@@DeimosPC true! But on a serious note, it is an amazing game and I get what you are saying... Not about the balls thing, but about experiencing the amazingness that is half life alyx.
ive never played artifact but im pretty sure that the game is actually really good as far as card games go. it just wasnt what valve needed to release at that time, and it was poorly advertised :\
Artifact was actually really fun and well designed, however their monetization of card packs is what killed the game. If they made it easier to acquire cards, it would have blown up I think.
I just wish that we will see more AAA games like HL:Alyx in the future! I don't need another sandbox game where "the players" create the story with random mods. Rather I need a nice and well written story game to loose myself in but in VR!
Have you ever tried Skyrim VR? Not as slick as Half Life Alyx, but the story is great, many Quests to play and decisions to make which makes the game interesting enough to play it several times... I finished it once about a year ago and started again a few weeks ago, trying to avoid some mistakes I made and seeking better solutions.... I have a handful mods running (I can pick up some objects and have a full body in the game) which makes it more immersive...
Aint valve is just that? They are the most lack of developer working on their most player populated online game ever Only Half life is their original idea the rest is created by modder or other company
@@vibaj16 created by icefrog The modder of Moba franchise If he work for blizzard it'd be different story overall. Valve corporation of 96% Working on steam platform and hardware 4% on videogame
@@nahashammon1081 The tech was (and arguably still is) too expensive for high quality experiences like HLA. Not that it isn't worth the investment, but the price tag puts up a high barrier of entry. Considering the magic of VR doesn't really come across in flat footage, it's not all that surprising to me that more people didn't take the plunge. Unfortunately VR getting off to a slow start put a chilling effect out there for game development. The small install base means larger game companies only dabble in VR here or there (usually ports or smaller projects) because it's hard to make a profit. Even indies who dedicate themselves to VR find it hard to get publishing deals that'll give them the resources they need to make great games. VR wound up stuck in a brutal catch-22, where there isn't a big enough install base for companies to make triple-A VR games, and without those triple-A games, the install base grows very slowly, or stagnates.
Mostly due to the player requiring a lot of space to play and energy (I have myself a Valve Index and a lot of games but you need a certain mindset and move things around to enter a proper session, and that rarely or never happens)
@@GreyMatterShades i guess so, but the price tag isnt an excuse anymore, with meta putting a lot of effort into vr, a headset at 300 with all the capabilities included is now possible and available to the public, thanks to facebook, vr might still be on the rise. Hype can be boosted with the new apple VR
@@Mushe94 "Alot of space" hasn't been a requirement to play most VR games for quite some time. I played the entirety of HL:Alyx completely seated. It also doesn't take much energy to play VR seated unless you're completely out of shape.
It took about a decade for other game developers to match the standard HL2 set in 2004. Namely facial animations and a full-blown physics engine. HL2 was unbelievable for the time it released - it ran on the ORIGINAL Xbox. The Nintendo DS came out the same year. Valve has always been way above it's time. When are we going to see games with procedural-generated movement and graphic fidelity like HL:A? It's been nearly 3 years - Elden Ring and God of War look great but they don't even come close
Valve isn't a game developer, they are a problem for game developers by simply making the best of what they decide to invest in. They are the living example of a company that understands that true quality leads the market.
HLA is awesome, even if I put more time and energy into something more open like "Into the Radius" (I love that game too). One possibly little-known thing I really appreciated from HLA was their accessibility features; my dad is a big Half Life fan but he had a bad injury and couldn't use one of his arms anymore. Fortunately, Valve made a one-handed mode for Alyx so you only need one motion controller to play. It was awkward to learn at first, but he was able to play and have fun in the big fancy VR game.
To be fair, what I wish Valve did after HL Alyx would be to take the ground work that they made with the engine and make Source 2 and the tools surrounding the engine the best VR development environment out there. Just imagine if the community got together and continued to make high quality assets that must meet certain minimum criteria (Like various hand poses, sounds, interactivity etc.). Or new enimies, systems etc. That way Source2 could just continue to evolve and grow with a vast library of highly detailed, interactive and re-skinnable VR assets which could be implemented into any future Source2 VR game. The performance is there, the immersion is there, but I think the level of entry for immersive VR development is just too damn high for most developers. Not to mention Source2. I know Valve offer mod support for HL Alyx, but it's not really the same thing as a streamlined development environment for VR as a whole. I could see myself working on just a few realistic assets myself, for the fun of it. I have nowhere near the time to make a whole VR game, but being able to contribute to a community of VR developers would feel extremely satisfying.
I would love to see this sort of collaborative effort you're talking about become a thing in VR, whether it's Source or another engine. With all the challenges facing VR developers, it just doesn't make sense for them to be reinventing the wheel every time. I think a model like the Unity asset store could work here. Developers (or hobbyists) could sell or give away their implementations of various VR features (like weighty melee combat physics) or assets pre-built for VR interaction. There's always a bit of a risk that games could start to look and feel too same-y, but skilled developers would be able to use those systems and assets as jumping off points to produce better quality unique games. It could give developers more time to focus on what really matters, and also give other developers a new revenue source.
