Half-Life: Alyx - It's PC gone mad - The Bear and Badger

SpaceGazelle

After all the R&D, all those experiments, the result is almost here.

Official trailer

And here's some Valve guys talking about the development of the game (if you got excited about the trailer then maybers this vid is going to empty your bank account - Valve's best writing ever etc)

This might not float your boat but it's interesting to hear about the new problems that VR brings. The Valve guy talks for 45 mins about interacting with a simple door in VR and it gives an indication of how much testing Valve has done. The bit about the playtesters not turning the handle is proper lol.

Out at the end of March 2010. Compatible with any SteamVR headset so take your pick, although it's going to be better with the Knuckles than say, the Vive wands, but all will work, even The Quest.

Game is free for Index and/or Knuckles owners. It will just appear in your Steam Librar, plus extra content.

Also, the modding tools will be available at launch - "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."

More Alyx info at the Game Awards on 12th Dec.

Yossarian

Game retailers making games? What’s next, PC World making a word processor?

ShabbyMcCrabby

A half life VR game. The fans are gonna take this well I'm sure.

SpaceGazelle

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

A half life VR game. The fans are gonna take this well I'm sure.

They've been moaning for years about Valve's sudden obsession with VR so it's not like they didn't know it was coming. Could be make or break for VR and Valve have said themselves they're not entirely sure how successful VR will be, so they might just go back to flatscreen anyway. Presumably if it's a bit shit.

Looking forward to seeing the Source 2 engine doing it's VR thing. Should be beautiful if nothing else.

Armitage_Shankburn

What a gyp where's my half life 3

SpaceGazelle

Yossarian wrote:

Game retailers making games? What’s next, PC World making a word processor?

It's like 1998 all over again.

SpaceGazelle

I'm sort of amazed Valve are doing Twitter. They opened an account to post that.

Vela

On VR?

hylian_elf

Vela wrote:

On VR?

Blocks100

Will the first thing you have to do this VR game be to pick up a plastic polystyrene cup and throw it accurately into a bin?

Yossarian

I‘ll bet it is.

Blocks100

Oh Gordon, it was a CAN.

stellavista

Very much looking forward to this even if I may not play it for a long time unless it comes out on Oculus Quest, which it will not. Or if Valve release a lower cost version of the Index to play it on. Very happy however for Valve to state it is a ‘flagship VR’ game, which should mean they are focusing all resources on it to make it the best VR experience possible.

Gremill

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

What a gyp where's my half life 3

regmcfly

Will watch a stream.

Blocks100

of piss.

Vela

The wrong game on the wrong platform makes all the difference

bad_hair_day

Gremill wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

What a gyp where's my half life 3

'It's got something to do with your Vorsprung durch Technik, you know?

♫♪ Half Life (Half Life)'

n0face

I might buy the knuckles for this.

SpaceGazelle

stellavista wrote:

Very much looking forward to this even if I may not play it for a long time unless it comes out on Oculus Quest, which it will not. Or if Valve release a lower cost version of the Index to play it on. Very happy however for Valve to state it is a ‘flagship VR’ game, which should mean they are focusing all resources on it to make it the best VR experience possible.

There's a lot riding on this. This game is meant to show whether VR is a truly viable platform or not. All those years doing hardware R&D, sharing it with Oculus then partnering with HTC before getting fed up and doing it themselves with the Index and Knuckles, it's all been a huge experiment to see if VR is the future for Steam and this is the bit of software that'll answer that either way.

They've certainly put more effort into this than possibly all their other titles put together. They didn't have to do it, but it was the experiment that never ended and this is the result. There's two more games on the way, but this is the biggie, the one to make people sit up, take notice and part with a couple of grand.

SpaceGazelle

If anyone is a mental like me, this hour long talk might give some indication of the effort Valve have put into this.

He talks about doors in VR, a lot.

Yossarian

SpaceGazelle wrote:

There's two more games on the way, but this is the biggie, the one to make people sit up, take notice and part with a couple of grand.

Lolno.

poprock

Price of a decent PC, no?

SpaceGazelle

A grand or so for the PC and whatever Steamvr capable hmd you want. Oculus connect should work for Quest.

stellavista

SpaceGazelle wrote:

stellavista wrote:

Very much looking forward to this even if I may not play it for a long time unless it comes out on Oculus Quest, which it will not. Or if Valve release a lower cost version of the Index to play it on. Very happy however for Valve to state it is a ‘flagship VR’ game, which should mean they are focusing all resources on it to make it the best VR experience possible.

There's a lot riding on this. This game is meant to show whether VR is a truly viable platform or not. All those years doing hardware R&D, sharing it with Oculus then partnering with HTC before getting fed up and doing it themselves with the Index and Knuckles, it's all been a huge experiment to see if VR is the future for Steam and this is the bit of software that'll answer that either way.

They've certainly put more effort into this than possibly all their other titles put together. They didn't have to do it, but it was the experiment that never ended and this is the result. There's two more games on the way, but this is the biggie, the one to make people sit up, take notice and part with a couple of grand.

Well put. Totally agree. I’m probably as excited to hear Valve refer to it as a ‘flagship’ than I am with them using HL as the vehicle. Both point to this being a full fledged VR game to the best of their ability and the tech’s ability at this point in time.

SpaceGazelle

Aye, flagship seems uncharacteristically bold. This could be very good indeed. The guy in the talk I posted above says it's killing him not to be able to reveal yet what they've all been working on.

stellavista

Ok, I’m getting excited now. I was kindly gifted an Oculus Quest only two weeks ago and have been blown away but blown away by the potential. There isn’t quite the killer game yet. I played Vader Immortal and I just wanted to decide myself where to go, to move there myself, to be in control. Games like Beat Sabre etc. are awesome but VR offers immersion and true immersion requires you to have a world that you decide how to navigate and engage with.

stellavista

Also, VR gravity gun. Who doesn’t want that?

SpaceGazelle

And don't forget about Oculus Connect, which has more or less made the Rift S redundant.

SpaceGazelle

Really, I'm excited about Source 2. Only one part of The Lab was made with Source 2 iirc, the robot repair demo, and it remains the most intense feeling of presence I've had in a game, and it was staring at an old computer tape reel that's in the corner of the room. I couldn't quite believe how real it looked and they were doing stuff back then with textures and reflections that no one else has come close to replicating since.

Anyhow, here's a thing about how the new HL was always going to be VR.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-11-19-a-new-half-life-would-have-to-be-vr

Blocks100

Yes, yes that's all very well, but what we all want to know is this: Will Half Life VR be better than Halo?

Howdy, Stranger!

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