Lockdown 2020: Here's Half-Life: Alyx Running On That Oculus Quest

Holy crap a new Half-Life. Still feels weird. It will be awhile before i can play this, but i know i definitely will. Looks great.

Grabs a dead rat from the trash. Jeff definitely needs to wash his hands and never touch his face

The rat had me in stitches for the entirety of his presence.

A lone Cowboy and his trusted Ratatouille goes a VRodeo

I know it's been 16 years since 2 and they had to get new voice actors, but I don't like Alyx's new voice...

Having just played the first few hours, it's awesome seeing Jeff play through it. What an experience so far. Can't wait to hear everyone's opinions.

Playing seated with a Samsung Odyssey Plus, and a RTX 2070, on Ultra settings and it runs great. This is the most detailed VR game I've seen. Everything has so much geometry and high detailed textures.

So far, I find that the humor and atmosphere portrays the Half-Life motif very well. Movement and gun-play feel natural and satisfying. Having a crouch button is great for someone seated. Every object feels like it has weight and moving things around feels great.

Really pleased with what I've played so far. Can't wait to see where it goes. Half-Life is back!

Hey , Vinny is in the cast... I think even though you cant' hear him , he's with us :)

I added the tag ... :)

Diablo!

I think I would've preferred until they were back in the office to do this. However long that might take, I think it's worth seeing this "the way it's meant to be played".

VR is struggling and I thought that if any company could put the resources (staff and cash) into solving some of its problems and help increase the userbase, it would be Valve and Half Life is obviously a well known IP that would push those possibilities along even farther...

I'm excited to get into this once my schedule clears up a bit from Doom and Animal Crossing. It seems very well-made and it's a thing I know which makes the price tag easier to swallow. I have to say though, I am severely disliking the writing from what I've seen. I am really sick of that aloof, sarcastic-in-the-face-of-danger tone that literally everything has now.

@davidfox1983: isn't this how most people will play it though?

@davidfox1983: Agree I will give the game the benefit of the doubt due to the circumstances, but nothing here makes me want to invest in VR still.

I'm a little bitter about Valve suddenly being able to do this, (and well apparently) and not a continuation of the story and game proper.

But that poor dead rat gave me my sense of humor back.

F**king lol!

haha- only a few minutes in and i can tell an immersive narrative experience in the half-life universe is likely going to be a tall order for jeff.

this looks pretty amazing though- god DAMN the sound design in half-life games is so, so good.

Gotta love Rhys Darby as Russell.

Why is Jeff the one playing this?

Also, I can't stand they changed the voice actress.

They needed to at least look at it while it is new out. Interest will be well over by the time they make it back to the office in a few months (or 15 days if you believe Trumpton).

Nausea the video game.

Dead Rat for best new character 2020.

Should be said this is getting raves across the board, currently 92 on metacritic. Definitely one that should be played the way its intended if possible, don't let Jeff discourage you if you have the hardware, this thing is incredible

@parapa: I guess the question is will people invest into VR for this. sure people already set up it is a no brainer but most people are not bought in yet.

Im gonna need to see a rat% speed run ASAP...

Game is absolutely incredible so far. Playing on a 2080 and Occulus Quest via PC Link. I can't believe how good this game looks and plays. I'm not that into VR, but I think Valve knocked it out of the park. I still don't buy into a VR future, but I think this is as good as it gets with current tech and Valve probably knows this (thus the heavy investment in brain control tech that Gabe has been discussing in recent interviews).

As good as the game is, I don't see Jeff vibing with it. It's more survival horror than even HL1 and that's never been Jeff's thing. FYI, those planks you can just rip off with your hands. I like how the game doesn't hold you hand, even if it means some stuff like not knowing that or occasionally getting stumped. Jeff is much better at aiming than me and had way more resin than I had so I like how everyone will have their own experience given VR's challenges.

Shooting the rat as it faded out was just too perfect. Lol!

Looks good. I'm curious what the Beastcast crew thinks about it. I remember after Half Life:Alyx was first announced there was a lot of whining from that podcast on why this game was VR exclusive and who it was really for (mostly from Jeff B. and a bit from Alex if I recall). But looks like Valve put out another quality game and at least from what I can tell, VR is integral to the experience. Curious to hear if they have a change of heart about it now.

You would really think Value would know to design with colorblindness in mind.

@tearhead: You might want to take a second look at what he's actually shooting, there...

Jeff really blew through that first part whereas I spent a while listening the different weird radio stations, feeding the pet, panning the video cam, and trying to eat those dessicated food packets. I do have just barely enough space in my office to pull off room scale, but I did knock a couple things off my desk. The Valve Index finger tracking works well so far.

This is easily one of the best looking games ever made. The stream doesn't do it justice.

that hair, lmfao

The moment when Jeff opens the garbage can and sees his new best friend *chef kiss*

@cheetoman:

I got an index last weekend and I've been messing with it past few days but I cant wear glasses (mine are too wide and square to fit) and I cant really enjoy VR because I'm blind in one eye and with no glasses it's just a horrible blurry mess.