Thought the exact same thing, then checked out source 2 tools and modding and just couldn't be bothered dealing with the engine, it's just not a great editor. One of the more bizarre things, they could have finally ditched hammer units or "inches" when they moved to vr and made the engine metric and easy to work with real world scale objects... And they didn't :S
One thing you can look forward to is s&box. Garry is the only developer outside of valve that valve trusted with the source 2 repository (because he's the maker of gmod and he wants to do something similar with source 2). He cleaned it up and made a bunch of tools, and eventually be will release this. S&box is basically a game engine on its own, you can make games with it. Like look up "tf2 s& box" and compare to normal s& box gameplay to see how much you have control over. There are also 2d side scrollers, you have an incredible amount of control and it really shows off how good source 2 is. S&box should hold us over, whenever it comes out, and i imagine valve would release the full sdk when half life 3 comes out, HLA was a miracle on its own and they gave basic tools but by the time cs2, neon prime, and hl3 (called hlx internally right now) come out, the engine will be fully ironed out and ready for them to release (assuming they are going to, there's definitely a place for a super optimized engine that can create baked lighting that looks this good even on low end systems), and their new physics engine was made by them this time (and better in every way, anyone that has played hla will know), so they won't need to charge a huge amount of money for a havok license anymore
I still don't think I have ever seen anyone mention this. But I found out while playing that you can blind yourself in your right or left eye with the laser sight on your gun. It is a crazy small detail, but clearly isn't just the laser blocking view, there is literally a custom laser in your eye effect. I was pretty shocked.
I recently bought a VR set and alyx is one of the first game I bought since I can finally play it. A few hours in( and I am really taking my time in it) the random thought came in: this is a game only valve can make. Being baffled when I first played HL2 the same exact feeling kicked in almost 15 years later. Now the hardware is getting better and better I really hope more companies are trying to pursue the quality of HL Alyx!
I finally just played Alyx last week. When it was first announced, I started buying a PC part every paycheck and built my first PC. After saving for an Index, there was a shortage and I couldn’t get my hands on one. Then covid happened, our job site shut down for a few weeks, I missed a few paychecks, then suddenly I couldn’t afford a headset if I could even find one. So I finally just bought one and I am so glad I did. Alyx is by far the best VR game I have ever played and there are so many great mods out there as well. It’s going to be one of those games I go back and play once a year just like I have with the other Half-Life games for the last two decades.
There is only one game I can think of that can truly compete with Alyx as being adefinitive VR game and that's Asgard's Wrath. I played it again recently and was still amazed by the visuals and scale of that game. Such a shame the sequel won't come to PC.
@@inceptionalHavent played RE4 on quest yet but heard a lot of great things. RE8 on psvr2 is stunning and equals Alyx in my opinion. The RE4 remake on psvr2 should be fantastic as well.
The first time I tried to use the syringe I went straight into my thigh (which is non-existent in the game) but was amazed that it actually worked basically exactly where my real life thigh was! Needless (haha) to say this is exactly how I've been using it ever since. There's just something so satisfying about stabbing your own thigh full force and hearing the syringe 'tshh' sound right as you make contact - it's a level of immersion that you rarely get in VR for anything other than your hands. Anyway HL:A is great, but I'm hoping the next game will focus a little less on horror cause HL:A can be really scary at times which kinda makes me not want to replay the game again.
Thank you for continuing to make video analyses like this one. I realize they take an incredibly long time to make but you still put out such quality content! My biggest technical disappointment with the game was the lack of precomputed realtime global illumination for the flashlight scenes, AKA approximated bounced lighting; it is a feature available in lightmappers like Enlighten. Other than that it is a technical marvel.
Glad someone mentioned this animation technique (originally developed by Ubisoft) many games are popping up now using similar methods and it looks amazing. Its also very interesting to learn about but somehow not very well known, there are several GDC talks explaining motion matching if anyone was wondering :)
This game felt like a true next gen one. Not just a graphical update like so many playstation games but other aspects too. physics, AI, animations, etc...
while I despise where we are at with Graphical Fidelity and Gameplay at the moment, the Quest 2 alone brought 20m players into VR so I really appreciate that in a way
It makes me so sad to see how much PCVR has stagnated. If developers focused on PCVR, who knows what insane games we would have today and how much mass appeal VR could have. Standalone could very well be the death of VR. Sure, it's accessible, but it gives the mainstream a terrible first impression of VR.
@@Skrenja The issue I see is that since 2020 pc component prices have been going to shit worldwide and I mean I'm fortunate enough to have a capable gaming pc at the moment but I also know that many aren't and this is definitely one result of that
@@Skrenja *Don't worry!* Now that *APPLE* has entered the market, AR/VR is finally *_"legitimized"_* and *_"validated."_* Can't you just _feel_ it? It's all so much better now!! Never mind the *FIVE THOUSAND patents* they claim on a product that is essentially derivative of what everyone else has been doing for the last decade. This will be *SO GREAT* for the industry because *APPLE* is an honorable, respectable company and not at all sleazy! Never mind that the people who have been waiting for *APPLE* to say it's _cool_ will be secluded away in *APPLE'S* little walled garden, safe from us PC low-life and all the VR games and experiences that currently exist. Everything will just be _so much_ better now, because *APPLE!* Woo-hoo! We're SAVED!
Good eye, I never notived the cat, however you missed one crazy detail - CRT TV screens reflects the environment. It looks like a simple cubemap, but if you take it with you and move to another room, the reflection is updated to match the room you are in! This is the detail that blew my mind the most - when I saw the spoon in the thumbnail I thought it will be included in this video, because the spoon looked as if it was also reflecting enviroment :)
It is indeed just using cubemaps that switch depending on which area you're in, which is what everything that has reflections uses in hla (things like metal, floorboards, mud, a bunch of props etc). It's quite similar to half-life 2, but there is a key difference, as the cubemaps are parralax corrected, meaning they have an actual volume, so you can move around and it will morph the cubemap to make it seem like the reflections are actually moving, and not just having a static 360 image projected onto the object like it did in half-life 2. It's not new tech at all but it's very well executed in hla, and it a big reason for why it can look so good while having great performance, as cubemaps take basically no effort for your computer to render.
