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Half-Life: Alyx

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Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#71

Post by skyyler »

ben7799 wrote: post #38

This has got to be the most narrowly targeted game ever. I played through all of HL/HL2/Ep1/Ep2 IIRC, but I can barely even remember the story clearly it was so long ago. And it's such a blur maybe I never finished Ep2. I was 21 when HL1 came out but I didn't get to play it till I was like 24 maybe when I had gotten out of school and got a nice computer & some money. HL2 came out when I was 27.. still playing games b…

24 year old here.

I played video games in my teens, including the HL series. I stopped playing video games roughly five years ago. I will be building a computer to play this game.

Peers my age are also very excited for this. Not just because it's a new Half Life game, but because it's the VR game we have been waiting for since the VR craze started.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#72

Post by dvtrn »

zerocrates wrote: post #49
dvtrn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not going to be anything more than a gimmick. Not sure if I share this sentiment, I read elsewhere Valve is treating this as their next "flagship" release, a true first class VR game (hopefully not just some 30 minute "experience" that ends right as it's getting good). It this were literally any other game studio I'd have an eyebrow raised right now, but when Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behi…

> When Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behind something as a flagship, lead-off hitter, they've yet to disappoint. Genuine question: when would you say is the last time they did that? I don't really think of Dota 2 or CS:GO or whatever to be "flagships." I'd have to go back to, Portal 2, I guess, but I'm not sure even that I would call a "flagship," just a really good game. Certainly the Orange Box a…

Yeah..My submission to that inquiry would be Portal 2 as well frankly

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#73

Post by fhood »

davnicwil wrote: post #59

Assuming I'm starting from scratch, what's the minimum cost these days to get the hardware that'll play this?

400 for an oculus, plus around 1000 for a competent pc? You could probably do less for the PC but at that point you are making compromises that I wouldn't personally make.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#74

Post by noident »

purpleidea wrote: post #12

Pretty lame that there's no Linux support. Valve was supposed to be on our side. Oh well :(

That is very disappointing, especially after going through all the trouble to port so many other games. They must be completely abandoning SteamOS.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#75

Post by jccalhoun »

on_and_off wrote: post #6

Call me salty but I am not sure I am super interested in half life 1.5 while half life 2 episode 2 has ended on a cliffhanger more than ten years ago. I am still curious to see how they will handle the character of Alyx, she was little more than an admiration delivery device in half life 2. They will have to do a lot more now that she is the center of the game.

I don't know why they didn't do this years ago after Half-Life 2 first came out. I remember thinking for sure that just like with Half-Life they released Opposing Force and Blue Shift (which were both, admittedly, not planned for when the original HL was released) they would be releasing expansions with Alyx and Barney.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#76

Post by duncancarroll »

notus wrote: post #3

It looks interesting at least, It's hard to tell how gimmicky it will be though. I've felt like a lot of VR experiences I have had felt gimmicky. Some of my best VR experiences have been more in line with games like beat saber rather than story driven games. I'm also the type of person that pretty much exclusively plays story driven games so I want to like those experiences in VR but they just feel kind of off to me…

Try Echo VR.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#77

Post by hirundo »

aresant wrote: post #54

I think a fascinating part of Alyx is Valve choosing a female protagonist. 85%+ of VR users are male, compared to say 70/30 male/female balance of say Fornite. (1/2) Any way you carve it the audience for Alyx is going to weight heavily male. And research suggests that gender-swapping in VR is a profound psychological experience: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8260949 (1) https://www.rakutenintelligence.com/blog…

> I think a fascinating part of Alyx is Valve choosing a female protagonist.

It's in a lot of good company in that respect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_featuring...

I doubt that VR is more than incremental in terms of creating an illusion of gender.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#78

Post by vorpalhex »

empath75 wrote: post #50
vorpalhex wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War obviously. Kidding aside, it does seem like VR probably has value as a kind of exposure therapy..

Or to put it another way it desensitizes people to violence.

It can. And if you're the victim of violence, that may be desirable.

Likewise, if you have a fear of spiders bad enough that it interferes with your quality of life, you likely want to be desensitized to spiders.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#79

Post by kbenson »

ben7799 wrote: post #38

This has got to be the most narrowly targeted game ever. I played through all of HL/HL2/Ep1/Ep2 IIRC, but I can barely even remember the story clearly it was so long ago. And it's such a blur maybe I never finished Ep2. I was 21 when HL1 came out but I didn't get to play it till I was like 24 maybe when I had gotten out of school and got a nice computer & some money. HL2 came out when I was 27.. still playing games b…

The Oculus Quest I bought a few months ago is amazing. It's definitely not going to play this, even if it could support it (it can't on the hardware it comes with), but that's not to say in a year or two maybe there will be a relatively cheap system that can. At $400-$500 the Quest is more along the lines of a new high-end dedicated console, but it also offers an experience at that price point which I don't think can be matched. If Valve can make a Steambox that's a VR headset like the Oculus, that would be huge.

All I can say is that if you haven't tried some of the more unique VR games like Superhot, it's hard to express how amazing this game has the potential to be.

Re: Half-Life: Alyx

#80

Post by fhood »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #52
Analemma_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not pleased that Valve has shifted its focus from developing great games to being a digital platform rent-extractor that tinkers with VR and disinterestedly ships occasional updates to Dota and CS:GO, but I'm optimistic this might be good, even if it's only out of motivated self-interest to drum up the VR hype again. What I mean is, I get the sense Valve is unhappy that VR hasn't had its system-selling killer app…

> I'm not pleased that Valve has shifted its focus from developing great games to being a digital platform rent-extractor I actually kinda am. Because they created a really great platform that has helped the market thrive even for tiny nobody indie devs. They've set a seriously high bar for digital store fronts and distribution services. I think I've got a lot more enjoyment from the games Steam has enabled to exist…

> They've set a seriously high bar for digital store fronts

I agree with your general point, but no. No they have not. The Steam client is terrible. Unresponsive, un-intuitive, and surprisingly bad for searching in as well.

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