Well, I'm 32 years now. I've been playing video games since I was 5. There are many "magic moments" in videogames, which I fondly remember. Even though I'm in VR for several years now, I think the HL Alyx opening scene will be the biggest magic moment for a very long time. I've never been so overwhelmed by a videogame before. I just stood and stared for a very long time, just couldn't believe my eyes.
Really? While I agree that Alyx is a fantastic game and one of the best video games ever created - there are many other AAA Vr games that are very similar in quality (maybe not as good but close enough). Games like: - resident evil 7 - Asgard’s wrath - astro bot rescue mission - blood and truth - lone echo
@@carlhogan8933 I dont know why Lone Echo is slept on so much! Such an amazing immersive experience. I think its multiplayer got more widespread attention and overshadowed the campaign. :/
Bossix84 They announced the game when it was finished and within 1 year of polish. They simply left themselves another 1 year of polish. They have no deadlines for development, given how much money they rack up.
There's two things to immediately take away from Half-Life: Alyx: 1. Mods are going to be insanely fun with Valve releases the creation tools. The SteamWorkshop is going to have tons of traffic. and 2. It's probably going to take Valve a very long time to release new games with this amount of attention-to-detail. They'll most likely reuse assets, but I'm assuming it might take them a bit longer to really wow us next time.
@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire Yes and they were not only making this game but also learning along the way. So every next HL will be easier to make. My guess, HL2 is next VR release from Valve.
FUTURE10S They also made Artifact and Dota Underorlds in this period of time. Also support Dota 2 and CSGO and Steam. Also developed Index and help with Vive.
Hey DF - you guys notice that the "Spectator" footage doesn't match with the actual VR footage? I'm looking over my recordings currently and I swear the game looked way better inside the headset itself, not just in terms of the resolution - but lighting, ambient occlusion, etc.
And some systems have a huge performance drop when recording VR, so they may have dialed back the settings somewhat aggressively to get smooth footage. Also the "parallax effect" of seeing things in VR may greatly enhance the realism of everything
i know there's less physics interaction in Alyx than in Boneworks, but man my arm got trapped everytime somewhere in Bonworks, on walls, boxes items everything, and it is really annoying while in reallife there is nothing your hand should be right in front of you but in the Game there stuck under a crate or near your body. and it was taking me out of immersion. In alyx there is less of that problm and thus more fun less frustrating
boneworks did not have the budget behind hl alyx, with more money and time they could have develop a smoother player physic model, half-life alyx played safe, maybe too safe, no jumping, sometimes forced to teleport, no IK between hand and body, you can put your arm through an object and fire while cover in an impossible way, sometimes the hand stuck to some object far from the player arm lenght, and the worst of all no meele weapon, physicality was an after thought on hl alyx, but it was the core of boneworks
It's not only immersion breaking, it really causes discomfort (for me at least) as well. I could be in HL:Alyx 24/7, it just feels *right*. There's a reason why Boneworks recommends playing seated... :S
@@Foxtrop13 Boneworks is an unreliable dizzying jank-fest. Any amateur devs could make a game like Boneworks, but most devs try to have a functional game as their end result. Sure HL:A should let you push or pistol whip an enemy, absolutely. (you can still grab and hit headcrabs jumping at you, with objects or your hands) But one is full game made by real seasoned master developers, and the other is a short overglorified tech demo, and it shows. If they cut a couple of things for polish and function, it was probably the right call. And not hitting or pushing an enemy bothered me all of 2 seconds through my entire playthrough. The most I ever did it with Boneworks was on the same enemies, headcrabs.
Being a Half Life fan since I was about 8 years old (I'm 26 now), playing Half Life Alyx made me very emotional. It's a fantastic game that immerses you in the world like no other game has before it. The end of the game had my mouth open the entire time, and hearing Gman walk around me with the 3d audio gave me chills. Now I just want the new source 2 tools so I can make my own campaign! Edit: I fully agree with your comparison of Boneworks. Boneworks is indeed more ambitious when it comes to physics, especially when it comes to gameplay. I think Half Life Alyx is a much better game overall but Boneworks did push VR forward in it's own way.