The game has amazing attention to detail but i really wish anything you interact with (bricks, objects, glass shards etc) were able to damage and hurt enemies. I feel that would give the game so much replayability and add alot more fun to it as they probably spent a long time making those objects look the highest quality it can be only for it to be nothing but set dressing.
Great video. Heard from another video the part where you hold your hand to your face to stop coughing near Jeff, was from playtesters trying that. So they added it as a mechanic.
It baffles me that this game came out in 2020 but games made in 2023 look like absolute trash compared to it. What is going on with the gaming industry.
It's a combination of the shift toward moblie headsets like @StubbyPhillips said (because that's the only place where VR developers have a decent shot at making a profit), but it's also because Valve didn't need the game to make a profit. They've basically got unlimited money, so they can take a loss on a VR game to try to push VR forward... and also sell their headsets. No other developer (with the possible exceptions of Sony or Meta) could or would put so much money into a VR game. They'd never turn a profit and would have no other motive to do so.
Totally agreed. 2023 is ocming to an end and yet we havenn't seen anything that comes close to half-life alyx. And I am not even talking about the gameplay and story, just VR mechanics and immersiveness.
The details are just insane. In Alyx's hideout at the start, there's a drawing of the Combine mini reactor, and a note says "Stand alone? BME?" which is a reference to Black Mesa East, Eli's hideout in Half-Life 2. By the end of Alyx you realise that the Combine's tech is being charged with energy harvested from captured Vortigaunts, and in Half-Life 2 you see Vortigaunts voluntarily charging the reactors at BME. It's an origin story for a random piece of background trivia you only see for a second during an elevator ride. Totally nuts.
Thanks a very interesting video, i have never played that game before. I learned a lot of new things in your video and the video looks like many hours of work, thank you for that.
This game is immense, I've played it through to the end with my Quest 2 and RTX 3060 but could only play it on medium to low settings to get it to run smoothly. Recently upgraded to RTX 4070 and a Pico 4 with a wifi6 dedicated router, game runs on ultra now and smooth as you like. Taking my time to explore every nook n cranny in this game and it is just incredible, even more so than the first time.
@@j3s3oGh4nBoneworks campaign sucks ass! The game was an amazing VR tech demo, but is a shit game. Level design and environment was a massive downgrade from Duck Season VR, as well as enemy designs and encounters. And so fucking janky as fuck! The physics & interactions were top notch though, that's really about the good things about the game.
Thanks for the awesome video! This me start to replay HL:A! When you got to the first part after the spoiler warning I paused the video and booted it up because I had forgotten so much. I noticed there is a clipboard in the room with the bug you can feed. It shows Alyxs early drawings of her companion DOG from HL:2. I wonder if the radio from the beginning was trying to say anything?
Valve really is the definition of "that quiet guy". While everyone in the industry was chasing graphics, Valve's just standing in the background going "Amateurs." 🥶
Valve somehow manage to be the "good guys" of the games industry by simply doing nothing and letting all the competition collapse under their own incompetence and corruption.
Regarding Dog, there's also a small photo print you can grab of a young Dog, in the same room as the clipboard with the Dog drawings. It's lying on top of the wall rack at 3:15, to the left of the exit door.
This reminds me I've yet to play with commentary on. Have you made a video about Skyrim VR before? It's fascinating how mods have changed a mediocre VR game into a must play infinite sandbox experience.
@9:20 and going back to earlier mention of hats. The wearing a filter masks bypasses the need to cover your mouth. There is often one sitting around every section that involves spores.
i remember one time when i was playing half life alyx i was in a shootout against some combine soldiers, and i was hiding behind a car, and as soon as they started shooting the car windows and sending broken glass everywhere, it immediately felt real. i literally paniced and bent down to protect myself. my brain just interpreted this as a real shootout with real world laws of physics applied to it. in my mind the cars were no longer just static parts of level geometry, they were destructable objects that wouldnt provide me with 100% protection like if this was in real life. i felt the same thing in the strider boss fight when it started shooting at me, and some of its bullets went through the walls and they started crumbling from it the fact that they can trick players into thinking the game feels real without any actual physics models being used on level geometry shows how good they are at making games
I fully agree with you. No other PCVR game comes near HLA in every way. I believe they only made it to promote their new headset. (It came free with it) As they have no financial motivation to create games as they make more than enough money from other games using the steam platform.
I’ve just started my second play through of the game because I’ve upgraded to a gaming desktop - I never knew this on my original run, and was flabbergasted such a small detail existed! A real funny surprise, love the detail Valve put into this game - still one of the best VR experiences out there.
9:56 Maybe it's just coincident, but as Russian being I can recognize the second strider noize as a word "оружие" (weapon). This game is fresh air, and I hope we will finally see the Half-Life 3!
They should really release it on psvr2. The psvr install base was the largest vr headset install base by far, and the ps5 hardware should be capable of a port even if it requires some effort tailoring around that specific hardware. This would open up Half Life Alyx to a large new install base who wouldn't be able to experience it otherwise without buying a separate PC gaming rig and a comparable PC VR headset like the Index which tend to be even more expensive than psvr2. Valve's old ports of orange box and portal 2 for xbox and playstation when I was a kid are what got me into their games and PC gaming as a whole.
They made the VR game easy, knowing they were everybody’s first VR game, but then started work on a non-VR game, and it seems the next VR game is years away. The next VR game will still have to be too easy because it will be introducing so many new technologies that it’ll be everybody’s first second generation VR game.
