iirc someone from valve explained half life 1 and 2 came out with the idea to take advantage on new tech that meant an important step forward in videogames, I guess the first was about FPS with relatively advanced 3D graphics and second about realistic, real time physics simulations so far Alyx must be one of the best, probably only big budget VR exclusive game, so in my book it deserves to be remembered as the third
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I mean looking at it logically, Russel was probably only downloading pre-2003 / 2004 internet. Would've been much easier to download in it's entirety than the current day internet.
yeah, the Seven Hour War took place in "200X", which means that even the latest possible date of 2009 would predate the internet exploding after tech companies started to become tech corporations in 2010-2014 he could pretty feasibly download ENOUGH of the important stuff on it to claim he'd "downloaded the internet"
still probably several petabytes. maybe even a zettabyte or two. dude would have to have MASSIVE servers, especially for 2009ish. Though, to be fair, he was qualified enough to apply at Black Mesa, so he probably had access to storage tech beyond what we have access to today.
@@samlomas7316 Oh, I agree that the most likely date is somewhere in the 2002-2004 range, totally! I'm a huge fan of Laidlaw's, he responded very sweetly to a few emails about Half Life I sent him back in the day when I was in high school. I'm only saying they have enough wiggle room that even the latest possible date for the 7HW predates the rise of corporate internet
Yeah, there was no way that he actually died... this game takes place before Half Life 2 and he's very much alive in that game, so you know from the beginning that both he and Alyx are obviously going to be okay in this game.
that's one of the few moments in this game I don't think worked. You can't have stakes like that when you know for a fact Eli cannot die in this game. The game can't tease it because everyone already knows he can't die. That being said though it was still a good sequence.
@@D2Davis My stomach dropped when I first went through that section. I immediately wondered how we were going to bring him back, then thought about time travel. Turns out my time travel prediction was true, but much later in the story lol.
Yep, it has Prax Wars 2: Dante's Revenge on it, the arcade game that one of the security guards was playing... Heck I think it was Otis that was playing it.
@@marthancercal I stand corrected then, sorry. I'm honestly very confused, the audio sounds like it was spliced and stretched. Maybe it actually was sentence mixed from this VA's work?
“T H E C O D E” Edit: god that ending level is just so damn cool... I wish I could’ve experienced that in VR. Also that ending seems a tad bit different from what I remember.
Word of advice for people wanting or expecting an Index soon - play this absolutely last. There is nothing even remotely close to how this game plays, looks, etc.
@@thundercloud1230 I played BW first and I still felt like Alyx got movement right more often than BW. I never got motion sick in either, but I remember all the headaches in climbing ladders in BW and Alyx just cut the fluff. I wish I could sprint in Alyx, but it makes up for the wonky physics that BW had.
@@thundercloud1230 there actually is jumping, pressing in one of the sticks does it if I remember correctly. And I just can't agree with boneworks being better. The only thing about it that I missed when playing alyx was the melee combat.
@@thundercloud1230 there was smooth locomotion in alyx if you cared to look through the settings. I don't disagree with any of your points, but boneworks just felt too unpolished and buggy to me to call it better. It really took me out of the immersion to have elbows that literally never did what I expected them to, and my body kept getting stuck on shit which was probably one of the most frustrating vr experiences I cared to remember. The freedom they give you to do stupid stuff with the physics stopped being fun after 20 minutes since I've already seen it in other games. The game's whole gimmick just wasn't fun enough for me to suffer through the minor annoyances.
I played Alyx with an Oculus Rift+, still came out with my mind absolutely blown away. Other VR games I've played after have indeed been unable to reach it. I am curious to try Boneworks after reading some of the comments here. Hopefully it's not expensive.
