A criminally overlooked feature of this game is the release of the dev tools used to make maps and mods. Giving the tools away for such a powerful base game is what gave HL1 and HL2 it's incredible staying power.
Agreed. That helped also to make gems such as Black Mesa, a 100% fan made recreation of the first HL using HL2 engine and graphics.
I wonder what would become of this game if they added a proper story, characters interactions, NPCs, subplots etc. (think Mass Effect style).
Here's a full walkthrough for those living under a rock when it came out:*)
By the way, back then I really liked the first stages of HL2 -- the dystopian intro absolutely rocks -- but eventually had to stop playing, partly because it was getting too long, and partly because of motion sickness. This really took me by suprise because I was a gamer, had enjoyed the original HL without problems... and suddenly there was a new breed of 3D games where I got motion sickness and had to quit.
I distinctly remember two games that made me almost throw up when playing: HL2 and Jedi Outcast.
I was wondering if it was simply a stage of my life, so I decided to watch your video and... instant motion sickness. I think it has something to do with the jerky point of view and the rapid motion, but also something about how the "lens" of the viewport deforms the image near the borders.
> "A set of Source 2 tools for building new environments will ship with the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy. Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game’s virtual reality gameplay tools and components." [0]
They do have that feature coming with it? Or am I confused on what you are referring to?
I remember everyone saying Blizzard would release map making tools for Overwatch like they did for Starcraft and Valve did for TF2/CSGO.
Seems like a great way to add longevity to the game and the community content can even help fund the game.
The StarCraft map making tools were probably my first experience using triggers and and events to make things happen. It was such a cool feeling to be able to make things happen and just mess around with everything. It helped get me into stuff like rpgmaker and flash and learning how to program in general. I miss the days of modding tools. The neverwinter nights one was also pretty amazing. I spent a lot of time playing around with that one too.
More ambitiously, I think the results would be amazing if Blizz made a public version of WoWEdit available and added an “arcade mode” to WoW to showcase said maps. People did downright incredible things with just a lowly 2001 RTS engine (WCIII) — what could they do with the most polished MMORPG engine on the market?
I think a server browser and the ability to run community servers would be essential alongside that. Back when I was big into multiplayer PC games that whole scene was amazing fun, and is the reason even games like WolfET still survive in some form today.
This has got to be the most narrowly targeted game ever.
I played through all of HL/HL2/Ep1/Ep2 IIRC, but I can barely even remember the story clearly it was so long ago. And it's such a blur maybe I never finished Ep2.
I was 21 when HL1 came out but I didn't get to play it till I was like 24 maybe when I had gotten out of school and got a nice computer & some money. HL2 came out when I was 27.. still playing games but I don't remember beating it till much later. Probably 2010, by which point I was married and had bought a house.
Now I'm 42 and I have a 7 year old.. so I'm old enough to actually remember this, don't really have the time to play anymore.. and I'd be looking at buying a new PC & VR equipment to play it.. yah no thanks.
That and I remember HL2 and Ep1/Ep2 taking forever. The whole thing was good, unlike time sinks like Oblivion and Skyrim that were full of filler, but it still took forever to play through.
Just seems like a small target of players who are old enough to fondly remember the original + still have time to play long form games + still have gaming equipment + have VR/are willing to buy VR.
Even as an engineer who knows more than a usual amount of gamers including younger players I'm not sure I know anyone who has VR equipment.
If you're 15-20 do you care about this or do you just think it's your Dad's stuff?
I think you underestimate how popular Half-Life was. The #1 game played on steam right now is a former HL mod, Counter Strike. I don't think the market for HL is small at all.
VR, though, is a different story. That absolutely limits the market. That being said, I'd wager that a majority of people who play VR games on PC will likely buy this game, as it's probably the first true AAA title developed specifically for VR.
I think we're all waiting with bated breath to see if Valve can push VR into the mainstream with this or anything else they do. I'm not going to buy a kit just to play glorified mobile games, but if this is really the future of entertainment then I can see myself buying a headset.