I'm looking for a prescription lens recommendation for the index and cant seem to find anything that everyone likes. I'm looking at vr lens lab but due to the pandemic they aren't shipping t ol the us. Any suggestions please anyone

Looks... just very uninteresting. I’m sure the vr interface goes a long way but removed from that, this isn’t something I’d ever feel compelled to play.

@bloody_skirmish: Why not? He's been by far the biggest champion for VR on the site and this seems like the medium's killer app.

Just pull the red lever, Jeff. It's right there.

. . .

OH NO IT'S RED

The level of interaction is incredible and what I thought VR was going to be.

46m 42 into this video and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaQa4ttIyNo

Jeff i know you were doing a bit with the rat and it was insanely annoying... mission accomplished

The way the rat just seems to drop dead when you place it down is really unsettling.

Man, it’s kind of disappointing to see him just completely write off the amount of detail in the environments or just how impressive the graphics and sound are.

Yeah they had a much larger budget and more time than other VR studios, but that shouldn’t take away from the technical accomplishment. The game is a looker. And experiencing it in VR is really something else. I can understand it being “another VR game” in the sense that it’s not bringing anything truly new to the table. But after playing to the same point as Jeff, experiencing how finely tuned the gameplay and it’s mechanics are, all in an audio visual package that rivals the best of them, it’s way more than just “another VR game” for me.

This pretty much confirms my own expectations of Alyx; as someone who has the same issues with the Half Life games that Jeff does, this doesn't really do anything for me aside from the impressive level of interactivity and the environment and character detail. Thats not to say I don't think this looks hugely impressive and like something I can see many people really enjoying - it's just not really for me.

Speaking especially as someone who has a WMR headset and not that much room, I'd mostly end up playing it seated, and this seems like it would be a frustrating experience as much as it would be an exciting one.

Jeff not sure that most of your viewers want to see you struggle with bringing a rat through the entire game. We want to see the game, and you purposely being distracted during scripted events is disappointing, If that's what you want to do in your own time, great, but at least take this seriously in people that want to get a good take on what this game is all about

Maybe some people found the fiddling with the rat annoying, but I laughed my ass off. And this playthrough was way more tolerable than the one I watched Youtuber Jacksepticeye do, where he shouted at everything in the game. Stop shouting man, damn it.

@ripelivejam: I kind of wonder sometimes if Jeff is a champion of VR or a champion of dumb shit. Leave it to him to take a dump on a hugely anticipated game (for some) with remarks that are entirely besides the point. Seriously wtf, him living in a dumpster, limiting his space, somehow is a negative of the game? Also "just another vr game", while at the same time wishing it had more dumb shit interactivity so he can get a few chuckles out of people is just astoundingly stupid. A "champion" of the medium wants to see it grow and while this isn't a huge revolutionary step forward, it definitely is a more finely tuned offering than anything else right now. I'm not even a Half Life fanboy at all, but this side of Jeff pops up every once in a while, and though I'm sure his legion of apologists stand at the ready to tell me how wrong I am, I cannot help but wonder what his motivations are.

Poor Jeff and the red lever

So far the consensus I'm getting is that while it may not be revolutionary, it basically takes anything VR has ever done well, and does it all really well while also excelling at being Half-Life.

And it's a large budget, full 10+ hour narrative game. AKA a regular ass single player game. Is that still rare in the VR space? I dunno.

Here's to a sequel I'll hopefully get to play. And hopefully in less than 13 years.

@vibratingdonkey: I work for a VR company and yeah single player narrative games are kind of rare. For that alone this game looks super exciting and different. Never mind it's smoothness and inventiveness.

I think if the game wants to encourage the player to figure things out on their own, it should provide solutions that incorporate what the player would think of, that incorporate what the game presents as a possible solution. Half-Life is kind of famous for bashing things with crowbars, and first person shooters in general have conditioned us to bash things, especially wooden things. It seems blasphemous to present the player with a pipe and not let them use it to bash away some planks blocking their way.

Intuitive solutions that seem like they'd work, should work. Otherwise it's just disappointing when it doesn't and nothing happens.

When it comes to removing planks so that you can move past them, it shouldn't matter how the player accomplishes it. It's not a cheesy exploit that ruins the game design if you were to bash the planks with a pipe instead of shooting them or removing them with your hands.

For colors used to guide players through the game or represent interactive items in the game world, they should perhaps let players change that as part of a standardized accessibility featureset. It's really kind of strange that there's no standard for this stuff. And that developers don't seem to consult with people who would use these settings? Feels like preferring just the HUD elements to shift colors rather than the whole game, would be a pretty common preference.

I'm not a VR guy at all but this seemed pretty fucking cool to me, if you got the proper setup.

I mean, chat was very excited about that rat, and there even was a poll running regarding if it would disappear or not during the loading screen, and lots of people were happily surprised to see it still being there. Whether it had been that specific rat or not, I think playing it that way lets us extrapolate on how well the game handles environmental interaction in general. It means you could potentially bring an item you find important across large parts of the game and put it to use at a later point, like those explosive barrels or whatever.