hi Andi thanks for joining
lmk if you ever need any Canada tips btw I think I moved a few years before you did
I just played the first hour and had a great time! the physicality of the environment is terrific! it’s funny how reminiscent a lot of the building textures are of RE7 and the most recent deus ex!
I defaulted to Shift based on other VR experience and have been very happy with it, game is not nausea-making at all
it is a tad buggy (it thought I had no VRAM when I have loads and loads, and my autosaves weren’t timestamped right, as I learned after my first extremely clumsy death to a licker (not a licker I forget what half life calls them even though it just told me)) but lovely work from the campo santo crew imo
it’s funny how immediately half-lifey it is, which is to say Nintendo-obvious about 3D navigation
also I would think you’d be able to run this on a 1060M, I wonder where it’s blacklisted exactly, I have to imagine people will be trying to run it on comparable Maxwell (900-series) cards that don’t have Pascal’s foveated rendering support that massively boosts VR performance
Hm so I was looking at this post
It says 1060M is supported for half life alyx, but NOT for the Oculus Quest link cable
Maybe I should just try it and see what happens, the post also says you can get third party versions of the link cable cheap
yeah I would see if you can get it to work, a 1060M should absolutely outperform a 970 for VR, I wonder if they blacklist it because the mobile parts can be super thermal constrained or something
I’m still pleased as punch with my lenovo explorer if any of you are thinking about buying an old headset on ebay, I guess the tracking is maybe 5% jumpier than valve’s full-fat solution could be but this was such a good cheap investment
Seriously though, I am enjoying it.
There have been many moments where I just pick up prop that doesn’t do anything, like a calculator, and slowly rotate it in the light to see how the light reveals scratches at certain angles on its surface. The level of detail put into everything Is pretty incredible and pays off when so much of the game ends up being rummaging through shelves for ammo.
I thought there would be more of a departure with the level design but it honestly feels pretty similar to previous games, apart from fewer open spaces. I was kind of hoping for this, because while I’m a little over the linear themepark single player designs in general, I think it’s 100% necessary here. Teleporting, which I imagine is the control method most will use, can lead to some disorienting navigation, so the focus-tested nature of Valve games is preventing me from needing to puke constantly.
I think the biggest differences so far between this and the rhythm of previous HL games stems from the fact that reloading weapons is like, A Process. Even if you get pretty good at it, you’re gonna have to allow for mistakes (dropping clips, failing to pull the slide, etc) which end up costing you valuable time when you’re backed into a corner. it produces some incredibly tense moments! To compensate, enemies close in much slower than they did in previous games. As you might expect, you’re eased in to the combat with slow moving zombies, but it ramps up pretty quickly with different types of Combine who will kill you almost immediately if you don’t hide behind a corner or duck behind cover. Anyway, the combat is a lot of fun!
The inventory system is simple, but more idiosyncratic than you would expect… ammo is stored in a backpack, but grenade can only be stored in wrist pockets, a space with only two slots that is the only way to store key items and health related stuff. So you can only pocket two grenades at most at the expense of carrying other stuff… unless you want to hold extra grenades in your free hands while you move around and solve puzzles, which is a pretty ridiculous option that I’m positive every player will end up doing.
the dropped clips rules
finally a game where you can’t reload with two bullets spent unless you want to waste the rest of the clip and it makes physical sense
the only really unwieldy part of it for me so far is how my VR boundary in my apartment pretty much directly abuts my couch and a cupboard already and this game tends to assume you can reach your hands outside of it to pick stuff up frequently, which others do not
are there any parodies circulating yet called “half-life: anus”?
The Traditions Must Be Maintained,
Such Is Our Duty And Our Privilege
Who’s gonna be my best friend and gimme spoilers for this game I’ll never get to play
How many times does it slyly refer to Portal?
Receiver would like a fucking word with you
(and every tactical sim ever made)
reading “explore gun handling mechanics” in a game synopsis makes me feel alienated from my own genitals
You JUST TALKED about how cool and thrilling it was
are or are not the gun handling mechanics cool and thrilling
as a design flourish, not as the whole pitch! that’s like buying a coach ticket to albany for the love of aviation
VR Receiver 2 when
The writing in this is Fine, it’s clearly an attempt to inject humor and reconcile the Portal series that has happened since. The result is sorta mixed. I had one out loud laugh at an Alyx quip and a few internal groans.
I like Alyx’s new actor who sounds a lot younger than I noticed in the trailer… but then I realized she’s supposed to be 19 at this point.