I'm sure Valve is thinking of this as a killer app to drive VR adoption. All it takes is one amazing game, but it's been a chicken and egg problem for buying VR hardware before sufficiently compelling games are available.
counter strike is a completely different game than half life. it's been sold as a separate game for decades. just because they share a former history doesnt mean anyone who is interested in counter strike is interested in this new half life game. i'd say its almost completely opposite userbases. one more hard core competitive multiplayer fps, the other casual single player VR. VR is an incredibly small market and i totally agree this is a game targeted at a tiny audience
Besides sharing an engine, Counter Strike and Half-Life have little to do with each other. One is a ruthless and plotless multiplayer game with a military theme, the other is a scifi plot-heavy single player experience (yes, HL also has multiplayer, but that's not the point of the game).
Also it will push people, like me, who have had no real incentive to go to VR games other than the novelty, to do so with my upcoming home PC upgrade in the next month or two.
There seem to be a couple of AAA titles developed specifically for VR. 'Westworld Awakening' and 'Terminator: Resistance' are big franchise names that probably count (AAA is a bit of a vague category).
Personally, being the frugal sort, I'll wait until it is on special. By which time I'll have upgraded my headset to one I can wear for more than 30 mins without it becoming an irritation.
I do wonder if the demographic is bang on the money, with a large number of headsets in the hands of people in their late 30s and 40s who remember the original Half-Life. I had originally thought Valve would first reissue the Half-Life and Portal games for VR, or even reboot Half-Life.
I played video games in my teens, including the HL series. I stopped playing video games roughly five years ago. I will be building a computer to play this game.
Peers my age are also very excited for this. Not just because it's a new Half Life game, but because it's the VR game we have been waiting for since the VR craze started.
I understand what you're saying and I can see why you'd think that, but it's helpful for me to think of Half Life like the videogame equivalent of Star Wars. Not being alive during the release of the first films doesn't preclude one from entering at any point and enjoying the continuation of the story. Even if they haven't played it, kids today know of Half Life as a first person shooter that changed how we play first person shooters, so they're a warm lead for the sequel/prequel.
Star Wars was never a thing outside of America. Even today, fans in China, who otherwise love their CGI heavy sci-fi, don't care much for Star Wars.
You really have to have been either a firsthand or secondhand part of that culture to appreciate Star Wars and similar IPs. Even if you didn't watch it when it was released, you probably heard everyone from your dad to SNL discuss it.
If that wasn't your experience growing up, I doubt you'll care much for it as an adult now
Half Life is still absolutely legendary for Gen Z, mostly because of the meme status. Also the fact that it's so inexpensive to pick up on Steam Sales means most Steam users I know have given it a shot or know the gist of the game.
> Just seems like a small target of players who are old enough to fondly remember the original
Why oh why would you need to play prequels to enjoy a game?
Half-Life is a series where you have guns and you kill shit in an inherently interesting setting: earth invasion. Getting dropped in medias res without knowing 100% of what is going on is just an ancient trope of story-telling.
Look how much people enjoy the latest Doom game. You don't need to have played the original to grasp the idea of demons pouring into earth through some sort of interdimensional gate. You aim and you shoot them.
I agree that its probably not going to impact the experience much if you haven't played the previous games, but your comparison to Doom makes no sense.
The original Doom games intentionally had almost no story. The new Doom was a complete reboot so even if the old ones had a story it wouldn't matter at all. HL:Alyx is a continuation of the story that falls between 1 and 2.
Agreed. These games are designed so you can start with any of them and still have a good time and be able to follow the story, just like any major movie action movie series. Sure, you might not follow quite everything if you haven't played/seen what came before, but you'll follow enough so it really won't be a problem.
> This has got to be the most narrowly targeted game ever.
I'll have you know that this honor goes to the point-and-click adventure game / noir detective story that licensed the "Fables" comic book series, "The Wolf Among Us." It was great, and I may be the only point and click adventure game enthusiast who was also a fan of "Fables."
But seriously, I think that the low spread of VR is the whole point. Valve wants people to buy VR headsets. How do you convince them to do that? Create content that people want that needs a VR headset.
The Orange Box came out and was a big hit when I was still a kid, now in my 20s I certainly remember the series fondly. Not that I have a lot of spare time either.
> Just seems like a small target of players who are old enough to fondly remember the original + still have time to play long form games + still have gaming equipment + have VR/are willing to buy VR.
Are they making playing the previous games a requirement? Games can stand on their own, even if they are best enjoyed when you already have some emotional investment.
