I'd love to see what could happen with other players in a multiplayer expansion, too.
#HALF LIFE SOURCE VR MODE SERIES#
Half Life: Alyx feels like it has enough for a series of films, maybe. The game's style also reminds me of hints Valve gave from earlier Half Life universe-themed VR demos that a rich wild world would someday come. The retro-future vibe reminds me of the Bioshock series, in a different sense, but with that same disorienting and extremely rich sense of world-building atmosphere. The more I play, the more I feel like I'm plunged into a first-person shooter, and the controls melt away and become intuitive. There are plenty of weird weapons, and puzzles I can solve, and close-quarters shootouts with surprise enemies.
The game's journey, so far, plunges me into a quarantined zone where terrible horrors await, mutated alien victims, head crabs that leap onto people's heads and turn them into walking, suffering zombies (I can't stop thinking of Alien's facehuggers). In a way, it's a throwback experience in a futuristic shell. It's also single-player, so it's not a metaverse where I'll be meeting with others. Ready Player One is all about a kid who escapes dystopia for better places. So I won't be referring to these in Half-Life story terms. And if you don't have VR, you're not getting it. If you got a Valve Index VR headset, it comes free. If you have a VR headset that works with SteamVR (and there are more than you think), then this is a clear must-buy, a AAA game in a landscape where there aren't large-scale titles like this made that often. In that sense, recommending Half-Life: Alyx is kind of a pointless question.
#HALF LIFE SOURCE VR MODE PC#
And you'll need a gaming PC good enough to play it. Valve's newest Half-Life game is entirely made for VR, so for PC gamers who've been waiting for a new Half-Life game all these years, Half-Life: Alyx won't be your choice unless you own a VR headset, or are planning to. The experiences can be amazing, when there's good software. VR headsets are expensive, clunky, sometimes difficult to set up. VR isn't a mainstream thing yet, despite four years of promises and progress.
But I love VR, and am fascinated that Valve's first new Half-Life game in years is VR-only. OK, I should note that I've never played all the old Half-Life games. A radio I can tune to different stations. A newspaper that I can pull out of a rusted mailbox and read its faded headlines. Once I'm in a spot, I can wander, and the details are amazing. The graphics in Half-Life: Alyx are stunning. This is how Half-Life: Alyx begins, like an immersive theater experience, a Sleep No More where I can explore Half-Life's universe, pick up artifacts, enjoy just wandering around, opening drawers, taking a few steps in the walking space of my limited office play area. I'm on a balcony where I see a European city ravaged by giant long-legged nightmares, while a wire-festooned tower climbs infinitely into the sky. I'm explaining this because you probably don't have a VR headset, and I want you to understand what I'm doing. I can wiggle my fingers and check my stats. My hands in Half-Life: Alyx can be seen floating in front of me. I wear them like gloves, and I can wiggle my fingers and see my virtual hands. I slip on strange controllers with hand-straps, like motorcycle handlebars with joysticks and buttons.
A Valve Index VR headset, cabled to an Alienware laptop on my desk. As the kids run around screaming and I worry about food supplies and New Jersey now has a curfew, I creep upstairs and head to my home holodeck that I've assembled: small sensor cubes with snaking wires stacked on storage boxes and my bookshelves. It's strange to escape a world that seems increasingly dystopian for a world that is.
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