Agree with you re alyx, best hl game fo rme clean. Endign made me very emotional. Boneworks was trash though, as a game, and full on physics, with arms and a body that does not represent you or your movements makes for an extremely horrible experience. I refunded it, bought an index for it, was highly dissapointed. Then came Alyx, and now I am happier than ever with the purchase.
This is the first review of this game I've seen that actually gets across why this needed to be a VR game. IGN, Angry Joe, etc all fail at being able to explain this but DIgital FOundary got it exactly right. I'm also going to check out Bonewroks. I had never heard of it.
@Alonso Reyes for sure. Quirky, but wow, lots of freedom to explore and many more rewards for exploring and finding stuff in Boneworks. I'm disappointed in some of the aspects of Alyx that don't borrow more of what Boneworks does get right, but I'm loving HL:Alyx nonetheless. 2 of my favorite games covered so well in this review. DFoundry is great!
I do agree about HLA's lack of melee mechanics. With Boneworks, every item can be turned into a melee weapon and hitboxes on enemies are comprehensive. HLA is missing that aspect of gameplay that is sorely missing from an otherwise great game. Another aspect is being unable to climb anything outside of ladders in HLA whereas Boneworks allow it and is a big part of the gameplay.
To be fair this was achieved with the tireless work of many artists. They def threw money at this game to get each and every light as ridiculously polished as it is.
It's a weird comparison, but yeah? Most ray-tracing looks can be replicated with countless hours of handcrafted work. The main draw of it is that ray-tracing is almost like "automated lighting". That doesn't mean things without ray-tracing will look like crap. I mean, look an Uncharted 4 for instance. The confusing thing for many I guess would be how it's marketed (RTX On promotions, for example). It's hard to promote "Hey! We have a new rendering system that helps cut the labor of devs!" so there has to be a "Look how better your games can look!", despite the fact that they technically _can_, just with a whole lot more work.
@@Rocksteady72a Yeah that's a good point but since video games are an artistic medium, perhaps countless hours of handcrafted work will look better aesthetically compared to a ray-traced game which as you said is like automated lighting. From my understanding, Ray-tracing is about accurately simulating physics of light but in video games art style usually trumps realism.
@@Skylancer727 That game is riveting, to say the least. But I got used to it, especially after getting rid of the dreadful "eagle eye" thing that blackens your vision when you try to turn. I actually really like it. It really gives you that zero gravity feeling! Like you and your chair are floating through space! If only you weren't getting murdered every second for not pushing the shield button on time.
What things does it have that no other VR game has? All I see is the exact same gimmicks as the launch titles remixed again. Reminded me of a polished version of H3 with a story added. Shit, you can't even drop your weapon and that has been in games since VR launched.
@@shockwavecity It's not additional systems that make Alyx unique, it's the depth of the interactivity and the sheer attention to detail and polish necessitated by a AAA release that makes it a watershed moment in vr gaming.
@@shockwavecity you can grab every thing in this game. But its not just that, it the way its done. Very realistic. For example the way you reload your weapon. Or the grabbing a magazine and putting it in your back pack(really making the motion and movement as if youreally have on a back pack). I saw somebody grab a random helmet, and place it on their head. You have never seen stuff like that in a VR. Maybe you need to watch some gameplay, then you'll understand.
It's not the graphics that make Alyx what it is, it's the attention to detail in mechanics and gameplay. Graphics are nice but it's not what makes this groundbreaking, not even close. That's very shallow to think. Makes me thing you might not play that many games or understand why some games are what they are.
it wouldnt even be playable outside of vr. There's a few gameplay elemenst that are essential to story and gameplay that would not work at all outside of vr.
Really pleased I picked up a rift-s a few months ago, been having a blast with this awesome game, also the excellent boneworks, lone echo, Asgard’s wrath, beat saber, the walking dead. Seems like a good time to get a headset if you’ve got a fairly decent pc.