No idea, but my guess would be the previous games are a requirement, or at least HL2. The Half-Life series is "story heavy" single player. These are characters we know.
The Oculus Quest I bought a few months ago is amazing. It's definitely not going to play this, even if it could support it (it can't on the hardware it comes with), but that's not to say in a year or two maybe there will be a relatively cheap system that can. At $400-$500 the Quest is more along the lines of a new high-end dedicated console, but it also offers an experience at that price point which I don't think can be matched. If Valve can make a Steambox that's a VR headset like the Oculus, that would be huge.
All I can say is that if you haven't tried some of the more unique VR games like Superhot, it's hard to express how amazing this game has the potential to be.
Facebook is going to release Oculus link soon so that you can connect your Oculus Quest to a PC like a normal rift. I think that might be able to play this.
You can play it using Virtual Desktop's Steam VR mode (sideloaded) or running it on your computer and streaming to the Quest using the new Link mode, running on your desktop PC, or suitably equipped laptop.
I don't think the demographic is that narrow, there are plenty of people who have only been into gaming for a few years or just started that have played through Half Life. I remember when the orange box came out in middle/high school and every one was talking about it, those same people are just a few years out of university with the money and interest to try a VR release.
Hey old man (I'm 40 so for those 2 extra years I can call you that ;)).
I have a very similar situation, with a 10, 8, 5 and 0 year old (yeah I'm a bit more crazy than you). Difference is that I actually do have a bit of spare time.
I also fondly remember all the half-life games, as memory permits of course.
For me this is a different story: The whole VR experience passed me by a bit, until now. By seeing this, my hands are itching to pull out my wallet and pay a crazy amount of money for this toy. The benefit of 40 year olds is that they probably can cough up the money for all this VR stuff.
I'm not sure yet, but there is definitely a strong itch now that I see this.
A new HL game probably also means some cool multiplayer games are coming up. I'm not only thinking about Counter Strike, but also Team Fortress.
I agree with the parent. The VR aspect really narrows the market to someone who has a powerful PC and wants to spend at least another $400 for a VR headset. As far as I can tell, all the VR headsets are proprietary, and games must be written to support them... for some reason. Which is a huge turn off. I don't want to buy a VR headset, then find out the next badass VR game only works with some other headset...
What if the game could be played by two people together in co-op mode? If so, we could play with our kids, and it becomes more than just a way to have fun ourselves, but an avenue for family bonding (at least that's how I'd sell it to my wife).
"Play on any SteamVR system. If you have VR hardware that works with a computer, then it works with SteamVR."
Bravo Valve. This is why anyone interested in this should get a Vive and stay well clear of Oculus/Facebook's headsets. They are busy trying to capture the VR market by setting up exclusivity arrangements with studios to lock games to their platform to cut others out which just divides up the already small market.
Value have built a cross platform framework and SDK and are releasing their games for all headsets.
Or get an Oculus made device and play all Their content in addition of all SteamVR content.
Valves platform is Steam (a monopoly game marketplace where they get 30% of every sale.)
Oculus exclusives are financed by Oculus. Without it those games would not exist.
Although I suspect they have carefully made it so that the game has quite a few mechanics that would benefit greatly from the finger-tracking mechanics available only on the.... Valve Index. To be clear, your point is absolutely correct, but I'd be shellshocked if the experience isn't geared heavily to take the most advantage out of their own headset.
Yeah, sure. But I'm all in favour of that. I want to see systems compete on their comparative merits. That hopefully drives innovation. I just dislike the way Oculus are preferring to compete by locking up the market with exclusives. It only hurts gamers by reducing choice.
I thought Oculus touch did support finger tracking. Wikipedia describes it as a "system for detecting finger gestures which perhaps is different. I've only ever used a Vive, so I'm not sure.
Valve has picked a market to focus on (PC VR) at the cost of foregoing the much larger audience of standalone VR customers. You can’t blame these customers for not buying the Index since it doesn’t meet their needs. If Valve made their own standalone headset at a similar price point, I think people would be all over it.
I see that Windows MR is supported, but I wonder how well my Dell Visor (which is awesome btw) is going to work with this game -- it doesn't support individual finger tracking, just general hand-location. Will that ruin a lot of the immersiveness?
