Valve finally revealed the not-so-anticipated VR take on the Half-Life franchise called Half-Life: Alyx, a prequel to the events that took place during Half-Life 2. The game is a VR-exclusive where players take on the role of Alyx Vance, the half-and-half protagonist is given the leading role in the game, where she must solve puzzles, move physics-based objects to the side, and shoot a dinkle pistol at heavily-armed Combine soldiers.
The trailer is just under two minutes, but the actual gameplay is barely on screen for a minute and a half. The trailer mostly focuses on Alyx, who is tasked with rescuing her dad from the Combine forces. This is before she meets up with Gordon Freeman in Half-Life 2.
Gameplay is literally the exact same thing we’ve been seeing from VR titles over the last half-decade with absolutely nothing new or original tossed in. You can check out the trailer below to see it for yourself.
Visually the game looks like a 2016 title made for [current year] consoles.
The animations are also finally improved to the point where they almost match the amount of detail implemented into SFM porn. But they still have a ways to go before Valve is on Studio FOW’s level.
Most disappointing from the reveal is that Alyx doesn’t have fully rigged arms, but instead they’re relying on the egregious disembodied hands, meaning that there’s a clear separation between the player and being immersed in the world. Expect corrupt journalists and non-gamers in media to praise the feature even though better VR games have fully rigged player-view arms, such as After-H or Swords of Gargantuan.
It’s embarrassing that Valve can’t do what indies have already done.
Beyond that, the game looks as ho-hum as ever. To attempt to raise the stakes of hype, Geoff Keighley, the Dorito Pope, did a 22 minute video documentary about Half-Life: Alyx. You can suffer through that if you want by checking it out below.
Expect more gameplay to appear at The Game Awards this year, which is set to take place in December.
Nevertheless, it needs to be stressed that this is a game no real gamer asked for.
If Valve thinks that bringing back Half-Life as a VR exclusive for a $1,000 headset is going to make people adopt VR, they’re dead wrong and the poor sales for Half-Life: Alyx will most certainly reflect that.
(Thanks for the news tip MaverickHL)
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