Is it me or this game doesn't feel Half-Life at all?
Really?
>>719615213i dont know i didnt play it and neither have any of my friends
>>719615213It felt closer to half life 2
>>719615213half life is a series where gimmick puzzle setpieces are a core part of its dna, the devs would really have to go off the reservation with a vr game for it to have nothing in common with half life 2.
People call Half Life 2 a tech demo and Alyx is 10x that
>>719618917So it's still a tech demo
>>719615213What? It totally does
Alyx is written by Portal writers, sometimes it feels like a Portal game
>half life 2 set in city 17>half life 2 E1 set in city 17>half life 2 E2 finally out of city 17>half life alyx set in city 17with the dimension travelling shit you'd think they could come up with some new locations
>>719615213It's you desu
>>719618917I remember we got kino like vtmb bloodlines and dark mesiah from the source engine. And there was a demo or something from some student digipen project with fireballs and wood stuff you could blow up like a rope bridge with wood planks. Shit was fun. I wish we had more magical power FPS kino.My shitty VR headset is incompatible with tons of stuff and now not supported.
If Portal 2 was reddit this was FunnyJunk.com
>>719619993never be an early adopter
>>719615213portal levels of humor doesn't feel right for hl, and worst of all most it wasn't even very funnylike i was legitimately floored by the sheer amount of groaners in this game, despite erik wolpaw and jay pinkerton writing for it
>>719620241>Russell is so out of place for HL game that's why.
>>719615213It is just you, it's HL as shit. Every level is so gimmicky that it almost feels like a new game. That's HL2 all over
>>719620241>portal levels of humorNot really, it's still mostly serious and it handles dark moments very well. My problem with the story is Alyx is a teenager here but she feels 40. This should've been a game about a cute little girl
>>719615213it's youNo one have played it
>>719615213Yeah, the series completely lacks soul without Laidlaw. They can't write like him, they can only emulate the same Portal-tier writing.We will never get another Breen type speech:>It has come to my attention that some have lately called me a collaborator, as if such a term were shameful. I ask you, what greater endeavor exists than that of collaboration? In our current unparalleled enterprise, refusal to collaborate is simply a refusal to grow--an insistence on suicide, if you will.>Did the lungfish refuse to breathe air? It did not. It crept forth boldly while its brethren remained in the blackest ocean abyss, with lidless eyes forever staring at the dark, ignorant and doomed despite their eternal vigilance. Would we model ourselves on the trilobite? Are all the accomplishments of humanity fated to be nothing more than a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed, sandwiched between the Burgess shale and an eon's worth of mud?>In order to be true to our nature, and our destiny, we must aspire to greater things. We have outgrown our cradle. It is futile to cry for mother's milk, when our true sustenance awaits us among the stars. And only the universal union that small minds call 'The Combine' can carry us there.>Therefore I say, yes, I am a collaborator. We must all collaborate, willingly, eagerly, if we expect to reap the benefits of unification. And reap we shall.
>>719615213You haven't played it so shut up or buy good vr set and play it then talk.>nuuuh i have played itlies
>>719621505Wolpaw is aware of that at least. He said something about how he can write character drama and comedy, but he's out of his element when it comes to writing epic, big-picture kind of sci-fi story. I can only hope they actually bring Laidlaw back for the next game but who knows at this point.
>>719621056OP here, I also haven't played it. But I'm watching my friend playing it, so I am entitled to have an opinion on it.>Eli goes from a decrepit old man to a Will Smith dress- and soundalike>wacky vortigaunt Gary>Russel>Alyx now sounds like a black womanI am not saying it's bad, it's just... off.
>>719618917At least HL2 was an entertaining tech demo. Hell, you could even call objectively great games like GTA4 a tech demo, because it did act as a way to showcase amazing tech far ahead of it's time (hell, its ragdoll physics still haven't been matched almost 20 years later).
>>719621652"The next game" is supposedly at late stages, they started prototyping after HLA back in early 2020. It's been 5+ years. And from what I know Laidlaw is not involved. (And probably no Kelly). So we're left with Portal writers and Portal-tier music. It's gonna lack the essential soul of HL2, especially with the differences in the lighting of the Source 2 engine. But, I'm not gonna lose hope completely.
The real flaws of Alyx is that it's far too simplified and toned way down for stomachlets.Also no SDK base for it, or Source 2 in general.
>>719621874Alyx as a project is a complete fucking failure. VR market didn't change at all and they didn't even release a fucking SDK. A company that is known for modding and spawning so much stuff within the Source ecosystem. Does anyone even know the name of 1 Alyx mod? There's fucking nothing. Failure. Zero cultural relevance. If HL3 does not get a SDK, they are finished as a company. The only thing left will be children gambling and pushing updates to live service slop, forever.
