*** Half-Life: Alyx ***

[iv-tecman]

I foolishly had a look as to how expensive the valve VR setup is. I can't understand why its not taken off at that price.

I saw the game announcement and also looked up the index prices, I was also fairly shocked. However, its a half life, Ive been on the fence with a VR headset for racing games, looked at the oculus rift a few times, the game isn't out till March 2020 so got a few months to decide save up, I'm just not sure on VR as its still new (tried many times in the past if I'm not mistaken ) but I just don't know if its like 3D or curved TVs - one of the reasons I've held off with VR

I'll see what happens over the coming months, game does however look very good.

 

[lokiss]

Ive been on the fence with a VR headset for racing games

No matter what Valve are doing, Dirt 2.0 remains the game of the year for me in VR. The one on one experience through your own eyes makes racing as frightening as it looks on a dash cam, and when it rallying more so.

 

[tracertong]

 

[Paul_cz]

This idea that you would be buying VR "for one game" is super dumb.
There are already plenty of great VR games and experiences and once you own it, I guarantee you you will want to try them all. Google Earth alone is amazing, for instance.

 

[Begbie]

This game looks like its crying out for haptic gloves!

I've been wanting a VR headset for a while, this might tip me!

 

[SS-89]

This game looks like its crying out for haptic gloves!

I've been wanting a VR headset for a while, this might tip me!

Haptic gloves are probably the next step for VR, Oculus already demonstrated hand tracking on the quest and there have been rumours they've been working on glove controllers over the last few years (well not even rumours they've been seen in Facebook research lab vids). Super expensive if/when they come out I suspect.

 

[iv-tecman]

No matter what Valve are doing, Dirt 2.0 remains the game of the year for me in VR. The one on one experience through your own eyes makes racing as frightening as it looks on a dash cam, and when it rallying more so.

Yes racing games is one reason I've looked at VR - it does seem to have from what I've read the wow factor - getting even more tempted now.

This idea that you would be buying VR "for one game" is super dumb.
There are already plenty of great VR games and experiences and once you own it, I guarantee you you will want to try them all. Google Earth alone is amazing, for instance.

Agree, its not just one game, this is just one potential killer must have VR game that could launch you into many VR games, people buy £300+ consoles to play just one game.

 

[Born_2_Kill_83]

Wounded, can't play VR without feeling sick after 15/20 minutes, had a VIVE which I had to return for after a couple of weeks, I thought at first I had a bug till I realised it was VR making me stick my head down the toilet.

 

[VincentHanna]

Wounded, can't play VR without feeling sick after 15/20 minutes, had a VIVE which I had to return for after a couple of weeks, I thought at first I had a bug till I realised it was VR making me stick my head down the toilet.

Might have been down to the low refresh rate of the Vive

Index does 120Hz by default and 144hz as well. You might have better mileage with that.

 

[Nasher]

Is this a proper VR FPS, or just another hour long shooting gallery type thing?

There was a VR half life 2 beta around for a while (including touch controller support) but it vanished. That would have been much better tbh.

 

[shadowbane]

Murray..............Present

 

[Cosmic Schwung]

Is this a proper VR FPS, or just another hour long shooting gallery type thing?

“It’s not a side story, nor an episodic one — it’s the next part of the Half-Life story, in a game around the same length as Half-Life 2.”

Geoff Keighley said it took him 15 hours.

 

[Aztec2Step]

Whilst I applaud Valve's willingness to innovate and have nothing against VR, this is a disappointment for me personally as I suffer from an inner ear condition and am unable to use VR. Hopefully this will kick start some interest in Half-Life again which may lead to a future game though.

I've an inner ear imbalance too so likely wouldn't have a good time with VR (not tried a true VR headset, just a phone strapped to the face which was 'orrible). Even if a proper VR headset didn't cause me motion sickness, I wouldn't want to dump that much money just to play one game.
I'll just watch the inevitable glut of YouBoob vids once it's out!

 

[phatboy]

Well I am in on this, fact it has Mixed Reality out the box is fantastic.....best blow the dust off it lol

 

[Mark A]

This idea that you would be buying VR "for one game" is super dumb.
There are already plenty of great VR games and experiences and once you own it, I guarantee you you will want to try them all. Google Earth alone is amazing, for instance.

None of what I have seen looks like anything i'd want to play. Watched Soviet Womble play a bunch of games and they all look like something you'd see on the Wii. Even games like Doom which i'd have thought would be great looked awful with VR and looked like everyone was scrolling around the map. So yeah, from what i have seen, this is the only game i'd be interested in. Not sure whats "super dumb" about that.

There are certainly games that offer this, but really it's a sub par experience, i play Arma 3 from time to time this way. Once you've held a gun up in VR with motion controls, going back to a mouse feels extremely basic and totally unengaging despite the full head tracking and physically looking down the sights.

The actual physical controllers become totally irrelevant once your mind is focused on what your seeing, a gun in your hand...

Interesting. So if the next gen consoles are beefy enough to handle VR well, it wouldn't really matter if you bought a game on PC or console any more. I hate playing FPS with a pad, but if VR is actually good, then it could be interesting for the future I guess. I just can't get my head around how the movement would work and the games I have seen people play it always looks a bit awkward. Like how would you do a quick 180o turn to shoot behind you, do you have to physically spin around?

 

[Uncle Petey]

You can physically turn around as you would in real life, and/or you can use a thumbstick, which should have smooth turning or snap turn options.
Assuming it has full locomotion, you use the left stick to move and the right stick to turn as you would with a pad, except you can physically turn too if you want.

As someone mentioned earlier, it's difficult to really explain VR. You have to experience it (and set it up properly).
For me, it's way more immersive and natural in terms of feeling like you're actually holding and aiming a weapon, using your hands to reload and pull back the slide, leaning around corners and physically crouching etc - as well as the feeling of being in the game, rather than looking at it through a window.

Downsides are that it's more tiring, you'll probably get sweaty and you might have to get used to that kind of motion berfore you can play for extended periods without feeling nauseous.

 

[Nasher]

Usually it's freely walking around in the game which makes people sick which is why most games use teleporting.

The disconnect between moving and not really moving does it. The first time I played Arizona Sunshine and SkyrimVR I came really close to throwing up and just felt ill for hours after. But I played in small bits over a couple of months, until I became hardened to it and now it doesn't bother me at all. I wasn't going to be beaten by it

Good thing is once you have got used to it once, you can stop for a long time and jump right back in without feeling sick again.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

For that it's gonna be 5+ years. There's some very exciting and advanced display breakthroughs happening for VR. I'm talking 5000+ PPI OLEDs.

I’ll start sticking €10 in a tin every month then.

 

[Poneros]

I’ll start sticking €10 in a tin every month then.

Yup, no rush at all. Plenty of time to save while the market matures. No reason to be an early adopter unless you really want to be one. Games are not going anywhere & it's not like PC hardware is advancing at a breakneck pace anymore.

 

[IT Troll]

None of what I have seen looks like anything i'd want to play. Watched Soviet Womble play a bunch of games and they all look like something you'd see on the Wii.

It is true that there are a lot of simple concept games, like Beat Saber. However, there are also some proper PC quality games; e.g. Lone Echo, Asgards Wrath, Stormlands. Then there are games like Arizona Sunshine which although look a little dated graphically, in my opinion offer a much better gaming experience than any pancake FPS. There is nothing quite like battling zombies in VR. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming Walking Dead VR games.