Great choices some great vr highlights there for people saying I'm not buying a headset for just alyx they don't know what great games they missing out on
Kind of off topic, but after seeing what can be done in VR with Half Life, I would LOVE a Dishonored game in VR...and an official VR port of Alien: Isolation
Watching footage of this game on a flat screen in absolutely no way does the game justice. It's really something you have to experience for yourself. And it's jawdropping. It really feels like you are playing a game from the future.
i tried PSVR its amazing but its not really make me wannt buy much games from it.. until beatsaber with mod making me crazy about PCVR.. and then this... glad i bought rift s
Totally agree. I started with a PSVR then moved on to a Rift CV1 (which I replaced with a Rift S as I can't afford an Index), and VR has been an incredible game changer for me in the way I play Video Games . Actually being "inside" the game world rather than just playing it on a "flat screen" is utterly mind blowing. Even though I've played and finished my classic favorites like "Skyrim" and "Borderlands 2" on my older PC and consoles, replaying them in VR is an awesome experience. And recent top quality VR games like Asgard's Wrath, Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, Boneworks and now Half-Life Alyx really show what an incredible and totally "immersive" VR gaming experience can be like.
It really is something else, and a very nice option to have! People that hate on it clearly just have'nt tried it / can't afford it.. Everyone I know that's actually tried it loved it, or at least thought it was neat.. THough, it CAN lead to some VR sickness in some people. But that very fact shows how powerful VR is, actually fools the brain into feeling motion that is not there.
agreed and I cant believe how blown away I was seeing the city for the first time. Like, Ive been gaming for a while, and got VR since dk2 days (hobby dev here) but this is the first game to make me go WHOA this is BETTER than most graphics even on 2d!
@@toxicrhythmz3718 It's hard to convey the sense of scale and depth that you just don't get with Flatscreen games, the best way i can describe it is this: Take an object, say- a beach ball. Now, imagine that with the flick of the wrist, you can make it the size of a golf ball, with another, the size of a car, or the size of a house, or even the size of the empire state building. yeah? now try as hard as you can to "physically" imagine that. Put that resizable beachball next to your computer, your TV, your couch, and compare the sizes as it goes from size X to size Y. go outside (if you can) and place that beach ball next to your house, now make that beachball the size of a giant skyscraper. its that feeling of "holy shit, thats fuckin' big" when looking at large objects that just isn't present in flatscreen games. Either way, i still think i haven't done it justice. if you get the chance, you need to try it, it's totally crazy just how VR alone can generate such a feeling.
It's so incredibly good looking. I keep pausing and looking around, leaning close to objects. I'm playing really slowly because of that, and I don't mind. I also like how cluttered and dense the environments are. Makes it more believable and makes it more fun to scavenge for ammo and resin.
As someone who played and was very hyped for Boneworks, I was very dissapointed in the game. This influenced my hype for VR in general and gave me the idea that VR can never feel "un-clunky". While Boneworks has more realistic and fleshed out physics that applies to every object, player included, I felt that the "realism" of the physics didn't work. People want realism, but games aren't fun with 100% realism. Games and simulators have their spaces and shouldn't be mixed. Alyx might have a bit more restrictive physics model, but it works. It's a good game, and the physics mix with the rest of the game brilliantly. Boneworks was physics and nothing else. And the physics were tiring and nauseating. Having that "wobbliness" with weight didn't work at all, and the fact that everything was physical, including your body and hands, meant that everything was just awkward, as you bring up in the video. Alyx restricts this more, but it makes it actually work within the universe and level design, with a lot more fun. Alyx feels like a game. Boneworks is an extended tech demo. It does not have a proper story, graphics nor any levels I enjoyed. Alyx however feels like an actual video game, with great graphics, excellent gunplay, balance and level design. The story is awesome as well. This is the first VR game that I have actually enjoyed, and I've owned an Oculus Rift CV1 since 2017 and got the Rift S in 2019.
I completely agree with this. One thing I think was overlooked in this video is the narrative aspect of VR which was very well cared for in Alyx. It was the first time I shed (a few) tears inside a VR headset. You can look at spoilers for this game here on RU-vid but it will definitely not be the same. Boneworks is fun but I couldn't bring myself to finish it yet. Further levels feel like more of the same and there's barely any story. And platforming is kind of annoying, since your body and arms often get tangled in things.
i avoided all hl:a videos until i finished the game a few hours ago. got goosebumps at the game's opening and closing moments. felt so surreal to be playing a new hl again.
Yes, very good call. So baffling how many people are desparate to watch all the HL:A content possible without playing the damn game themselves. . I want to savour every last second of it, it is hands down the best gaming experience.
@@bunkaaa8726 That's because most people know that, with such a high profile series like Half-Life, they will get spoiled long before they get their hands on a headset and capable enough PC so it is better to watch than getting spoiled by randomly reading it on internet.
