The British video game magazine Edge has published a first review of Half-Life: Alyx. How does that work? Judgment from?
Every Half Life game and the portal series revolve around a game-defining tool, the magazine writes. Half-Life had the crowbar, Half-Life 2 the Gravity Gun and Portal had a portable portal generator.
Half-Life’s game-defining interaction medium: Alyx are less the gravity gloves than your own hands. They would remove the barrier between the player and the game world created by the mouse and keyboard.
Half-Life: Alyx is interested in the nuances of movement that enable hand interactions: players could express themselves in how they open a door or interact with a physical body. Every action and especially the fight have a physical component. You get better by being Muscle memory trained.
Half-Life: Alyx puts her own hands into play. PICTURE: Valve
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Ingenious dialogues
Half-Life: Alyx be one typical half-life game, with an astonishing number of classic game elements that have been rethought and implemented for virtual reality.
Like the earlier parts, the game is made up of a number of locations that vary in basic mechanics. The story behind Half-Life: Alyx feels mostly like an excuse to switch from location to location.
However, how the story is told is more important than the story. Half-Life: Alyx is by far the most “chattiest” game in the series. Unlike in previous parts, the main character speaks and talks to her boyfriend Russell on a radio over long stretches of the game.
Through these dialogues you learn more about the characters, the world and hear a lot of good jokes. Who needs a complex plot when a game makes you laugh, Edge asks rhetorically.
Russell accompanies Alyx on the radio. PICTURE: Valve
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Half-Life in a new look
The world is “flawlessly implemented” and relatively tranquil for a shooter with sparingly used fights. It takes a while to meet the first Combine soldier. When these battles begin, however, they are some of the most gripping that Edge has ever experienced.
Half-Life: Alyx is through and through a half-game that gives the old formula a modern shine by offering new interaction possibilities, the magazine writes in its conclusion and forgives nine out of ten possible points.
The Combine soldiers are tough opponents. PICTURE: Valve
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Alyx has to prove hard
The biggest point of criticism is less the game than the technology. With Half-Life: Alyx wants to achieve Valve for Virtual Reality, what Super Mario 64 proved for 3D games: justify the existence of a new game medium. So the question of whether Half-Life: Alyx is the best VR game so far is not enough.
The usual argument for virtual reality is stronger immersion. The problem is that when playing, you always have to take two realities into account at the same time, so that the physical world becomes Immersion trip hazard can be. For example, if you feel the cable or hit a real wall.
Half-Life: Alyx is best played with a lot of space, but even if you have a lot of space available, you will eventually reach a physical limit and be brought back to reality.
The VR game is worth looking beyond this basic limitation. It is unclear whether this also applies to virtual reality in a broader sense.
Half-Life: Alyx will be released on March 23, exclusively for all common PC VR glasses. All other information about the game can be found in our large one Half-Life: Alyx info guide.
Cover picture: Valve, source: Edge Magazine
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Half-Life: Alyx – First review reveals how good it is was last modified: March 22nd, 2020 by
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