It's the best VR game for sure. Playstation grabbed some good ones too though with the psvr. I friggin loved Wipeout Omega Collection and Resident Evil 7. I tried a mod for the pc version of re7 but there really isn't any antialiasing which still looked better than the psvr version, but didn't make me feel like revisiting it. I wish they'd release wipeout omega collection on pc, I might have put more hours into that than any other vr game.
Thanks for the spoiler warning. Still haven't had the chance to play HLA. Hoping it comes to PSVR 2 someday. Excellent job with the video. It really shows why even after all this time, HLA is still considered a masterpiece of VR design. It looks like a staggering number of elements were incredibly well thought out. The attention to detail is remarkable.
@@j3s3oGh4n Oh I forgot L4D 1 and 2, and CS:GO. Really most of Valve's major games have been on console. You're right it was 2 generations ago, but how many games has Valve released in the past 2 console gens? Consoles have only become more similar to PC's in terms of architecture and ease of porting games since then. There's no reason why they couldn't port HLA to PSVR 2, or hire another company to port it.
A bug I found with Jeff is that you have to WAIT before running, because he doesn't get a blip of your location, he gets a continuous stream of updates of your location for a few seconds. I don't know WHY this is, but it is.
I almost have no complaints about this game. It's amazing, sad how there is nothing more like it. My one big complaint might be that you can't use objects you find to hurt enemies. Oh and also you can't turn off the commentary feature after you turned it on, you'd have to restart the game. Crazy how they haven't patched this, I made that mistakes, taints my experience for sure.
This is one of the most awaited games in the world, id expect it to set the standard just like Halo CE did. They had many years, many viewers here were children or werent even born, id expect a game that was planned for this long to take first place in VR with no questions asked.
Covering your mouth do avoid coughing at Jeff is good and all, but if you manage to carry an air filter mask into this section of the game, you can wear it here and eliminate the need to cover your mouth.
Doesn't surprise me. I built my first pc just so I could play Half-Life 2 when it dropped because of all the cutting edge things it was going to bring to gaming. This is first on my list though when I can afford to get a VR set up. (edit) At this point they should patch it and add full body render for the player and put in those full dynamic shadows. Like Metro does with their enhanced editions for if you have the hardware to play them. My pc is new enough it could for sure handle a enhanced edition of HL Alyx. That would be DOOOOOPE!
Im a bit lost 'with this chair it feels heavier if you hold it at the end' have I missed something with the interface? How are you feeling weight in VR?
The Valve Index controllers have built in force feedback and vibration. Also just the fact that the chair moves slower than your real hand really makes you feel the weight.
Игры
I would do anything for another Valve VR game as immersive as HL:A
Would you do... Me?
@@randyx007 I mean, it don’t count if the balls don’t touch right?
@@DeimosPC true! But on a serious note, it is an amazing game and I get what you are saying... Not about the balls thing, but about experiencing the amazingness that is half life alyx.
@@randyx007 not creepy at all.
@@randyx007 bruhhh
That strider foot landing in front of the balcony at the beginning of the game is such a cool moment. You can really only fully appreciate it in VR
It is insane how impressive and ahead of their time valve games are. Everything they put out is a masterpiece, except artifact...💀
ive never played artifact but im pretty sure that the game is actually really good as far as card games go. it just wasnt what valve needed to release at that time, and it was poorly advertised :\
@@evangrant9312 no that crap is just garbage
@@nuclearmissionjam3592 source wasn't really an original title. They just ported HL1 to Source
Artifact was actually really fun and well designed, however their monetization of card packs is what killed the game. If they made it easier to acquire cards, it would have blown up I think.
@@csnorth7 yeah valve payed you to say that
I just wish that we will see more AAA games like HL:Alyx in the future! I don't need another sandbox game where "the players" create the story with random mods. Rather I need a nice and well written story game to loose myself in but in VR!
i recommend playing both the saints and sinners games.
Have you ever tried Skyrim VR? Not as slick as Half Life Alyx, but the story is great, many Quests to play and decisions to make which makes the game interesting enough to play it several times... I finished it once about a year ago and started again a few weeks ago, trying to avoid some mistakes I made and seeking better solutions.... I have a handful mods running (I can pick up some objects and have a full body in the game) which makes it more immersive...
Aint valve is just that? They are the most lack of developer working on their most player populated online game ever Only Half life is their original idea the rest is created by modder or other company
@@Deezsirrer ironic how Valve's next game in the Half-Life universe is gonna be a multiplayer game
@@vibaj16 created by icefrog The modder of Moba franchise If he work for blizzard it'd be different story overall. Valve corporation of 96% Working on steam platform and hardware 4% on videogame
PCVR was at its height when this game came out. Its a damn shame that we've gotten nothing else.
i wonder why vr died out. it should of been the future. once you go vr, flatscreen feels so shit
@@nahashammon1081 The tech was (and arguably still is) too expensive for high quality experiences like HLA. Not that it isn't worth the investment, but the price tag puts up a high barrier of entry. Considering the magic of VR doesn't really come across in flat footage, it's not all that surprising to me that more people didn't take the plunge.
Unfortunately VR getting off to a slow start put a chilling effect out there for game development. The small install base means larger game companies only dabble in VR here or there (usually ports or smaller projects) because it's hard to make a profit. Even indies who dedicate themselves to VR find it hard to get publishing deals that'll give them the resources they need to make great games.
VR wound up stuck in a brutal catch-22, where there isn't a big enough install base for companies to make triple-A VR games, and without those triple-A games, the install base grows very slowly, or stagnates.
Mostly due to the player requiring a lot of space to play and energy (I have myself a Valve Index and a lot of games but you need a certain mindset and move things around to enter a proper session, and that rarely or never happens)
@@GreyMatterShades i guess so, but the price tag isnt an excuse anymore, with meta putting a lot of effort into vr, a headset at 300 with all the capabilities included is now possible and available to the public, thanks to facebook, vr might still be on the rise.