>>719621505Looking at your post and looking at my post made me realize how surface level my complaints are. "Alyx sounds like a black woman" - this is just pathetic. But still, I guess what feels off is that the times have changed, and Valve from 2007 is not the same as Valve from 2020 to such an extend that the game seems to be a fanfiction for their own work.
>>719615213This character ruined the vibe.
>>719621869At least with Valve, they won't release unless they think it's good enough. Even at this late stage. They'd scrap it totally before fucking with the legacy of Half Life. I think with Alex, they thought half life in virtual reality was enough of a leap to justify it. But it was just ok.
>>719622092>I am le hecking funny aussie science man
>>719615213It's all the endless talking. It is in such a sharp contrast to the quietness of the previous games
>>719623281The silver lining is that Valve's appetite for VR is satiated with Alyx and they're smart enough to make it a sidegrade kind of game. Imagine the shitstorm if they make HL3 as VR exclusive.
>>719623281>They'd scrap it totally before fucking with the legacy of Half Life.They released Alyx, a mediocre game that messes up the entire story. Not that they ever had a real plan for the story in the first place but it's still bad.
>>719621976There's actually quite a bit of good maps/campaigns, a big one just released last monthHalf the workshop is stuff for S2FM though because Valve wouldn't make a separate category just for it
>>719624508I'd ideally want HL3 that can be played flat or VRHL2VR proved it works
>>719621681>Eli goes from a decrepit old man to a Will Smith dress- and soundalikeZamn an old man is less old in a prequel game? Call the police
>>719619110Isn't the entire point of the grimdark setting being that the combine vaporized basically the entire planet and all that's left of the human population is corralled in city 17 for gene experimentation to determine what human genes are best for harvesting before sending the rest into a galactic blender and washing their hands of it?
hla > hl1 > hl2
>>719624956>HL2VR proved it worksHL2VR proved that people will enjoy "VR" games that don't work well in VR as long as the underlying flat game is good. Vehicle segments in VR were horrible. Combat pacing was completely off because a reload takes about 15 times longer in VR than it does in flat. In HL2 a lot of enemies rush you in a swarm and in HL2VR you're standing there getting punched in the face, trying to manually put bullets in your revolver, it doesn't work. But the underlying HL2 is good so people just rolled with it
>>719621976>Does anyone even know the name of 1 Alyx modThere's a lot of Alyx mods, retard, including entire campaigns. Don't talk about shit you know nothing about
>>719624897This is why I don't like Steam Workshop feature. It doesn't differentiate between the big deal stuff (full-on campaign-length mod) to basic model swap, other than a simple categorization checklist. It may be a small thing but it erodes the value of these big effort mods.
>>719625007NTAIt reeks of modern sensibilities which are completely miss the mark with the larger population and are being preached to you from an ivory tower. You really have to be socially unaware to not see that the zeitgeist of our time has warped what half-life used to be into what is viewed as marketable to an imagined modern audience, though that could be argued about the rest of the half life series as well.Eli went from reassuring cheeky old surrogate dad to cool and fresh black man.Alyx went from peppy tomboy waifu to ethnic stereotype.Having the wacky guy from Jumanji play the wacky guy from Jumanji in a pessimistic dystopian hellscape.Gary the vortigaunt being a mystical mad magician, completely lacking the subtlety and ambiguity of earlier depictions of vortigaunts.It doesn't make sense for the setting either, to have modern racial stereotypes replacing exist characters. Whoever wrote this game is not only racist but incredibly out of touch.
bros... when is the next fucking valve headset coming. I was sat there in 2021 being like oh they'll probably release a revision soon. It's been 4 years since and 6 years since release and there's still no actual signs. now the index doesn't sell as a kit anymore so it's even WORSE value while being old as shit technology. this dilemma actually just made me drop 3 grand on a PC recently because I'm done with holding out on stuff. but it's been so long. are they just done with VR or what? what the fuck do I buy? I hate facebook so oculus is out.
>>7196256832026 for valve's new headset
>>719625632its the onions liberal boomer writers who are still epic redditors. no laidlaw no good writing and when all the og boomers die we are left with complete faggotry and then its completely over for any piece of media, zoomers are too stupid
>>719625683Just get a psvr2, at this point it has decent support for PC.
>>719615213The hacking puzzles are annoying, and I hated that Jeff section. I am still at chapter 9, but it's a solid 8/10 so far.
>>719626293i hated the jeff section only because people hyped it as some sort of epic horror encounter. fucking ravenholm or whatever was spookier
>>719625683Is it worth buying index right now?