One of the links off the page talks about how it adapts based on your systems capabilities. It supports both the finger tracking controllers as well as the older trigger controllers.
Eh, I don't think it's as big of a deal as you're suggesting. Alyx is pretty much the only choice if they wanted to use a pre-existing character as an action protagonist set between HL1 & 2. And from the trailer, it looks like the only "gendered" thing about the player's avatar is the voiceover. That's not a "body swap illusion" like the paper is talking about. In principal, I don't see it having any more deep psychological effect than, say, Perfect Dark.
> Alyx is pretty much the only choice if they wanted to use a pre-existing character as an action protagonist set between HL1 & 2.
Before I say this, note I'm looking forward to playing as Alyx, and don't expect gender to make much of a difference in a game/story like this.
But as far as not having options, I disagree. Barney was already a playable character in Blue Shift, he's shown to be relevant to the plot in HL2. Not only that but he's undercover at least some of the time, opening up gameplay avenues that Alyx wouldn't have available. Not that I'm suggesting that HL in VR needs a Papers Please style minigame or anything...
> I think a fascinating part of Alyx is Valve choosing a female protagonist.
There has been other games with a female protagonist, but the backlash was so bad against them that they were completely forgotten. I know it's obscure, but you can look it up, there's those two games called "Portal" and "Portal 2", and the two main characters are female. You've probably never heard of them because of all the misogyny.
To be honest I'm surprised that there wasn't any backlash. I find the weight and attractiveness jokes that GLaDOS throws at the player absolutely hilarious. But that can be a touchy subject, especially with Chell as the protagonist instead of, say, Gordon Freeman.
True, but Chell had no speaking lines (not hating on Valve, Gordon Freeman/basically all their 1st person protagonists are mute). We've seen Alyx as a developed character who's gone through some trauma (not spoiling here) so I'd argue this is a bit more exciting.
What do you mean by this? As far as I can see there is no actual VR port of Portal. You can play it through something like VorpX, which gets you 3D display through a headset, but that can hardly be called "VR'd to hell and back".
It's an interesting choice by Valve. They're basically making a bunch of white men play as a black woman. In practice I agree with the other response that it's not a big deal. Most VR experiences either race or gender swap me (I'm a black male) or turn me into an abstract form or a robot. It can be disorienting at first but you get used to it.
Gordon was famously mute and his hands and forearms were hidden. This allowed anyone to easily immerse themselves. (Same for Portal.)
Unlike a third person game where you're controlling a character, I could see how having a different voice and hands in VR would be odd. I bet Valve realized that a mute protagonist no longer works in a story-driven environment.
I remember reading various making of stories regarding the half-life world back when it was still relatively new, and even then the designers spent a lot of time talking about how difficult it was having a mute, non-interactive protagonist. What they pulled off is excellent considering the state of gaming at the time, but I think you're right in that it just wouldn't fly today.
From what I've seen in VR platforms that support custom avatars (even in modded Beat Saber), the userbase may be male but most of them want to be in female bodies...
How is this different than a gender swap in a non-vr game?
I'll have to join vr chat as a girl tonight and see how things go.
That said I normally play star citizen w/ a female avatar, and other than thinking "the person I'm talking to might think I'm a girl" my mindset doesn't change much...
I think the disappointing part is there is so little choice in the avatar you can play in these games. I would like something with how bioware approached SWTOR, the dialog changes, voice actor swap included, to match the gender of the character and from there it is just as easy to adapt skin colors and features. Even better, her name is about as neutral as you can ask for!
Maybe looking down and seeing big breasts (assuming that's the case with Alyx) triggers something uncomfortable in a male's brain. Maybe we can feel like what it is to be trans and feel that your body "isn't right" for you.
>stereotype threatening situations have been linked to the inability to recruit and retain women into these fields
Come on, we know the inability to recruit and retain women in these fields is down to a culture that simply does not value the contributions of women in STEM as highly as their contributions in other 'industries'.
Looks like this game's focus is going to be on the player, rather than the game world itself.
Where HL1/2 were focused on making the objects, enemies, and places you interacted with feel like real life. HL:A will be focused on the character you control, giving you complete autonomy with finger capture and motion control.
