Best Of

Bunch of grumps in here. :-p

I'm excited about it. I certainly don't play VR games as much as non-VR games, but I've got a couple headsets. If you haven't experienced modern VR with a decent game, I don't think it's worth immediately writing VR off.

I ended up buying an Oculus Rift a few years ago since the price for entry was reasonable. I went in with a lot skepticism. Since then, I've introduced a lot of people to VR: many who were excited, and a good chunk who were skeptical. When the Oculus Quest came out, the majority of those skeptical (and some additional new intros) ended up ordering a Quest within the next few days/weeks. The cost of entry for VR now for the experience you get is phenomenal in my opinion. Most of us already have beefy-enough PCs to handle wired VR, and if you don't, the Quest is a fantastic headset. And when you're ready for a beefy PC, Oculus Link should hopefully be in a more mature state.

Anyway, back to HL: Alyx. I can't see this as a headset-seller, but if you already have one - or are already interested for other games/reasons - and are any sort of HL fan, I think it's great. The articles I've read indicate it should be of a similar length to HL2.

As far as "looking cool" with VR, why not enjoy the technology instead of worrying about how you look to others? Until eSports became more mainstream, we certainly didn't "look cool" sitting behind a computer screen. We did it anyway, and we had a blast. I'll run with the "how you look" aspect, though. One thing I found important to my experience was being able to play around while alone. If you're trying someone else's system, don't do it with a large group around. Someone's going to poke at you, and it ruins the experience.

For anyone I've introduced to VR, I try to do a few things:

1. Make sure there are a very limited number of people around and outside the immediate area. You don't want people prodding the person in VR, and you don't want the audience getting smacked.
2. Show them the headset and controllers outside of VR. Explain the controllers a bit, show them how to hold them, etc. They can't see outside the headset once it's on.
3. Once they're in VR, place their hands appropriately on the controller and have them feel out the buttons.
4. Have them move to the sides of the playspace so the guardian border pops up. Let them feel the walls (if your space has them) so they have a sense of their playspace.
5. Run them through the tutorials.

This is a good 15-20 minute process per person and may not be the super exciting stuff that everyone advertises, but now they know what they're doing. I let them play from there (Superhot VR is the favorite every time).

To wrap this up, I've had some really great experiences in VR: It's amazing how a small playspace can turn into this huge, beautiful world. I've found myself just sitting there absolutely calm, admiring the world around me. Then I've stood up, fired up Pistol Whip, and turned into John Wick. After that, I became a rhythm Jedi in Beat Saber. Sure, to anyone outside VR, I looked like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tubeman, but I felt like a badass inside VR.

Same as Linc. No chance I'll buy VR for this, or any other, game. But a full-fledged PC title? I'd be obsessed...

It’s not gonna convince me to get a VR setup.

But I won’t pretend for a minute I still wouldn’t buy a new Half Life game for PC and play thru it like my life depended on it.

The fact that they are giving access to development tools makes me wonder what the modding community will do. When Half-Life was in it's heyday, a couple mods called Counter-Strike and Team Fortress Classic made a tremendous addition to the gaming world.

I'm excite. Maybe it will happen again?

Waiting on HL3. Everything else is garbage.