It feels like the work of known scammers who commit false advertising and fraud.Valve screwed over the Artifact fanbase by cancelling the Artifact 2.0 beta without even allowing users to invite friends like they said they would in January 2021 and does not deserve your financial support for these gross consumer-unfriendly practices.
>>719627869Nobody gives a fuck about your crappy card game, anon.
>>719627796Only if you can find a really cheap one for like max $300.
>>719627796No, the resolution is crap compared to newer headsets (even the Quest 3 has it beat there)You either wait for Deckard or just get a Quest 3
>>719625035>that the combine vaporized basically the entire planetThe US is not "basically the entire planet"
>>719626356The invulnerable stalker enemy trope is all the rage right now and Valve might as well in on it as well.
>>719618917Sure, you could call it that. But there is no doubt that Alyx was an actual attempt at making a full fledged video game for the first in VR
>>719615213Half life 2 turned the series from cool x files govt conspiracy to gay 1984 orwellian nightmare. Fuck valve fuck gaben and fuck this gay earth
>>719630353Man, I wonder how many of the US doomsday prepper sorts might have survived the US being glassed? At least a handful, right?Would the Combine even be able to find, or even care about finding them?>tfw you won't play a Half Life game where you explore the modern glassed desert of the US, avoiding Combine patrols and Xen wildlife, while trying to recover fragments of tech and regroup other doomsday preppers
>>719631148I haven't thought about, but now that you mentioned that, was US glassed because it was the biggest threat to the Combine? Being the only superpower in 90s-00s and all.
>>719628570Artifact is not crappy. It is excellent. Artifact’s expansions on Dota 2’s setting and lore were amazing. Peak soul. There were times I actually felt like I was commanding the epic fantasy battlefield the cards depicted. I’d never had that feeling from a card game before, not even Magic.When I looked at the menu, saw Jolixia’s caravan in the distance at night while the music took me, for a fleeting moment it felt like I was home.
>>719631343>was US glassed because it was the biggest threat to the CombineBecause they immediately mobilized and tried to fight back, since the Combine initially portaled into the US, although I think portal storms opened up portals elsewhere for them too. I don't remember if everyone else immediately fell under the Combines heel or not.
>>719625683Deckard in 2 more weeks trust the plan.
>>719631148>>719631343>>719631476It wasn't glassed, it's just a toxic, inhospitable hellscape overrun with xenoflora/fauna, with rampant portal storms because it was ground zero for the dimensional breach, even the Combine said 'nah fuck that' and wrote the whole place off
>>719615213this is one of my favorite games of all time. I wish we got more VR HL games.
>>719615213it's you
>>719632510>I wish we got more VR HL gamesI wish we got more proper VR games by proper devs, there's so much potential, but all wasted on arena shooters, zombie games and crappy survival rooms
>>719632119The most dangerous Xen creature for humans is a headcrab. If it can be countered by a headgear, other fauna won't be that much of an issue, probably.Bullsquids? No more dangerous than Florida gators.Sound dogs are punny.Barnacles? Shit, I don't even know how can you fall for this one.What else?
>>719621681Well the Alyx thing is because somebody wanted to get his GF a job, I am 100% serious about this, they even had the previous VA for Alyx record most of her lines before sidelining her for some dudes GF
>>719632119I always love how lazy the Combine is. Most alien invasion stories depict the invaders as go-getters that establish their shit real quick and are active. The Combine just goes in, fucked shit up, creates a puppet government and is hands-off with everything else.
I played HL2VR before Alyx and it ruined it for me. There's nothing but pretty graphics in that game.
>>719615213>Is it meYeah
>>719633217Civilization of their level have no time to babysit every captured world.
>>719632907The games industry squashed it pretty good - as someone who was tinkering with VR dev at some point most of the people who provided free resources and were working on there own stuff online were scouted out by AAA companies for in-house VR title development, given a year or two to tinker, AAA saw there wasn't overwhelming profit to be had given the limited market segment, and rolled the same devs into other positions or fired them, but because of contractual reasons none of these devs can continue development within the VR space for several years after the fact.Shits fucked.
Developer commentary reveals their playtesters were spooked by Alyx, that's why Russel is so reddit to make the atmosphere less scary, keep in mind these same playtesters thought they were playing as Gordon because they had a crowbar. Russel and Wheatley are basically Valves solution to the redditor who kept turning right in the antlion caves, or rather them giving up on directing players with level design and lighting and literally having a character as as mouthpiece for Valve to say>Turn left here you fucking retardAfter you acquire the flashlight, there's a moment where Alyx is expected to crawl through a pitch black tunnel>Hey Russ can you talk?>About what?>About anythingggggggI would be willing to bet this is an actual conversation from a playtester and influenced Valves decision to tone down the serious atmosphere aggressively
>>719633486I'm starting to get tired of Valve's insistence on companions in their single-player games now. I get it, it's the easy way for the writers to show off their writing chops without having to cut much but man it gets old.