After the war is over and the combine vanish, slug french press will be the preferred method for an early start at work around City 17. But the tourists will flock to try the divisive crab stew, of course. It's a "you either love it or hate it" type of meal, with all that gamey flavour.
Boneworks "amazing physics" give me super motionsickes thanks to the fact they thought it was a good idea to have a ragdoll on your character as well..
I love how each Half life game, it's a game changer for the industry. Half life 1: *FPS game with amazing story telling for the time* Half life 2: *revolutionary physics and interaction system* Alyx: *amazing use of VR with great controller integration* That's why Half life 3 is taking long. Valve just hasn't found that "wow" factor or revolutionary feature, to justify the making of Half life 3.
Good video. But I am really waiting for tech review ))) I remember you talked about volumetric lighting, motion blur effects from HLA trailer and now want to see you to compare what is still there and what they changed after trailer. One interesting thing I have noticed that, in some situations hand shadows appears when you grab some objects, and some times they doesn't. Under some light type, hand shadows even appears when you don't grab anything. Another thing is, the shadows of objects disappear when you grab them but sometimes, when you grab objects even detailed shadows appear on them and casting shadows from even almost very thin lines on them. And another thing, I love how indirect shadows appear when we put our hands or objects close to walls or objects. I think this is same technique as UE4 VLM samples uses. This is baked information which we can enable per object and capsule shadows for skeletal meshes. Overall, I really loved this game and waiting for in depth analyze of this game.
What an amazing review, thank you so much for this, this game is a must have for any vr user, I think is not as hardcore as boneworks and TWD SS and that's not a bad think, I think it's a lot easier to let someone who does not have VR play Alyx than it is to play Boneworks, and the graphics on this game are incredible.
Microsoft better get the VR support ready for the Xbox Series X, otherwise the PS5 will dominate the VR space in consoles. We were waiting for a true VR game; it´s arrived!
@Zwenk Wiel Microsoft has no plans what so ever to release VR on the Series X. Around 1% of Steam gamers have a VR headset. Plystation sold just over 100 million consoles. They also sold just over 5 million PSVR units. Which is about 5% of the player base. I *love* VR and think it's the best way to play games by a long, long way! But clearly me (and everyone else who loves VR) are the vast minority by a long, long, long way! 5% of gamers have a VR headset (at best). That's really really low, and actually quite insignificant.
Ah yes, sony will be delivering a tethered inside out tracked headset soon. Let's hope for their sake the resolution is just higher than rift s they're basically just ripping off lol
@@SR1Records well, you could’ve made the same argument about almost ever tech at one time or another. Nintendo made that same argument with online gaming all the way back in 1997 when gamers were arguing online gaming was the next big thing. They said that when MS released Halo on Xbox. Nintendo was right - for awhile.
"The S3 simulator, it stands for Solid Snake Simulation" "What it actually stands for is Selection for Societal Sanity." "I had over 600 hours in VR training, should be a piece of cake" "You enjoy all the killing, that's why" "Raiden, I found out where the Colonel is, ... He's inside arsenal gear ... ... I think it means you've been talking to an AI ... It was all an illusion, everything I've done so far?" "It isn't about erasing content, it's about creating Context" "What is there to believe, what am I fighting for? That's your problem" "Rose?" VR Gaming.
@@johnnyblue07 Same, but with 4790k and 970, it works surprisingly well and honestly, besides texture quality theres almost no difference between low and ultra.
It’s like that feeling I got when I first put on a headset and played Robo Recall except for on a whole new level. When games are done right like this in VR it’s a mind blowing experience and everything just feels so natural.
Actually you can pull headcrabs off your face with your hands. My first instinct was to shake them off (not a good idea). When I grabbed and pulled the headcrab off, I actually got an in-game comment from Russell. 👍
The way VR changes how we play games is phenomenal it changes everything we become the part of that universe it is really awesome if you haven't tried it you should... VR is future
Finished it last night. 3700X+2080Super+2x16Gb+Valve Index.I bought HL1 in 1999 And it floored me. HL2 was just as amazing bought a few weeks after launch,having said that, Its as good as Half Life 1 and 2,imho. Incredible music,very good graphics,runs well,loved the story and voice acting. THIS is The "Killer Ap" VR needs.Absolutely worth the investment! Dying for more!!
