Half-Life Alyx

    20% finished The Witcher 3 on xbox, and that is a much higher amount than I would have expected.

    If only people knew how many % of players boot up the multiplayer component of the game once, then never tries it again. That number is crazy high

    Quote from [HP]

    23 hours ago, [HP] said: https://www.pcgamer.com/almost-1-milli…-alyx-launched/

    1 mil, not bad at all. Specially considering it's nearly impossible to buy a VR headset right now, in normal times that number could easily be double.

    Now the ball is on the side of all the other VR devs, after playing and finishing Alyx, people will be hungry for more games to play on their headsets.

    I think it’sa great result. We were expecting Valve to deliver the VR killer app and they did… I wonder if they have the second bullet in the chamber, because if you bought a headset now for HL, certainly you regard what’s available not good enough to spend time and money on. Sure people will try something, but what’s the next big thing?

    Regarding sales, I doubt numbers would be much different without the virus: we are still in very early adopter/enthusiast territory, the average gamer can’t afford the headset alone, but let’s not forget the machine you also need. Plus all the inconvenience of setup, necessary space…

    dunno if is too many jumps of speculations, but to compare with a product that everybody needs and are more inclined to spend money on, phones: the OnePlus 8 and Samsung S20 released around the same time of HLA; the 1+ (enthusiast audience) sold out, the S20 (much wider audience) not so much (Samsung not releasing numbers, projections say they are selling way less than last year and they are even offering to buy back the phones after couple years(!)).

    Most games =/= HL:A

    Most games are developed by a studio that has sunk their future into a gamble on the success of the game. Most games depend on hype and buzz and a hot take economy for the first few weeks after launch.

    HL:A is pretty evidently a future-looking endeavor by a studio that isn’t relying on it to do anything financially, that is going to be re-released every single time VR hardware improves (which it will do a lot over the next few years).

    There is just no point trying to apply traditional game sensibilities to what is pretty obviously an industry outlier product that is basically 10 years ahead of its time.

    HL:A did well enough with critics that Valve likely achieved everything they wanted to do with it and more. I intend on completing it soon, it’s just hard to play VR games right now because the hardware still feels stiflingly primitive, even the Index. Ironically, it feels a lot like trying to play a video game with a headcrab attached to your face.

    If I can be honest I dont really remember any of the music from the game other than the old hl1 tracks they added for nostalgia.

    Quote from dux

    On 5/9/2020 at 2:34 PM, dux said: If I can be honest I dont really remember any of the music from the game other than the old hl1 tracks they added for nostalgia.

    In his video about future HL stuff, from which I found about the OST, Tyler was saying this is a new mix/master as in-game the music is adjusted depending on pace and what's happening... is this true? I'm curious because Valve has been doing this "play track XY" even when other games before or that came out at same time as HL2 and Episodes were featuring an adaptive soundtrack.

    @Radu from the same video mentioned above, he was saying no real SDK is being released? That there will be an editor, but every content created will be for HLA, so no total conversions and standalone VR games on Source 2 (just yet). Personally I'd love to be able to play with the editor I've never stopped thinking of new and old ideas for HL2 content, and just looking at some gameplay from HLA was already inspiring... but there wouldn't be any point not being able to test what you build? (that's ignoring the logistics that don't allow me to do pretty much anything atm)

    The puzzles in this game are dreadful. Really rough, awkward momentum killers.

    Pretty sure I just played what will be the worst level of this game, level 8 Containment. It starts off pretty dark and pitch-black and just kind of unwelcoming, so it's off to a bad start. Then you fight antlions which end up being pretty underwhelming enemies, potentially quite fun to fight but not really particularly challenging or interesting in the end, and totally indistinguishable from every other enemy in terms of combat approach. They run at you. You run back. You shoot at them. They die. This is where melee would have been a welcome alternative to shooting in this game, if every enemy is just going to run at me like an idiot, let me hack at them.

    Then the game throws probably the biggest disaster of a puzzle I've ever seen at the player, where you're supposed to toggle some switches that are in the ceiling (?!?), really annoying. It's a truly confusing experience trying to figure that the game is expecting you to interact with the ceiling, that'll take you a good 15 minutes. Then you have to determine if it's a physics stacking puzzle, that took me quite a while, because the game really seemed to be indicating that it was. Turns out it was not! Great.