Valve is pushing forward gaming with Half Life once again
Given the accuracy (or lack of it) of individual finger movements on the Valve Index controller, it's not going to be anything more than a gimmick. The tech looks impressive in a demo, but our hands are used to manipulating things with a much finer touch than the Index controller allows so it doesn't translate very well to games.
it's not going to be anything more than a gimmick.
Not sure if I share this sentiment, I read elsewhere Valve is treating this as their next "flagship" release, a true first class VR game (hopefully not just some 30 minute "experience" that ends right as it's getting good). It this were literally any other game studio I'd have an eyebrow raised right now, but when Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behind something as a flagship, lead-off hitter, they've yet to disappoint.
I can't help but disagree here. Hand movements and interactions with the world of VR today are like having cinderblocks for hands. The nuanced control that this is going give will be huge IMO
At first I got really excited, but the thought of walking through Ravenholm in VR made me uncomfortable and increased my heart rate. I'm a big wuss, so I don't think I'd handle scary games in VR. The headcrab jumping towards the camera in the trailer was bad enough.
I'm also not a fan of things jumping out at you but I think it's going to be like food that's too spicy but you keep eating anyway. The adrenaline of the time critical puzzles and gunfights should make up for the scary bits.
I play mostly FPS games in VR. To be honest stabbing a dude was a pretty jarring experience the first time I did it in VR. I also remember hitting the ground pretty hard the first time I heard rounds whizzing over my head. But that kind of adreneline pumping experience goes away really quickly. Once it's normalized your body stops having a reaction to it.
You can't develop PTSD from VR because VR isn't real. Even if you get scared it's not the same kind of fear as being in a situation where you can actually get hurt, or die, or you actually kill another human being.
>You can't develop PTSD from VR because VR isn't real. Even if you get scared it's not the same kind of fear as being in a situation where you can actually get hurt, or die, or you actually kill another human being.
Weird, this study shows the exact opposite with regards to regular video games.
>Accumulating evidence led to a clear consensus that a high frequency of exposure to violent video games significantly alters important interpersonal behaviors in negative ways (Bender et al., 2018). Atypical disadvantageous defensive reactions and higher vulnerability to PTSD symptoms, revealed in the present study, add to other shortcomings for the heavy players themselves.
I would assume the same in VR, if not more significant as it is more immersive than regular video games.
I do not have a study for VR video games however as I do not know of any that have been done off the top of my head.
I would like to add, I by no means want to make light of the impact PTSD due to real life trauma. I personally know a few people who suffer from being in active combat and would never wish that upon anyone.
I personally feel that PTSD developed due to real life trauma will always be far more severe than any sort of PTSD developed through video games or other virtual means.
Unless you're a pilot, try using good a VR airplane simulator for a while (DCS World for example), getting a feel for the airplane and then push it until you crash into the ground. The moment you loose control and start falling towards the ground, you start panicking, even though you know it's a game.
While not PTSD, I can totally imagine you can find ways of using VR to cause PTSD or similar. Like forcing someone to have a VR headset on with disturbing experiences for a long time and the person would surely eventually go insane.
It looks interesting at least, It's hard to tell how gimmicky it will be though. I've felt like a lot of VR experiences I have had felt gimmicky. Some of my best VR experiences have been more in line with games like beat saber rather than story driven games. I'm also the type of person that pretty much exclusively plays story driven games so I want to like those experiences in VR but they just feel kind of off to me and not relaxing.
I'm not pleased that Valve has shifted its focus from developing great games to being a digital platform rent-extractor that tinkers with VR and disinterestedly ships occasional updates to Dota and CS:GO, but I'm optimistic this might be good, even if it's only out of motivated self-interest to drum up the VR hype again.
What I mean is, I get the sense Valve is unhappy that VR hasn't had its system-selling killer app yet, and I wonder if Alyx is trying to be that. If so, I'm reasonably hopeful they'll push hard to make this a genuinely good game that shows VR's full potential, rather than a disposable gimmick.
> I'm not pleased that Valve has shifted its focus from developing great games to being a digital platform rent-extractor
I actually kinda am. Because they created a really great platform that has helped the market thrive even for tiny nobody indie devs. They've set a seriously high bar for digital store fronts and distribution services. I think I've got a lot more enjoyment from the games Steam has enabled to exist and find an audience than I have from any game Valve itself produced.