Hype can be boosted with the new apple VR
@@Mushe94 "Alot of space" hasn't been a requirement to play most VR games for quite some time. I played the entirety of HL:Alyx completely seated. It also doesn't take much energy to play VR seated unless you're completely out of shape.
This game has set the bar so high that I begin to think it will never be surpassed.
It took about a decade for other game developers to match the standard HL2 set in 2004. Namely facial animations and a full-blown physics engine. HL2 was unbelievable for the time it released - it ran on the ORIGINAL Xbox. The Nintendo DS came out the same year. Valve has always been way above it's time.
When are we going to see games with procedural-generated movement and graphic fidelity like HL:A? It's been nearly 3 years - Elden Ring and God of War look great but they don't even come close
Valve isn't a game developer, they are a problem for game developers by simply making the best of what they decide to invest in. They are the living example of a company that understands that true quality leads the market.
HLA is awesome, even if I put more time and energy into something more open like "Into the Radius" (I love that game too). One possibly little-known thing I really appreciated from HLA was their accessibility features; my dad is a big Half Life fan but he had a bad injury and couldn't use one of his arms anymore. Fortunately, Valve made a one-handed mode for Alyx so you only need one motion controller to play. It was awkward to learn at first, but he was able to play and have fun in the big fancy VR game.
That's beautiful. I'm glad he got to play it
To be fair, what I wish Valve did after HL Alyx would be to take the ground work that they made with the engine and make Source 2 and the tools surrounding the engine the best VR development environment out there. Just imagine if the community got together and continued to make high quality assets that must meet certain minimum criteria (Like various hand poses, sounds, interactivity etc.). Or new enimies, systems etc. That way Source2 could just continue to evolve and grow with a vast library of highly detailed, interactive and re-skinnable VR assets which could be implemented into any future Source2 VR game. The performance is there, the immersion is there, but I think the level of entry for immersive VR development is just too damn high for most developers. Not to mention Source2.
I know Valve offer mod support for HL Alyx, but it's not really the same thing as a streamlined development environment for VR as a whole. I could see myself working on just a few realistic assets myself, for the fun of it. I have nowhere near the time to make a whole VR game, but being able to contribute to a community of VR developers would feel extremely satisfying.
Completely agree
I would love to see this sort of collaborative effort you're talking about become a thing in VR, whether it's Source or another engine. With all the challenges facing VR developers, it just doesn't make sense for them to be reinventing the wheel every time.
I think a model like the Unity asset store could work here. Developers (or hobbyists) could sell or give away their implementations of various VR features (like weighty melee combat physics) or assets pre-built for VR interaction. There's always a bit of a risk that games could start to look and feel too same-y, but skilled developers would be able to use those systems and assets as jumping off points to produce better quality unique games.
It could give developers more time to focus on what really matters, and also give other developers a new revenue source.
Thought the exact same thing, then checked out source 2 tools and modding and just couldn't be bothered dealing with the engine, it's just not a great editor. One of the more bizarre things, they could have finally ditched hammer units or "inches" when they moved to vr and made the engine metric and easy to work with real world scale objects... And they didn't :S
One thing you can look forward to is s&box. Garry is the only developer outside of valve that valve trusted with the source 2 repository (because he's the maker of gmod and he wants to do something similar with source 2). He cleaned it up and made a bunch of tools, and eventually be will release this. S&box is basically a game engine on its own, you can make games with it. Like look up "tf2 s& box" and compare to normal s& box gameplay to see how much you have control over. There are also 2d side scrollers, you have an incredible amount of control and it really shows off how good source 2 is. S&box should hold us over, whenever it comes out, and i imagine valve would release the full sdk when half life 3 comes out, HLA was a miracle on its own and they gave basic tools but by the time cs2, neon prime, and hl3 (called hlx internally right now) come out, the engine will be fully ironed out and ready for them to release (assuming they are going to, there's definitely a place for a super optimized engine that can create baked lighting that looks this good even on low end systems), and their new physics engine was made by them this time (and better in every way, anyone that has played hla will know), so they won't need to charge a huge amount of money for a havok license anymore
I still don't think I have ever seen anyone mention this. But I found out while playing that you can blind yourself in your right or left eye with the laser sight on your gun. It is a crazy small detail, but clearly isn't just the laser blocking view, there is literally a custom laser in your eye effect. I was pretty shocked.
Almost 40h with HL:A and still did not notice some of them. But found out you can put stuff in washing machines on first level and turn laundry on.
I recently bought a VR set and alyx is one of the first game I bought since I can finally play it. A few hours in( and I am really taking my time in it) the random thought came in: this is a game only valve can make. Being baffled when I first played HL2 the same exact feeling kicked in almost 15 years later. Now the hardware is getting better and better I really hope more companies are trying to pursue the quality of HL Alyx!
Without having played this, or any other VR game, I always perceived this as the only real VR game to this day
I finally just played Alyx last week. When it was first announced, I started buying a PC part every paycheck and built my first PC. After saving for an Index, there was a shortage and I couldn’t get my hands on one. Then covid happened, our job site shut down for a few weeks, I missed a few paychecks, then suddenly I couldn’t afford a headset if I could even find one. So I finally just bought one and I am so glad I did. Alyx is by far the best VR game I have ever played and there are so many great mods out there as well. It’s going to be one of those games I go back and play once a year just like I have with the other Half-Life games for the last two decades.
