Half-Life: Alyx - Valve's flagship VR Title.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I managed to snag one of the Index headsets when they were on sale a couple of weeks ago for about 3 minutes, and it comes with the game. I'm cleaning up my office this weekend to reset it for VR, and am looking forward to giving this a go.

Wish I had an Index, but I got a Quest super cheap right around Christmas and it's been great. The wireless PC VR streaming is amazing. I can use my entire living room for VR now. Hoping Half-Life:Alyx works with the streamer.

FridgeGremlin wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I managed to snag one of the Index headsets when they were on sale a couple of weeks ago for about 3 minutes, and it comes with the game. I'm cleaning up my office this weekend to reset it for VR, and am looking forward to giving this a go.

Wish I had an Index, but I got a Quest super cheap right around Christmas and it's been great. The wireless PC VR streaming is amazing. I can use my entire living room for VR now. Hoping Half-Life:Alyx works with the streamer.

Noice! I'd be curious to hear how it goes.

I'm pre-loading Alyx now (48Gb) and have my office 75% of the way cleaned. I think I'm a couple of hours away from being VR-enabled again. Unfortunately, this week will be crazy with work again so it might be Friday before I'll have the headspace and time to get a chance to test it out.

I start spring break tomorrow and since it will be a staycation I’ll have plenty of time to play! Need to plug in the Rift, will be an excuse for me to play something other than the Quest.

Docjoe wrote:

I start spring break tomorrow and since it will be a staycation I’ll have plenty of time to play! Need to plug in the Rift, will be an excuse for me to play something other than the Quest.

If you haven't tried Virtual Desktop it's worth a look. Playing PC VR without wires is incredible!

Looks like the game has finally unlocked. Word is Virtual Desktop streaming to Quest is working great if anyone else is using that setup.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
FridgeGremlin wrote:

Looks like this game might actually come out Monday. Assuming no surprise Valve time, anyway. Anyone else here excited for it? The recent gameplay footage has looked super atmospheric and I'm a little nervous to play honestly!

I managed to snag one of the Index headsets when they were on sale a couple of weeks ago for about 3 minutes, and it comes with the game. I'm cleaning up my office this weekend to reset it for VR, and am looking forward to giving this a go.

How much was it during the sale?

Balthezor wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:
FridgeGremlin wrote:

Looks like this game might actually come out Monday. Assuming no surprise Valve time, anyway. Anyone else here excited for it? The recent gameplay footage has looked super atmospheric and I'm a little nervous to play honestly!

I managed to snag one of the Index headsets when they were on sale a couple of weeks ago for about 3 minutes, and it comes with the game. I'm cleaning up my office this weekend to reset it for VR, and am looking forward to giving this a go.

How much was it during the sale?

I just needed the headset, which was $500. It wasn't at a sale price, just that it was finally available to buy after not having been in stock since late October. Their Index stuff was available to buy at noon a couple of weeks ago and was sold out in a couple of minutes.

FridgeGremlin wrote:

Looks like the game has finally unlocked. Word is Virtual Desktop streaming to Quest is working great if anyone else is using that setup.

I can confirm this, Virtual Desktop streaming does work great. The game looks awesome so far but I've played only for about 30 minutes (longer VR sessions tend to be tiring for me).

Hedinn wrote:
FridgeGremlin wrote:

Looks like the game has finally unlocked. Word is Virtual Desktop streaming to Quest is working great if anyone else is using that setup.

I can confirm this, Virtual Desktop streaming does work great. The game looks awesome so far but I've played only for about 30 minutes (longer VR sessions tend to be tiring for me).

Awesome! The wife already gave me the go ahead to put some time in this evening. I am super excited to play.

Half-Life Alyx Review "Buy, Wait for Sale, Rent, Never Touch?"

Played for about 90 minutes. Using the Rift S for slightly higher resolution and frame rate. The game so far is incredible, I think we are finally seeing the promise of VR coming to fruition.

One thing is I bet the controls are a bit better with the Index controllers. Works fine with. the Oculus Touch but I bet better with Index.

Got an hour and a half or so and this game is just incredible. Fighting zombies and head crabs has never been so intense. I won't delve into any spoilers but this game has gallons of atmosphere. It's an amazing accomplishment and I can't wait to play more.

Looking back to the days of yore, when I hung out in Ventrilo with some other Goodjers waiting for Half-Life 2 to unlock on steam, I realize I am not as pumped for a new HL game as I once was. I was never too worked up over the fate of HL3, but I certainly would have picked it up if it had ever appeared. I certainly didn't hesitate to buy this the day it was available on steam.

It's been great to step back into the HL universe, and I feel they've done very well with the VR controls. I've been happy with the performance on my HTC Vive on a GeForce 970. I would enjoy being able to turn up the graphical settings, but it's not killing my experience.

I'm 2 hours in and looking forward to more sessions throughout the week.

The game is incredible. It's probably the first VR game that, for me, feels like a full-blown "real" game (as opposed to silly little minigame experiences, not sure how to explain it)

Certainly, the best VR game I've ever played.

I'm really curious to hear how it is on the Quest. I'm sure it isn't the best option but I haven't been able to get an Index both from cost and from justifying it to myself....

Glad to hear people are liking it!

I've got the office cleaned up and work's craziness has ended this evening. Just need to sleep to regain some HP. I hope to play some on Friday.

