Half-Life Alyx

[FMPONE]

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.

[Vaya]

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.

[Lizard]

You guys talking about the greyish / blueish environment full with antlions?

[FMPONE]

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.

[jd40]

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.

[FMPONE]

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! 

[Lizard]

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.

[FMPONE]

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. 

[Lizard]

11 hours ago, FMPONE said:

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. 

Didn't pay much attention to the zoo itself I think because I dont remember gorilla on the loose. If that's true then that is indeed sad that they killed a cool story momentum there with such a puzzle.

[leplubodeslapin]

Spoiler

There's no gorilla ^^

It's just that it's a zoo and you have some time to visit the zoo before encountering the antlions. And since it's wrecked and it's a zoo, it's a cool scenario that could have happened for a boss fight. But it's just for the antlions.

I liked the theme of the zoo but it's true that it doesn't go too far, multiple areas for the game felt like that. Maybe they didn't want to take too much risk on that side to ensure that they would finish this game. There are very few friendly NPC with scenes, there are only 3 weapons, the combat options are quite limited with only guns, there is not as many puzzles as there was in HL2, there's no vehicle. But at least they finished it and the ending is a cool twist for a future Half-Life game.

 

[Lizard]

6 hours ago, leplubodeslapin said:

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There's no gorilla ^^

It's just that it's a zoo and you have some time to visit the zoo before encountering the antlions. And since it's wrecked and it's a zoo, it's a cool scenario that could have happened for a boss fight. But it's just for the antlions.

I liked the theme of the zoo but it's true that it doesn't go too far, multiple areas for the game felt like that. Maybe they didn't want to take too much risk on that side to ensure that they would finish this game. There are very few friendly NPC with scenes, there are only 3 weapons, the combat options are quite limited with only guns, there is not as many puzzles as there was in HL2, there's no vehicle. But at least they finished it and the ending is a cool twist for a future Half-Life game.

 

Yeah I'm aware there was no loose gorrila somewhere and I wasn't simply paying much attention  What I tried to say is that I think I missed everything that hinted on next "big boss battle" Shawn wrote his post about.

[jd40]

2 hours ago, Lizard said:

Yeah I'm aware there was no loose gorrila somewhere and I wasn't simply paying much attention  What I tried to say is that I think I missed everything that hinted on next "big boss battle" Shawn wrote his post about.

Spoiler

If you go up to the gorilla statue, which is easy to miss, it's behind some glass you have to break. Alyx and Russ joke about gorilla zombies. I too was disappointed by the lack of gorolla zombie boss 

 

[WD]

In my opinion this was the most solid VR game up to date in terms of depth and narrative. It felt like a solid single player campaing experience with no compromises. We need more of those.

Spoiler

Jeff really rustled my jimmies a bit but after awhile I think we felt a connection. Shame he ended up in the trash compactor.

 

[hgn]

okaaaay actually really good. someone got it for me as a gift so ive been kinda forced to play it ^^. i do not typically like anything spooky but this changed my mind. going through a scene 50% sheer bloody panicking and 50% shitting it then coming out of it like 'wow that was actually really well designed is awesome..

also the vortigaunts are the chillest dudes

[FMPONE]

Just finished it. Amazing ending.

 

So, my overall impression of this game is that wow, it looks incredible. The graphics, sound, animations etc are just wildly impressive. But, as a game, the experience was very inconsistent. 

There are some big head-scratchers here for me. The excessive amount of inward opening doors has to be one, there are probably five times more than there should be throughout. Some of the encounters towards the end feel brutal in terms of limited ammo supply. Tracking in general just didn’t feel up to snuff, a good example of this is when you’re given megacharge lightning bolts at the end of the game: presumably, these are meant to make you feel super powerful. Instead I ended up hitting the walls most of the time. It was emblematic of how this game would have simply *worked* better mouse and keyboard. There are a lot of examples of that, sadly. The number of puzzles was egregious. Memorable ones like snagging the shotgun from the hanging guy over the well were severely outnumbered by mind-numbing electrical work/globe spinning. I’ve already gone over the Zoo level, that one was very poor from a design standpoint.

Jeff was the high point in terms of horror/design. It proceeded exactly how I felt the designers actually intended. 

The story wraps up so nicely!

As an experience, though, HL:A just seemed to fundamentally misunderstand what I was enjoying about it: amazing, picture perfect graphics, and environmental atmosphere. Those things will age severely with time, but I wanted the game to have more contemplative+explorative moments. Something like waking through the eery train station with the NPCs in HL2, or the cramped apartments, something a bit more slice of life. It felt like the lesson from HL2 was “we overdid the car and boat areas”, but that lesson was too severely overlearned, such that all exploration seemed to have gotten cut entirely. 

All the human NPC scenes felt, quite literally, rushed: as in, everyone is running around like their hair is on fire in the beginning. Or, at the end, when you’re in the weirdo apartments, everybody is a ghost. The game just needed a more visible and steady human touch I think, because it is overall such a mixture of alien and strange environments. I felt myself really appreciating the moments with the visible characters, because it breathed life into things. The dialogue was always really on point; for the most part. “I’m not in the Gun lending business anymore, Mmk?”

I’m tempted to just go slamming this game because, gosh, there are a lot of things I would have changed about this one, to be frank. So many design elements just grated over time, from puzzles to doors to pacing to VR tracking to combat to loading times to pacing, and did I mention pacing? This game takes you from a  dead stop to rushing you into Combine combat sections where you die in three seconds, have to reload the game (which takes forever!) rinse and repeat probably 5-10 times per every combat beat. Brutal. Not my definition of fun.

Thankfully, it’s still one of the most insane media experiences I can ever remember. When the Vortigaunt was swirling that shit in the sewers around I was in awe, the effects, sound, and visuals around that point in the game are jaw dropping. 

While far from the VR killer app, it’s proof that we might get there some day.

This game is what I would say is an incredible stepping stone. Legitimate criticism that comes it’s way in terms of gameplay can be refined. 

Also, if you tease an infected gorilla, I’m going to dent your review score if we don’t get it

I can’t say “perfect game 10/10” as I would have wanted to given the wait time for this Half-Life sequel, but I can applaud the ambition of it. I appreciate that we just got a new Half-Life game, and that it solved the cliffhanger in a truly elegant way. It just broke a lot of utterly mundane stuff along the way that needn’t have been broken — and to be blunt, would never have felt as broken on mouse and keyboard.