Jeff is still the best moment I have had playing a videogame
There is only one game I can think of that can truly compete with Alyx as being adefinitive VR game and that's Asgard's Wrath. I played it again recently and was still amazed by the visuals and scale of that game. Such a shame the sequel won't come to PC.
@@inceptional I hope RE4 vr gets a graphics upgrade on the Quest 3 (like shaders?)
@@inceptionalHavent played RE4 on quest yet but heard a lot of great things. RE8 on psvr2 is stunning and equals Alyx in my opinion. The RE4 remake on psvr2 should be fantastic as well.
9:20 you can actually also put on one of those painter (gas)mask to stop alyx from coughing
The first time I tried to use the syringe I went straight into my thigh (which is non-existent in the game) but was amazed that it actually worked basically exactly where my real life thigh was! Needless (haha) to say this is exactly how I've been using it ever since. There's just something so satisfying about stabbing your own thigh full force and hearing the syringe 'tshh' sound right as you make contact - it's a level of immersion that you rarely get in VR for anything other than your hands.
Anyway HL:A is great, but I'm hoping the next game will focus a little less on horror cause HL:A can be really scary at times which kinda makes me not want to replay the game again.
Thank you for continuing to make video analyses like this one. I realize they take an incredibly long time to make but you still put out such quality content!
My biggest technical disappointment with the game was the lack of precomputed realtime global illumination for the flashlight scenes, AKA approximated bounced lighting; it is a feature available in lightmappers like Enlighten. Other than that it is a technical marvel.
TLOU2 uses motion matching for all its character animation too, and also looks extremely smooth. Pretty excited for when it just becomes the standard.
Glad someone mentioned this animation technique (originally developed by Ubisoft) many games are popping up now using similar methods and it looks amazing. Its also very interesting to learn about but somehow not very well known, there are several GDC talks explaining motion matching if anyone was wondering :)
Great video... makes me feel like it's about time for another replay of HL:A 😅
This game felt like a true next gen one. Not just a graphical update like so many playstation games but other aspects too.
physics, AI, animations, etc...
Imagine where PCVR would be if so many developers hadn't gone off to make dumbed-down mobile ("standalone") VR!
while I despise where we are at with Graphical Fidelity and Gameplay at the moment, the Quest 2 alone brought 20m players into VR so I really appreciate that in a way
Well it’s just isn’t profitable for devs right now
It makes me so sad to see how much PCVR has stagnated. If developers focused on PCVR, who knows what insane games we would have today and how much mass appeal VR could have. Standalone could very well be the death of VR. Sure, it's accessible, but it gives the mainstream a terrible first impression of VR.
@@Skrenja The issue I see is that since 2020 pc component prices have been going to shit worldwide and I mean I'm fortunate enough to have a capable gaming pc at the moment but I also know that many aren't and this is definitely one result of that
@@Skrenja *Don't worry!* Now that *APPLE* has entered the market, AR/VR is finally *_"legitimized"_* and *_"validated."_* Can't you just _feel_ it? It's all so much better now!! Never mind the *FIVE THOUSAND patents* they claim on a product that is essentially derivative of what everyone else has been doing for the last decade. This will be *SO GREAT* for the industry because *APPLE* is an honorable, respectable company and not at all sleazy! Never mind that the people who have been waiting for *APPLE* to say it's _cool_ will be secluded away in *APPLE'S* little walled garden, safe from us PC low-life and all the VR games and experiences that currently exist. Everything will just be _so much_ better now, because *APPLE!* Woo-hoo! We're SAVED!
this is AWESOME material for aspiring game designers to learn what makes the valve sauce work. thank you for this video!!
Great video, Alex! Lots of stuff that I didnt even realize when playing.
Good eye, I never notived the cat, however you missed one crazy detail - CRT TV screens reflects the environment. It looks like a simple cubemap, but if you take it with you and move to another room, the reflection is updated to match the room you are in! This is the detail that blew my mind the most - when I saw the spoon in the thumbnail I thought it will be included in this video, because the spoon looked as if it was also reflecting enviroment :)
It is indeed just using cubemaps that switch depending on which area you're in, which is what everything that has reflections uses in hla (things like metal, floorboards, mud, a bunch of props etc). It's quite similar to half-life 2, but there is a key difference, as the cubemaps are parralax corrected, meaning they have an actual volume, so you can move around and it will morph the cubemap to make it seem like the reflections are actually moving, and not just having a static 360 image projected onto the object like it did in half-life 2. It's not new tech at all but it's very well executed in hla, and it a big reason for why it can look so good while having great performance, as cubemaps take basically no effort for your computer to render.
The game has amazing attention to detail but i really wish anything you interact with (bricks, objects, glass shards etc) were able to damage and hurt enemies. I feel that would give the game so much replayability and add alot more fun to it as they probably spent a long time making those objects look the highest quality it can be only for it to be nothing but set dressing.
Great video. Heard from another video the part where you hold your hand to your face to stop coughing near Jeff, was from playtesters trying that. So they added it as a mechanic.
It baffles me that this game came out in 2020 but games made in 2023 look like absolute trash compared to it. What is going on with the gaming industry.
I suspect it has a lot to do with the shift in focus towards low-end, mobile/standalone VR by many developers.
It's a combination of the shift toward moblie headsets like @StubbyPhillips said (because that's the only place where VR developers have a decent shot at making a profit), but it's also because Valve didn't need the game to make a profit. They've basically got unlimited money, so they can take a loss on a VR game to try to push VR forward... and also sell their headsets.
No other developer (with the possible exceptions of Sony or Meta) could or would put so much money into a VR game. They'd never turn a profit and would have no other motive to do so.