Hell, they even made Linux gaming a significantly less laughable concept than it once was.
Yeah, I can't bring my self to spend the 400-1000 dollars required for adding vr to my already too expensive pc until something happens that convinces me it isn't a gimmick. We will see, but hopefully? this will be the first full, AAA vr game experience. The trailer sure as hell looks pretty good.
Call me salty but I am not sure I am super interested in half life 1.5 while half life 2 episode 2 has ended on a cliffhanger more than ten years ago.
I am still curious to see how they will handle the character of Alyx, she was little more than an admiration delivery device in half life 2. They will have to do a lot more now that she is the center of the game.
Actually if anything she was the primary driver of the plot. Freeman, being a passive mute, follows what Alyx and co are doing for the majority of the plot(s).
I don't know why they didn't do this years ago after Half-Life 2 first came out. I remember thinking for sure that just like with Half-Life they released Opposing Force and Blue Shift (which were both, admittedly, not planned for when the original HL was released) they would be releasing expansions with Alyx and Barney.
Readit News
Here's a full walkthrough for those living under a rock when it came out:*)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brFEN4x9Xao
By the way, back then I really liked the first stages of HL2 -- the dystopian intro absolutely rocks -- but eventually had to stop playing, partly because it was getting too long, and partly because of motion sickness. This really took me by suprise because I was a gamer, had enjoyed the original HL without problems... and suddenly there was a new breed of 3D games where I got motion sickness and had to quit.
I distinctly remember two games that made me almost throw up when playing: HL2 and Jedi Outcast.
I was wondering if it was simply a stage of my life, so I decided to watch your video and... instant motion sickness. I think it has something to do with the jerky point of view and the rapid motion, but also something about how the "lens" of the viewport deforms the image near the borders.
Does it happen to anyone else? :(
> "A set of Source 2 tools for building new environments will ship with the game, enabling any player to build and contribute new environments for the community to enjoy. Hammer, Valve’s level authoring tool, has been updated with all of the game’s virtual reality gameplay tools and components." [0]
They do have that feature coming with it? Or am I confused on what you are referring to?
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/546560/HalfLife_Alyx/ (appears in the description under the "Community-built environments" header)
EDIT: I misread what you meant. Haha I thought you meant overlooked by their team, as if they didn't include it.
But even Blizz couldn't reliably make maps using their internal tools that kept Reaper where he was supposed to be.
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I played through all of HL/HL2/Ep1/Ep2 IIRC, but I can barely even remember the story clearly it was so long ago. And it's such a blur maybe I never finished Ep2.
I was 21 when HL1 came out but I didn't get to play it till I was like 24 maybe when I had gotten out of school and got a nice computer & some money. HL2 came out when I was 27.. still playing games but I don't remember beating it till much later. Probably 2010, by which point I was married and had bought a house.
Now I'm 42 and I have a 7 year old.. so I'm old enough to actually remember this, don't really have the time to play anymore.. and I'd be looking at buying a new PC & VR equipment to play it.. yah no thanks.
That and I remember HL2 and Ep1/Ep2 taking forever. The whole thing was good, unlike time sinks like Oblivion and Skyrim that were full of filler, but it still took forever to play through.
Just seems like a small target of players who are old enough to fondly remember the original + still have time to play long form games + still have gaming equipment + have VR/are willing to buy VR.
Even as an engineer who knows more than a usual amount of gamers including younger players I'm not sure I know anyone who has VR equipment. If you're 15-20 do you care about this or do you just think it's your Dad's stuff?
VR, though, is a different story. That absolutely limits the market. That being said, I'd wager that a majority of people who play VR games on PC will likely buy this game, as it's probably the first true AAA title developed specifically for VR.
Personally, being the frugal sort, I'll wait until it is on special. By which time I'll have upgraded my headset to one I can wear for more than 30 mins without it becoming an irritation.
I do wonder if the demographic is bang on the money, with a large number of headsets in the hands of people in their late 30s and 40s who remember the original Half-Life. I had originally thought Valve would first reissue the Half-Life and Portal games for VR, or even reboot Half-Life.
I played video games in my teens, including the HL series. I stopped playing video games roughly five years ago. I will be building a computer to play this game.
