TheVille

So VR is pretty cool guys.

I beat Half life Alyx and really enjoyed it. It's honestly the game I've most enjoyed from Valve since the Orange Box. There are some good VR games out now but they have one or two qualifiers or things you have to get used to find push towards it's ground breaking gameplay. However Alyx feels like the first perfectly polished AAA experience in VR.

It's hard to convey it's strengths in writing, everything has a much better sense of scale in VR, A giant Strider towers over you, Headcrabs are the size of house cats and they leap towards your face. It's pretty much all the innovations of VR wrapped into one neat package. The only thing missing is Melee combat, unlike a game like Boneworks you can't hit enemies with anything, you just shoot everythying which is the only major flaw this game has.

Short version though:
9/10

Is this game worth it if you have a VR headset?: Why do you not have this game?! This is THE VR game!

Is this worth getting a VR headset?: Maybe if your on the fence and want to play a few other games like it

Is this worth getting a $1000 Index?: Not really, you can experience it easily with cheaper headsets.


If you do want to get a headset I recommend seeing this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMFXJRLV9o

Short version

Best Budget: Samsung Odyssey+ on sale

Best Midrange: Oculus Rift S (Best bang for your buck IMO)

High End: Valve Index

Honestly for me it's a question of getting a cheap Odyssey or an Occulus Rift S. The Rift S is 95% of the current VR experience for less then half the price of a high end headset. Other headsets like the Vive are decent choices if you can snag yourself a discount but otherwise the Rift S is leading the market right now.

I'm enjoying VR gaming right now. It kinda feels like what PC gaming was 15+ years ago with a very small audience playing cutting edge games that nobody else is talking about (and everyone acting kinda elitist).

Thanks for the review Guardian!

Thanks for the review! It looks like a great game. I'm just a little disappointed that I probably won't be experiencing this installment of my favorite game series. I don't have a VR setup and I wouldn't be able to use the controllers anyway. If they ever released a non-VR version, that would be nice.

Thanks for the review! I've heard a lot of praise for the game, and I'm very disappointed they only released this for VR. I'm not in a situation where I could have/use a proper VR set-up even if I could afford it, so for now I just have to read about it and wish.

Well not to be too much of a VR Evangelist. Don't let the Index's $1000 price tag and the old 2016 dedicated room stuff scare you away. Something like the Samsung Odyssey+ can be grabbed for $230-$300 when it's on sale and most people are happy with it.

While I do recommend that you have enough space to move your arms around without swiping anything, you really don't need to be able to move around and most VR games now-a-days have a seated mode (though I personally prefer to stand). I should also note that Half life Alyx has a one-handed mode though you do need to be able to move your hand in a 3D space.

That being said, I can understand if that's still too high of a price to be practical for most people. Half life Alyx felt like a game from the future but the problem is, we're not quite at that future yet. I do think the true time to get into VR will be once Valve releases the Source 2 tools (which they're going to do soon) and some awesome mods come out. I can see the next VR Day of Defeat or Something multiplayer game coming out with it.

In a weird way, currently VR feels like the early days of PC gaming. There's a high cost of entry and a small audience with limited games but what's there can't be experienced anywhere else and feels super cutting edge.

I'm hoping VR gets cheap enough that maybe just maybe we could have a theville VR server for whatever gets released in the future.