Totally agreed. 2023 is ocming to an end and yet we havenn't seen anything that comes close to half-life alyx. And I am not even talking about the gameplay and story, just VR mechanics and immersiveness.
@@AcCeSsDeNiEd65 Unless Valve releases another Index headset and new nice game to promote it.
The details are just insane. In Alyx's hideout at the start, there's a drawing of the Combine mini reactor, and a note says "Stand alone? BME?" which is a reference to Black Mesa East, Eli's hideout in Half-Life 2. By the end of Alyx you realise that the Combine's tech is being charged with energy harvested from captured Vortigaunts, and in Half-Life 2 you see Vortigaunts voluntarily charging the reactors at BME. It's an origin story for a random piece of background trivia you only see for a second during an elevator ride. Totally nuts.
I really did love all the details of this game, it was fantastic... I gotta go back and play mods and stuff one of these days.
Finally getting a PC good enough to play this (and Starfield) tomorrow. Very excited.
Thanks a very interesting video, i have never played that game before.
I learned a lot of new things in your video and the video looks like many hours of work, thank you for that.
The combine character animations use inverse kinematics, almost all AAA games these days use them however not to the extent that HL Alyx does.
They need to keep releasing VR games in this engine / universe... WTF valvveee use this amazing tech you've built!
The foot placement technique you're describing is called motion matching, and was pioneered by Ubisoft. It's a very cool method!
This game is immense, I've played it through to the end with my Quest 2 and RTX 3060 but could only play it on medium to low settings to get it to run smoothly. Recently upgraded to RTX 4070 and a Pico 4 with a wifi6 dedicated router, game runs on ultra now and smooth as you like. Taking my time to explore every nook n cranny in this game and it is just incredible, even more so than the first time.
Still is the best game in VR. Sucks so much that we haven't gotten anything even close.
Boneworks?
@@j3s3oGh4nBoneworks campaign sucks ass! The game was an amazing VR tech demo, but is a shit game.
Level design and environment was a massive downgrade from Duck Season VR, as well as enemy designs and encounters. And so fucking janky as fuck!
The physics & interactions were top notch though, that's really about the good things about the game.
@@j3s3oGh4nHad more great experimental ideas than Alyx but falls flat in level design and execution
@@DawnAfternoon yeah it's still a good game though :)
@@j3s3oGh4n yeah its a good game, neat mechanics
Thanks for the awesome video! This me start to replay HL:A! When you got to the first part after the spoiler warning I paused the video and booted it up because I had forgotten so much. I noticed there is a clipboard in the room with the bug you can feed. It shows Alyxs early drawings of her companion DOG from HL:2. I wonder if the radio from the beginning was trying to say anything?
If you tune the radio down it plays G-Man's creepy trumpet theme from HL2.
Thanks for letting us know about upcoming spoilers
Valve really is the definition of "that quiet guy". While everyone in the industry was chasing graphics, Valve's just standing in the background going "Amateurs." 🥶
Valve somehow manage to be the "good guys" of the games industry by simply doing nothing and letting all the competition collapse under their own incompetence and corruption.
Regarding Dog, there's also a small photo print you can grab of a young Dog, in the same room as the clipboard with the Dog drawings. It's lying on top of the wall rack at 3:15, to the left of the exit door.
this makes me really excited for the full CS release
Valve don't do singleplayer games that often anymore but when they do it's a real treat
This reminds me I've yet to play with commentary on. Have you made a video about Skyrim VR before? It's fascinating how mods have changed a mediocre VR game into a must play infinite sandbox experience.
I like how you can tickle the xen grenade holders to get the grenade
I would never had noticed the shadow thing had you not told me
The animation technique for the combine is also used in the last of us part 2. It’s called motion matching! 😊
this just really makes me wanna replay the game again!! its been a while
6:05 i like to think that the wrapped headcrab is lamar in some sort of sedated or hibernation state, on his way to Kleiner
On my next playthrough and coustom playthrough. I love this game.
@9:20 and going back to earlier mention of hats. The wearing a filter masks bypasses the need to cover your mouth. There is often one sitting around every section that involves spores.
i remember one time when i was playing half life alyx i was in a shootout against some combine soldiers, and i was hiding behind a car, and as soon as they started shooting the car windows and sending broken glass everywhere, it immediately felt real. i literally paniced and bent down to protect myself. my brain just interpreted this as a real shootout with real world laws of physics applied to it. in my mind the cars were no longer just static parts of level geometry, they were destructable objects that wouldnt provide me with 100% protection like if this was in real life. i felt the same thing in the strider boss fight when it started shooting at me, and some of its bullets went through the walls and they started crumbling from it
the fact that they can trick players into thinking the game feels real without any actual physics models being used on level geometry shows how good they are at making games
I fully agree with you. No other PCVR game comes near HLA in every way.
I believe they only made it to promote their new headset. (It came free with it)
As they have no financial motivation to create games as they make more than enough money from other games using the steam platform.
what about lone echo
Great vid! :)
Anyone else noticed you can also wear the respirator masks for the spores? Then you don't have to cover your mouth with your hand.
I’ve just started my second play through of the game because I’ve upgraded to a gaming desktop - I never knew this on my original run, and was flabbergasted such a small detail existed! A real funny surprise, love the detail Valve put into this game - still one of the best VR experiences out there.
This game has the best looking bottles I’ve ever seen. You can use a cone on your head as a barnacle shield?! Awesome 👏🏼
9:56
Maybe it's just coincident, but as Russian being I can recognize the second strider noize as a word "оружие" (weapon).