@@fcukugimmeausername yep. Only the very few people with VR care. The problem with VR is unless you're spending a small fortune, it's kind of crappy. The high entry cost make VR very niche.
A good review of two well made games with different approaches, which is a good sign that creators are able to come up with variety rather than churning out cookie-cutter code that depends on VR as a gimmick. As an example: I've seen several guides to the mentioned platform puzzle in Boneworks that suggest finding some heavy objects placed either side of the ground level bars to keep the high platforms level with each other, but did noone else just slot a single trashcan over the two bars? That seemed logical and it worked, but it's also a good example of the underlying systems flexibility.
@@happily7514 Close. They did try out a crowbar, but players thought they were playing as Freeman for some unholy reason. The crowbar was also hella janky, and would tend to get stuck on things alot. Eventually, they just decided to cut it, likely for the better.
I have to say. I can't praise the graphics enough. When you play games in VR it reveals a lot of drawbacks of typical graphics rendering. Hellblade, as an example was considered by me to be a beautiful Unreal Engine 4 title, however, with all graphics settings cranked up. even resolution cranked up resulting in like 12fps. The graphics still look very flat, low poly objects, vegetation etc become immediately apparent. Half Life Alyx on the other hand truly looks like a rendering of real life scenarios. I cannot state enough how INCREDIBLE this game looks. Videos of it don't do the graphics justice.
Damn, I was also reminded of Jurassic Park: Trespasser! That game certainly tried something new, even if it didn't turn out all that well. Now I need to find out what kinda hardware I need to play HL:Alyx...
My opinion went straight from "Oh but why did they have to do it in VR" to "Can we have every major game franchise move to VR?". And this was without ever owning a VR system and with playing only one or two VR games - just hearing your explanation made me realize how much potential this medium has.
I own an Acer OJO 500 WMR and it works flawlessly out of the box. I did not need to do custom bindings or fiddle around with the game's controls to make it work. Valve REALLY made sure that all of the existing headsets works exactly as their intended.
I've considered giving my students lessons through it as well. It would work so much better than what I had planned originally! (For the record, I'm a tutor, not a teacher, but still)
the comparisons between games reminded me of the early days in the smartphone race, apple more optimized and confident in its workmanship, android more willing to take risks and push boundaries even if there were a few glitches here and there but both lead us to were we are today. might be the same with VR in the future.
Vive user here: The touch disks do take a bit of getting used to, but they still work really well and I haven't had any issues with them. Getting a 1st gen vive was a great low cost option to get am awesome vr experience for me!
Honestly watching this makes me want to buy a VR set up.. seems like the best approach for quality VR is to scale down the game world and scale up the gameplay. Whereas traditional games seem to be doing the opposite these days with massive open worlds with either 'tried and true' or uninspiring gameplay.. Elon Musk was right, the Human to machine I/O is really the biggest bottleneck in modern computing. being confined to a keyboard/mouse or a gamepad is starting to reach it's limits.
I would take a bit of interactivity from Boneworks, but f*** that game. Boneworks has good ideas but is one of the worst VR games to play. Half Life Alyx may not be as comprehensive with its interactions, but it is 1000% more functional and fun as a result.
As someone who has both games, it's difficult to choose which one is better. I got Boneworks for the full physics just as you described and I got Alyx for the gorgeous textures and attention to detail. That said, ALYX has great gameplay, but it seems a little thin as far as what you can physically DO in that world. Maybe its because I had Boneworks first, but I think it's because the boneworks design is a lot more intricate than a standard game in VR (which Alyx is). I think given more time, developers of VR games will be building in more and more physical interaction.
Absolutely a game changer. Previous to this game i never felt like i was missing out on something special with VR. I can imagine many feel like me in this regard. We've never really seen any world as well sculpted as HL Alyx. That in itself is worth checking out.
For those wondering, the Vive wands can be swapped out for the Index Controllers if you own an HTC Vive or Vive Pro, That’s what I did and it’s a fantastic experience very similar to the index.
OMFG! @10:27 I had my plate of food on my lap. When the bottles started falling over I instinctly reached for them, almost dropping my plate onto the floor :D