    Physics stacking puzzles are NOT pleasant in this game, because physics in this game is totally inconsistent. Some big things can be picked up, some cannot, some are moveable, some are not, the controls feel sticky and unresponsive grabbing things. But, then it turns out, you're supposed to just... reach for the ceiling? What the? Reaching for things in VR in general is so unpleasant. Reaching for the ceiling is like ultimate mind-fuck and feels terrible because there is no sense of depth to the environment that you feel intuitively enough. Then MORE switches in wall puzzles. Like, ten of them... endless with the wall puzzles.

    Digression: a version of this game with every single puzzle or puzzle-like element removed, would have been far better to play (but would have been about 1/10th the length...)

    This level was maximally awkward in terms of staring at walls trying to figure out how to solve what is obviously a time-sink. Then at the end it throws in a close-quarters Combine combat beat, which are some of the fastest killing enemies and with no room to maneuver around them, so you're virtually guaranteed to die the first time as you scope out the environment. All of this as if to punish the player for solving the puzzle mess. Honestly bewildering pacing...

    What is this bit? I genuinely do not recall this at all. Come to think of it, I can't recall a lot of my play through. I remember all the big set pieces, but bits in between I'm a bit hazy.

    Quote from dux

    11 minutes ago, dux said: What is this bit? I genuinely do not recall this at all. Come to think of it, I can't recall a lot of my play through. I remember all the big set pieces, but bits in between I'm a bit hazy.

    It’s the end of the zoo level, but it has no zoo related theming or theming at all really, it’s just some dimly lit nondescript chamber.

    I got stuck here for a while. IIRC the method for following cables back didn't work the same here which confused me for an age.

    Quote from Lizard

    18 minutes ago, Lizard said: You guys talking about the greyish / blueish environment full with antlions?

    It’s after you go through the tiny crack in the wall that takes you to the end portion of the level.

    Ohh yeah the one where you have to climb on some crates in a dark corner that don't even look like you should be able to get on. That one took me a while too lol. I was climbing all over the place but only looked up once I heard the inflating explody thing.

    I suspect the physics feel sticky because they tried to limit you from picking up too much weight? Could be done better for sure. First time I tried moving a ragdoll I thought it was stuck in the floor or something.

    Quote from jd40

    23 minutes ago, jd40 said: Ohh yeah the one where you have to climb on some crates in a dark corner that don't even look like you should be able to get on. That one took me a while too lol. I was climbing all over the place but only looked up once I heard the inflating explody thing.

    If it wasn’t mean spirited I would almost do an entire video about that room... and what the hell is supposed to be going on there. It’s just a failure on so many different fronts.

    All at the same time, it is:

    -The exit of a Zoo

    -Some kind of infested chasm

    -A storage area

    -An apartment kitchen/dining room

    -A Combine computer room

    -A boiler room

    None of it clicks together, and you’re stuck there because it’s meant to justify a truly bad puzzle. Puzzle areas are supposed to be really strongly themed, precisely because (especially if the puzzle sucks) players are going to take a while to get out of the area.

    No one can tell me that area should not have been cut. It’s supposed to be a damn Zoo-themed level. Just do Zoo-themed things!

    Quote from FMPONE

    4 hours ago, FMPONE said: It’s after you go through the tiny crack in the wall that takes you to the end portion of the level.

    I wont agree on this one. For me the puzzle was constructed in a way that guided you directly to "last step". You go in and you use your tool to switch cables inside the wall and this lamp turns on near green cable. For me a breadcrumb like this was enough to follow green cable that was on the ceiling. The whole corner was dark so that the lights from the xen thingy highlighted your goal.

    Also I don't see why would you call this room a failure. The mix of environments there kinda makes a lot of sense.

    Quote from Lizard

    4 minutes ago, Lizard said: I wont agree on this one. For me the puzzle was constructed in a way that guided you directly to "last step". You go in and you use your tool to switch cables inside the wall and this lamp turns on near green cable. For me a breadcrumb like this was enough to follow green cable that was on the ceiling. The whole corner was dark so that the lights from the xen thingy highlighted your goal.

    Also I don't see why would you call this room a failure. The mix of environments there kinda makes a lot of sense.

    To each their own, but the game teased fighting a combine infected gorilla on the loose and I ended up doing a stupid puzzle where the solution is to touch a dimly lit ceiling.

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