell, with Russell telling bits and pieces of the world prior to the Black Mesa incident. I especially enjoy the part where Russell was describing a club sandwich to Alyx. That made me smile.

I'm putting 2 hours a day into Alyx, hoping to beat it this weekend.
 
xr95 said:
Okay, so about 6 hours in and I am at the Northern Star hotel. My thoughts: Visuals are amazing, especially when looking at things in the world up close. Easily the most impressive thing though in Alyx was how much detail they put in Alyx's hand when you grab individual items with a non-index controller. They didn't need to do that, but it's cool that they did.

Aiming can be finicky, but that is probably my controllers and Bluetooth adapter not liking at each other. Moving around is alright, though a bit jank with strafing. Reloading the Pistol was confusing, thanks to the instructions but I got the hang of it.

Sound design is top-notch as well, really sells the belief that you are in this hostile world. Headcrabs have a distinctive sound that will haunt me in my sleep now though. Guns and explosives sound really good as well.

Not going to lie, I really enjoy the character interaction of Alyx and Russell, with Russell telling bits and pieces of the world prior to the Black Mesa incident. I especially enjoy the part where Russell was describing a club sandwich to Alyx. That made me smile.

I'm putting 2 hours a day into Alyx, hoping to beat it this weekend.
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The club sandwich was nice, but I liked the floppy disk conversation more. And the vodka talk, especially if you carry a couple of bottles out into the next chapter.
 
I just watched the full gameplay and uh

I really don't throw this word around casually

But I think if there's hope for future Half Life games

This puts a mighty huge obligation on the table to do so.
 
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