>>719633217>I always love how lazy the Combine is.Same. Every time I listen to the HL soundtrack and think about the HL universe, there's something about the Combine's nonchalant, low-effort yet brutal behavior that fascinates me. It's like they're just on autopilot. As Alyx said in HL2, the Combine are slow to wake but you don't want to get in their way once they're up. They will absolutely put in 100% of the bare minimum effort relentlessly until you're dealt with.https://youtu.be/BcFnS3bCwpI
>>719624897>a big one just released last monthWhat released last month? I play every single Alyx workshop map
>>719633824The Great Way
>>719632907VR needs more Japanese devs, RE Village is peak VR. Shame they are all busy using it with vr chat and porn games
>>719635171Capcom should do a fully VR focused RE game, actually taking advantage of the medium
>>719615213because you're old
>>719625632I'd blame Campo Santo writers for that. It seems like something Sean Vanaman would write. Erik Wolpaw came late in development, so their interpretation was already in place before he was rehired.
>>719619110Valve are creatively bankrupt these days. Even deadlock, the most original setting valve had done in nearly two decades is basically "city 17 but occult fantasy", which in turn is just dishonored.
i wish you didnt remind me this insult to the franchise existed
>>719638594That was uncalled for.
>>719620434I actually dunno why they had so much of the interactions in the game be done via disembodied voices.It's VR, being able to see actual NPCs talking to you is such a cool effect. It's basically the effect hl2 had dialed up to 100. But whereas HL2 constantly had you meet friendly NPCs you could talk to Alyx made it an actual plot point that you were in a quarantine zone and would at most meet an occasional vortigaunt.
>>719615213ESL retard.
>>719639696it's the truth. That's OK I'm old too.
>>719625632>Eli went from reassuring cheeky old surrogate dad to cool and fresh black man.His voice direction/acting was pretty meh in terms of matching it to the original, but I don't think his personality changed much. He just needed to talk slower. Even the "son of a bitch and his unforseen consequences" line could've worked if he said it the right way.>Alyx went from peppy tomboy waifu to ethnic stereotype.How did Alyx change other than the voice actor? She has the same personality, if a bit more naive.
>>719615213why?
>>719640378You caught me, I can't back that up. I wasn't actually paying that much attention to the story I just wanted to talk shit.Pretty fun game all in all, with some major complaints. The Jumanji guy being woefully misplaced, the flanderization of the vortigaunts and the retconning of the story was where the writing fell apart for me. That and some minor gameplay issues.I did not like having quippy millenial writing the character acting retarded the entire game. He was grating. We already had Kleiner being the lovable space case and he can be hard to take within the setting, even though he was better presented than Russel.Having the vortigaunt be a wizard cheapens them substantially. We already had the easter-egg vortigaunt in the pipe in Hl2 but he could be easily written off as a joke character.The retconning of the ending of Hl2:Ep2 writes them into a corner and feels like a slight to long term fans. It was such a memorable and emotionally moving ending. It was forgivable when they had only pulled the deus ex machina once when the Gman/vorts pull Gord/Alyx from the fire in the ending of Hl2 . It's a slippery slope to now have Gman be able to time travel, rather than freeze time or do interventions like he did in Ep2. It's a whole can of worms that now is going to attract all the split timeline fags that I don't want to hear from. That and if they do make a sequel to Alyx, we're going to be saving the princess again? Hl2 was already an inversion of that trope and we did that in Ep2.Gameplaywise:Having your avatars hands not colliding with objects was extremely immersion breaking. Pushing against a headcrab or zombie as a reflex made you feel like a ghost.AI could be very immersion breaking, especially the antlions. I found they glitched out often, getting stuck on geometry or freezing in place.Movespeed was an issue.That's all aside from the clunkiness of the VR peripheral in general which can't really be blamed on the game.7/10
Trying to get used to how Source 2 Hammer does geometry after a lifetime of CSG-based mapping is making my brain hurtI get the fundamentals of it because I've messed with modelling software before but it feels like it takes me longer to block shit out compared to throwing down various shapes and sizes of convex blocks
>>719621869>So we're left with Portal writers and Portal-tier music.*Portal 2 writers and *Portal 2 tier music. Portal 1's writing and music is probably on the same level as Half Life's, just fit for a grungy, isolated feel.