Peers my age are also very excited for this. Not just because it's a new Half Life game, but because it's the VR game we have been waiting for since the VR craze started.
You really have to have been either a firsthand or secondhand part of that culture to appreciate Star Wars and similar IPs. Even if you didn't watch it when it was released, you probably heard everyone from your dad to SNL discuss it.
If that wasn't your experience growing up, I doubt you'll care much for it as an adult now
Why oh why would you need to play prequels to enjoy a game?
Half-Life is a series where you have guns and you kill shit in an inherently interesting setting: earth invasion. Getting dropped in medias res without knowing 100% of what is going on is just an ancient trope of story-telling.
Look how much people enjoy the latest Doom game. You don't need to have played the original to grasp the idea of demons pouring into earth through some sort of interdimensional gate. You aim and you shoot them.
The original Doom games intentionally had almost no story. The new Doom was a complete reboot so even if the old ones had a story it wouldn't matter at all. HL:Alyx is a continuation of the story that falls between 1 and 2.
It's certainly a trope. But is it ancient? I'm trying to think of ancient examples of this but I can't. Are you sure it's not a modern trope?
I'll have you know that this honor goes to the point-and-click adventure game / noir detective story that licensed the "Fables" comic book series, "The Wolf Among Us." It was great, and I may be the only point and click adventure game enthusiast who was also a fan of "Fables."
But seriously, I think that the low spread of VR is the whole point. Valve wants people to buy VR headsets. How do you convince them to do that? Create content that people want that needs a VR headset.
Are they making playing the previous games a requirement? Games can stand on their own, even if they are best enjoyed when you already have some emotional investment.
All I can say is that if you haven't tried some of the more unique VR games like Superhot, it's hard to express how amazing this game has the potential to be.
edit: it looks like it's actually already out
I have a very similar situation, with a 10, 8, 5 and 0 year old (yeah I'm a bit more crazy than you). Difference is that I actually do have a bit of spare time.
I also fondly remember all the half-life games, as memory permits of course.
For me this is a different story: The whole VR experience passed me by a bit, until now. By seeing this, my hands are itching to pull out my wallet and pay a crazy amount of money for this toy. The benefit of 40 year olds is that they probably can cough up the money for all this VR stuff.
I'm not sure yet, but there is definitely a strong itch now that I see this.
A new HL game probably also means some cool multiplayer games are coming up. I'm not only thinking about Counter Strike, but also Team Fortress.
Bravo Valve. This is why anyone interested in this should get a Vive and stay well clear of Oculus/Facebook's headsets. They are busy trying to capture the VR market by setting up exclusivity arrangements with studios to lock games to their platform to cut others out which just divides up the already small market.
Value have built a cross platform framework and SDK and are releasing their games for all headsets.
I thought Oculus touch did support finger tracking. Wikipedia describes it as a "system for detecting finger gestures which perhaps is different. I've only ever used a Vive, so I'm not sure.
85%+ of VR users are male, compared to say 70/30 male/female balance of say Fornite. (1/2)
Any way you carve it the audience for Alyx is going to weight heavily male.
And research suggests that gender-swapping in VR is a profound psychological experience:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8260949
(1) https://www.rakutenintelligence.com/blog/2016/virtual-realit...
(2) https://www.statista.com/statistics/865625/fortnite-players-...
(3) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8260949
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark
Before I say this, note I'm looking forward to playing as Alyx, and don't expect gender to make much of a difference in a game/story like this.
But as far as not having options, I disagree. Barney was already a playable character in Blue Shift, he's shown to be relevant to the plot in HL2. Not only that but he's undercover at least some of the time, opening up gameplay avenues that Alyx wouldn't have available. Not that I'm suggesting that HL in VR needs a Papers Please style minigame or anything...
There has been other games with a female protagonist, but the backlash was so bad against them that they were completely forgotten. I know it's obscure, but you can look it up, there's those two games called "Portal" and "Portal 2", and the two main characters are female. You've probably never heard of them because of all the misogyny.
... or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chell_(Portal)
I think Alyx makes sense as a protagonist given how prominent of a character she was in HL2, regardless of gender.
What do you mean by this? As far as I can see there is no actual VR port of Portal. You can play it through something like VorpX, which gets you 3D display through a headset, but that can hardly be called "VR'd to hell and back".