It doesn't make any sense, if people say "not anyone could play it" the same goes for exclusives, even tho i don't care for bad movies like last of us, not everyone could play tlou or ghost of tsushima i don't understand
@[DATA EXPUNGED] yeah but the judges should be able to play it also it’s not that expensive. You can get a head set for under 500 dollars and not everyone is poor
@@kocun2637 This. I skipped out on this gen of PS4 exclusive games but I still watched streams or playthrough's and I can still recognize the brilliance of those games I didnt get to play. VR is no different.
I love how, even with it all being in first person, everyone I've seen playing this gave Alyx an added bit of personality, solely from their hand gestures during certain scenes, like Russell throwing the "unloaded" gun at you. It makes her feel more real of a person than just the NPC you got in the past games.
18:00 Easy to pass by, but the fact that he nails the manhack twice without aiming down sights is a really impressive display of just how good the VR is getting. That they can get your brain to do what it normally does in a digital space so well makes me smile.
Russell was watching Vinny for guides in a time-paradox while Vinny was going through the game, and that's how near the end of the game right before Alyx gets sucked into the giant building thing, he and Eli figure out Gordon isn't in there.
we need more VR experiences like Half Life Alyx. it's genuinely one of the most polished VR experiences that i've had. they know how to design a game in that VR space.
Fun Fact: Merle was voicing Alyx at the beginning of the HL: Alyx development but at the end, Valve wanted a younger voice as Half-Life: Alyx is a prequel and thus features a younger Alyx.
I dunno... I think VR is a neat gimmick, but it has a lot of restrictions that keep its games from ever being able to match "actual" video games on a gameplay level. It'd be lame if a ton of companies started pooling all of their resources into VR game, which would be to the detriment of more traditional games.
@@Jordan3DS I dont think it should ever be one or the other. I think that VR and traditional gaming can co-exist. Dont get me wrong I LOVE VR but I still only throw the headset on maybe once a week to play some beat saber or Pavlov. I understand the limitations but Alyx really proved that AAA games can exist in VR and take it to another level. But I think companies know how much of a gamble it is to dump resources into VR because of the barrier to entry being so high.
@@CaseFace5 I think VR should remain where it is right now, honestly, very niche but still getting an okay amount of releases per year. I think the best idea would be to start implementing VR modes into future games rather than just making "traditional games" and "VR games" seperately.
@@Jordan3DS But that kind of just goes against what you said before. making a game work in both VR and flat screen seems like way more of a developmental nightmare than really focusing on one or the other. You end up with either a pretty good flat screen game with a tacked on VR mode, or a pretty good VR game with a tacked on regular mode. The only VR games worth playing are the ones designed from the ground up to be experienced in VR such as Alyx. I remember trying out the Skyrim and Fallout 4 VR ports and they just felt wrong and wonky.
@@CaseFace5 I think it could work well if future engines are built for it from the get go. They could very easily just have a very easy to program VR mode already built in to Unreal Engine 6 or other future engines, so devs wouldn't have to do much work themselves. The biggest problem is that there's not much that can be done with pure VR games. The gimmick of "woah, I feel like I'm really there!" and "woah, it looks like that thing is flying towards my face!" is novel for a while, but there's no lasting appeal that'll extend for decades to come. It's a lot like 3D, which also had its time in the spotlight but was benched once the excitement faded. I think the number one thing that VR has going for it is that not very many people have played it, meaning there's still a large consumerbase as the technology becomes cheaper and cheaper. Once everyone has played around with it for a decade or less, though, they'll get tired of it. That's why I think it'd be better off as an accessory or an option on other games rather than being a main device.
im really glad i could witness this live. as someone who was without vr, it was amazing to see vinny immersed in this. here's to more vr games this good 🍷
ah you didn't have my favorite clip from the jeff section, where Vinny pulled a bottle to him but it shattered in his hand and you can hear legitimate fear in his voice!
he actually kind of missed the button, if you do press the button the door starts to close and the combine who has you at gunpoint holds it open and shouts at you, if you press it again he shoots the button
![[Vinesauce] Vinny - Half-Life: Alyx](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
