- Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx launched today.
- The reviews are overwhelmingly positive with some gaming outlets handing out perfect scores.
- Critics are touting the game as a defining moment in VR’s history.
Half-Life: Alyx launched today, throwing players back into Valve’s storied franchise for the first time since
Half-Life: Alyx Drops to Rave Reviews VG (5-7 / 5)
When Half-Life 2 released, it revolutionized the first-person shooter. It set a benchmark for shooters that followed, just as the opening train journey in the first Half-Life led to dozens of games aping that slow-burn introduction. One of the reasons Valve never counted to three and gave us a proper sequel is the expectation that comes with it. The series ’core ideas have been refined and polished, and believable physics are no longer such a novelty in video games. Where is left for Half-Life to innovate? It turns out Valve just needed new tech. It just needed VR.
Half-Life: Alyx is billed as a VR. return to the series, and that’s exactly what it delivers. It does what Half-Life has historically done well, and without the clouding of nostalgia or unhelpful notions of what constitutes “revolutionary” design, it ranks alongside Half-Life 2. It is a full-length VR experience that both needs to be in VR, but that uses the tech to more strongly evoke the same feelings you got with a mouse and keyboard years ago. There are some small flaws that are no more annoying than over-long sewer odysseys or having to crouch jump were in past games, and its spectacle hits the hardest of any in the series. It sets Half-Life up for a compelling future — here’s hoping we see it.
IGN – /
Back when VR first became a real thing and we all started spitballing which game worlds we’d most like to be fully immersed in, Half-Life topped my list ( tied with BioShock). It took a few years, but Half-Life: Alyx has more than realized that potential. With it, Valve has set a new bar for VR in interactivity, detail, and level design, showing what can happen when a world-class developer goes all-in on the new frontier of technology. In a lot of ways, it feels like a game from the future, and one that the rest of VR gaming will likely take a good long while to match, much less surpass.
The masses may not rush out to buy a VR set to play Half-Life: Alyx. But anyone who loves video games should look at this game as a next logical step in the possibilities of dramatic, interactive storytelling. Bravo, Valve. Bravo.
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