Phades wrote:

I'm really curious to hear how it is on the Quest. I'm sure it isn't the best option but I haven't been able to get an Index both from cost and from justifying it to myself....

So, the biggest issue I think on the Quest is compression of the image. Sometimes dark areas have crushed blacks, etc. That being said, it still looks and plays super well. I'm using Virtual Desktop so I'm wireless, I can't speak to how it is over the link cable but I imagine it's similar in performance.

Honestly, being entirely wireless has been worth the trade off for me. I've played VR is on an HTC Vive and the Quest and the Quest was the best experience, personally.

As for the Quest in general, it was never my plan to purchase one (spontaneous good deal locally) but I genuinely think it's amazing.

Well, I cringed at paying full price for a VR game but the game is worth it if you want a AAA game. Amazing graphics. Immersive and the most amazing health station ever.

chooka1 wrote:

Well, I cringed at paying full price for a VR game but the game is worth it if you want a AAA game. Amazing graphics. Immersive and the most amazing health station ever.

squuuuuiiiiishhh

FridgeGremlin wrote:
chooka1 wrote:

Well, I cringed at paying full price for a VR game but the game is worth it if you want a AAA game. Amazing graphics. Immersive and the most amazing health station ever.

squuuuuiiiiishhh

Ha.

I put another hour in tonight. Amazing!

chooka1 wrote:
FridgeGremlin wrote:
chooka1 wrote:

Well, I cringed at paying full price for a VR game but the game is worth it if you want a AAA game. Amazing graphics. Immersive and the most amazing health station ever.

squuuuuiiiiishhh

Ha.

I put another hour in tonight. Amazing!

I'm dying to play more but work and life has left me pretty exhausted. I did have a thought the other day, if there is no melee, what do you do if you run out of ammo?

FridgeGremlin wrote:
Phades wrote:

I'm really curious to hear how it is on the Quest. I'm sure it isn't the best option but I haven't been able to get an Index both from cost and from justifying it to myself....

So, the biggest issue I think on the Quest is compression of the image. Sometimes dark areas have crushed blacks, etc. That being said, it still looks and plays super well. I'm using Virtual Desktop so I'm wireless, I can't speak to how it is over the link cable but I imagine it's similar in performance.

Honestly, being entirely wireless has been worth the trade off for me. I've played VR is on an HTC Vive and the Quest and the Quest was the best experience, personally.

As for the Quest in general, it was never my plan to purchase one (spontaneous good deal locally) but I genuinely think it's amazing.

I am also playing using Virtual Desktop and it looks and plays great. I would actually argue it IS the best option but it depends on how much one is used to cable management with wired VR headsets and how much it bothers them.

What kind of router are you using for Virtual Desktop? I have a Netgear Orbi and when I tried it a while back it didn't work all that great. Has it improved, or do I need a different router?

Phades wrote:

What kind of router are you using for Virtual Desktop? I have a Netgear Orbi and when I tried it a while back it didn't work all that great. Has it improved, or do I need a different router?

There are a few Reddit threads that have mentioned different routers and the Virtual Desktop discord may be able to recommend alternatives but I'm using a TP-Link AC1750. The quest is on the 5ghz network one room away from my play area. I usually have around 20-30ms lag which is imperceptible.

I agree the game is very immersive.

I'm very much enjoying this game. It's a bit spookier then I'm used to in video games, I normally steer clear of any horror games, but it has a really good balance of the two so far.

As an aside, the laser sight is such a good upgrade for the pistol.

There's lots of immersive bits and bobs, but the thing that catches the most is how replicating the half-life 2 world means old tech. In the half-life timeline, consumer computers stopped somewhere between 2000 and 2005, right? So when I'm snatching a grenade to lob, I'm reaching past a beige CRT.

That's weird. It feels like an (almost) tangible representation of Valve's development hiatus.

Then there's heading into the quarantine zone through empty streets, and worrying about what you're breathing. What a weird time for this game to come out in. Dunno if that helps or hurts the experience.

So far the neatest thing to me is figuring out you don't have to chamber a round if you save the last round of the prior mag. I assume that's how real guns work, too, but I'm not a gun guy so for me it is good game design.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

So far the neatest thing to me is figuring out you don't have to chamber a round if you save the last round of the prior mag. I assume that's how real guns work, too, but I'm not a gun guy so for me it is good game design.

I'm by no means an expert on the subject but, yes, I believe this is the case for many guns. It's also how the weapons in Boneworks worked, as an aside.

I was debating getting this game since I'm still using a launch Vive and it's not-great wands, but while I'm on the list for an Index they don't ship for 8 weeks or so.

I decided I didn't want to wait to play it, and yeah, that was the right decision. Such a good game. Plays "fine" with the wands, though they are absolutely not ideal. Performance is perfectly fine otherwise.

I played for a pretty obscene length of time on Saturday, and my body isn't happy with me.

I'm hesitant to talk specific spoilers, especially since I haven't beaten the game yet but the chapter called "Jeff"...

Spoiler:

was incredible. The mechanic of forcing you to hold one hand over your mouth as you very carefully try not to knock bottles off shelves and move around quietly was so cool and unexpected. I am not much of a horror game fan but that part so far has been a highlight for me. I can't stop thinking about it. It changes the play dynamic in such a cool way.