This game is fresh air, and I hope we will finally see the Half-Life 3!
because of this video,I have now just realized that clothes IN REAL LIFE make a sound when you move your arms
Jeff was a nightmare, still don't know how I managed to stay composed watching this section now
guess my first vr will be quest 3. got to have this game. hl2 is my fav, such a masterpiece.
Great content, thanks for the spoiler alert, saved me!
They should really release it on psvr2. The psvr install base was the largest vr headset install base by far, and the ps5 hardware should be capable of a port even if it requires some effort tailoring around that specific hardware.
This would open up Half Life Alyx to a large new install base who wouldn't be able to experience it otherwise without buying a separate PC gaming rig and a comparable PC VR headset like the Index which tend to be even more expensive than psvr2.
Valve's old ports of orange box and portal 2 for xbox and playstation when I was a kid are what got me into their games and PC gaming as a whole.
i love the next gen marker effects that only works on the white boar....wait a
They made the VR game easy, knowing they were everybody’s first VR game, but then started work on a non-VR game, and it seems the next VR game is years away. The next VR game will still have to be too easy because it will be introducing so many new technologies that it’ll be everybody’s first second generation VR game.
hopefully this game comes on sale in the summer sale in a few days I really want this game.
Still the high bar of VR gaming.
It's the best VR game for sure. Playstation grabbed some good ones too though with the psvr. I friggin loved Wipeout Omega Collection and Resident Evil 7. I tried a mod for the pc version of re7 but there really isn't any antialiasing which still looked better than the psvr version, but didn't make me feel like revisiting it. I wish they'd release wipeout omega collection on pc, I might have put more hours into that than any other vr game.
You can WEAR the traffic cones? Wow, the combine must feel incredibly humiliated when you kill them.
It’s an amazing game, I only wish the shooting felt more impactful, and more interactions with NPCs would be great
I can’t speak highly enough of this game, one of the best ever! I love vr, I love gaming. This is a proper game that has proper vr ❤
Im watching this while playing half life alyx.
it always amuses me that heavy object's don't really act as such if use your weapon to interact with them.
First time I hear about this flash light it’s crazy
3:38 best place to inject this in your arm/shoulder
I always injected the health in thigh as I would in real life stick a big syringe. Felt so rewarding that it worked on first try
Need this game on PS5. And there needs to be more games like this.
Extensive playtesting - Valve's superweapon
ROFL I didn't know about the cat easter eggs until now
thanks for warning me about the spoilers
1:33 legible.
I love watching advertisements to a game I will NEVER be able to afford the equipment to
I can run it on low settings surprisingly well on a 1060 and vr headsets are getting cheaper.
I do hate that shadow jank when picking up objects.
No game feels nearly as good as HL Alyx does in VR, and that's a shame. We really need more games like this
Thanks for the spoiler warning. Still haven't had the chance to play HLA. Hoping it comes to PSVR 2 someday.
Excellent job with the video. It really shows why even after all this time, HLA is still considered a masterpiece of VR design. It looks like a staggering number of elements were incredibly well thought out. The attention to detail is remarkable.
Def not a valve game will be on consoles
@@d00mu half life 1 and 2, portal 1 and 2, and team fortress 2 were all on consoles.
@@GreyMatterShadesyeah but that was 2 console gen ago
@@j3s3oGh4n Oh I forgot L4D 1 and 2, and CS:GO. Really most of Valve's major games have been on console. You're right it was 2 generations ago, but how many games has Valve released in the past 2 console gens? Consoles have only become more similar to PC's in terms of architecture and ease of porting games since then. There's no reason why they couldn't port HLA to PSVR 2, or hire another company to port it.
@@GreyMatterShades right they could hire another company to make the port they have enough money
I want to do the ultimate John Wick move. Kill a Combine with a pencil.
I still can't believe Alyx wasn't Awarded Game of the Year.
Fantastic video
It's crazy to realize that this is a real game you can play
Amazing game. For some reason my flashlight points up when I two hand a gun.
A bug I found with Jeff is that you have to WAIT before running, because he doesn't get a blip of your location, he gets a continuous stream of updates of your location for a few seconds.
I don't know WHY this is, but it is.
I almost have no complaints about this game. It's amazing, sad how there is nothing more like it. My one big complaint might be that you can't use objects you find to hurt enemies. Oh and also you can't turn off the commentary feature after you turned it on, you'd have to restart the game. Crazy how they haven't patched this, I made that mistakes, taints my experience for sure.
They really shot themselves in the foot with making a VR game.
This is one of the most awaited games in the world, id expect it to set the standard just like Halo CE did. They had many years, many viewers here were children or werent even born, id expect a game that was planned for this long to take first place in VR with no questions asked.
This looks light years ahead of anything on PSVR2 :(
Hate PC gaming but this makes me jealous. Love the world of HL so much.
Covering your mouth do avoid coughing at Jeff is good and all, but if you manage to carry an air filter mask into this section of the game, you can wear it here and eliminate the need to cover your mouth.
Best game I have ever got the chance to play.
Doesn't surprise me. I built my first pc just so I could play Half-Life 2 when it dropped because of all the cutting edge things it was going to bring to gaming. This is first on my list though when I can afford to get a VR set up. (edit) At this point they should patch it and add full body render for the player and put in those full dynamic shadows. Like Metro does with their enhanced editions for if you have the hardware to play them. My pc is new enough it could for sure handle a enhanced edition of HL Alyx. That would be DOOOOOPE!
if you find a gas mask laying around, you can put it on and jeffs spores wont make you cough
Im a bit lost 'with this chair it feels heavier if you hold it at the end' have I missed something with the interface? How are you feeling weight in VR?
The Valve Index controllers have built in force feedback and vibration. Also just the fact that the chair moves slower than your real hand really makes you feel the weight.