- Most men don't mind playing a female character (think Lara Croft).
- Most women prefer to play a female character.
So the real question is why there aren't more game studios using female protagonists.
It's in a lot of good company in that respect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_featuring...
I doubt that VR is more than incremental in terms of creating an illusion of gender.
Unlike a third person game where you're controlling a character, I could see how having a different voice and hands in VR would be odd. I bet Valve realized that a mute protagonist no longer works in a story-driven environment.
I'll have to join vr chat as a girl tonight and see how things go.
That said I normally play star citizen w/ a female avatar, and other than thinking "the person I'm talking to might think I'm a girl" my mindset doesn't change much...
Or Samus, if you want to go back even further.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat#Stereotype_l...
Come on, we know the inability to recruit and retain women in these fields is down to a culture that simply does not value the contributions of women in STEM as highly as their contributions in other 'industries'.
Dead Comment
Where HL1/2 were focused on making the objects, enemies, and places you interacted with feel like real life. HL:A will be focused on the character you control, giving you complete autonomy with finger capture and motion control.
Valve is pushing forward gaming with Half Life once again
Not sure if I share this sentiment, I read elsewhere Valve is treating this as their next "flagship" release, a true first class VR game (hopefully not just some 30 minute "experience" that ends right as it's getting good). It this were literally any other game studio I'd have an eyebrow raised right now, but when Valve puts their full muscle and creative energy behind something as a flagship, lead-off hitter, they've yet to disappoint.
In all seriousness though – is there any studies done on potential PTSD-like effects that arise from this sort of VR game?
Over at Children's Colorado and they are also trying out VR for pediatric pain management. It seems to be effective thus far.
VR's killer app may well be Alyx, but there are a lot of potential uses that are out there that can really help out.
The only time I hit the ground was when I tried to go into a crouch and had the floor height misconfigured. That left a mark.
Weird, this study shows the exact opposite with regards to regular video games.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6370668/
Conclusion from above study:
>Accumulating evidence led to a clear consensus that a high frequency of exposure to violent video games significantly alters important interpersonal behaviors in negative ways (Bender et al., 2018). Atypical disadvantageous defensive reactions and higher vulnerability to PTSD symptoms, revealed in the present study, add to other shortcomings for the heavy players themselves.
I would assume the same in VR, if not more significant as it is more immersive than regular video games.
I do not have a study for VR video games however as I do not know of any that have been done off the top of my head.
I would like to add, I by no means want to make light of the impact PTSD due to real life trauma. I personally know a few people who suffer from being in active combat and would never wish that upon anyone.
I personally feel that PTSD developed due to real life trauma will always be far more severe than any sort of PTSD developed through video games or other virtual means.
While not PTSD, I can totally imagine you can find ways of using VR to cause PTSD or similar. Like forcing someone to have a VR headset on with disturbing experiences for a long time and the person would surely eventually go insane.
Comical and also accurate.
What I mean is, I get the sense Valve is unhappy that VR hasn't had its system-selling killer app yet, and I wonder if Alyx is trying to be that. If so, I'm reasonably hopeful they'll push hard to make this a genuinely good game that shows VR's full potential, rather than a disposable gimmick.
I actually kinda am. Because they created a really great platform that has helped the market thrive even for tiny nobody indie devs. They've set a seriously high bar for digital store fronts and distribution services. I think I've got a lot more enjoyment from the games Steam has enabled to exist and find an audience than I have from any game Valve itself produced.
Hell, they even made Linux gaming a significantly less laughable concept than it once was.
I am still curious to see how they will handle the character of Alyx, she was little more than an admiration delivery device in half life 2. They will have to do a lot more now that she is the center of the game.
Actually if anything she was the primary driver of the plot. Freeman, being a passive mute, follows what Alyx and co are doing for the majority of the plot(s).
Why does she fall in love with the mute player character at first sight ? Don't she already have relationships ?
What exactly does she find attractive in that mute guy that appears and disappear ?
She is here to as a reward/carrot for teenage boys, not as a full fledged character with her own wants and needs :/
The eps made me genuinely care about her, as much as one can for a fictional character.
The fucking ending of Ep 2 haunts me to this day.