Somewhat hot take... I'd argue Boneworks (not Bonelab) was "better", at least if you're used to VR and if you judge by freedom and replay value. Don't get me wrong, playing through Half Life Alyx was fun and engaging, but to me it had little to no replay value, since for all it did great in visuals, audio, accessibility, and especially story, it failed dramatically in physics. Since I played Alyx right after Boneworks, I kept trying to pick stuff up which I ended up not being able to for larger objects, and the first time I tried to knock a Combine over the head with a pipe I was so sorely disappointed. Alyx has absolutely everything Boneworks is missing, yet that physics core is what kept me coming back to the latter. It really clicked for me when I noticed how many things in Boneworks one can solve in alternate ways by "abusing" physics. Climbing is a learned skill and combat can be as much shooting as it can be using knives, fists, shoving someone off a ledge, or grabbing an enemy and throwing it at others. It's what truly made me realize how much potential VR had, being able to interact with a full physics simulation, where even your own body is a physics object, with your physical hands is amazing.
Games
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here and here.
I feel like most people who sing praises for Alyx only do so because it was their first VR game. (a lot of people bought a headset just for it.) It's decent game, but without VR it's nothing special.
Sucks that VR is still a niche product, despite it being an obtainable consumer product for almost a decade now (edit: and affordable for over half a decade now). When the OG Rift and Vive first dropped, I imagined it being as popular as traditional gaming within 5 years. Yet here we are 9 years later and we still don't have epic, 50+ hour AAA experiences in VR because hardly anyone owns a headset. Every VR game feels like an indie title.
While I really enjoyed Alyx, it's very much a game built around it's own limitations. It's more of a survival horror game in a way, because of the limits on ammo and deliberately mechanical reloading. There's no melee at all, so once you're out of bullets you're done for.
For all the roughness of Half Life 2 VR Mod, I find myself enjoying it more because it has fewer limitations imposed by the move to VR. It doesn't always work (and the vehicle sections in particular really push it), but as a mod of a 20 year old game, it's really good.
I played it last year. It was certainly interesting, though it showed me the challenges of VR games. Before, I always hated the idea of using the teleport feature because it seems cheesy. However, after several tries without it, I can say it’s necessary. You end up feeling very nauseous otherwise. But, as a player you’re just way less capable than non-VR games. You can’t move around as easily and so you can’t take on as many enemies or maneuver as easily around the map. In most encounters with enemies, you can only fight a max of maybe 3, before you start to feel overwhelmed. Even 1 is usually enough to feel stressed and when those saw drones fly at you, you’ll panic and possibly yank a cable or get disoriented and bump into something in the real world. Crouching behind cover and shooting is pretty cool though — possibly the most immersive part.
It took me a long time to get used to VR locomotion.
I still really can't handle smooth turning at all, but using VRChat a lot (where the teleport movement is terrible) made me get used to the left stick movement at least which is really all you need.
I had the opposite problem where teleporting makes me dizzy. I only used it as a last resort and can't survive games that don't give you the option to not use it.
You’re able to tolerate moving around without teleport? I have a pretty strong stomach and never get sick on boats or planes, but that just completely fucks me up. I can tolerate it for about 20 minutes, but after that I’m ready to hurl. With teleport I could play for an hour or more.
I'm not the person who originally replied but locomotion is significantly more comfortable than teleports. The teleporting makes me dizzy and messes with my sense of balance and orientation.
I also don't get motion sick in any non-vr setting either.
The trick is to stop as soon as you start to feel nausea. If you keep doing that your body starts to adapt to VR and eventually you won't get nausea except in really extreme experiences.
I think I'm just use to the movement style and teleporting is a bit jarring and makes me stumble. It takes a good dozen hours to stop getting motion sick in general. Now I can do it drunk.
If you actually want a viable discussion on this game, you're better off posting this into a virtual reality community as the comments there won't devolve into salty sour grapes that they couldn't / wouldn't play it since "vR iS uh GImAuCk"
Yeah, that would be wise, but by the same token since Lemmy is a bit smaller the amount of people with things to say in those communities would be smaller overall too.
I would lo to be able to justify buying a 1500€ vr set. But using it for one or two games does not make the threshold for me.
I hope they make more really good games so it become justifiable.
I use the 300 dollar quest 2 and stream it?
Here’s a list of VR games I’d 1000% recommend:
- Half Life: Alyx
- I Expect you to Die (James Bond themed virtual escape rooms - 3 games in the series so far, all of them are good)
- Super Hot (slo-motion first person combat puzzle game)
- Beat Saber (a unique rhythm game)
- Pavlov (CS:GO but in VR with extensive modding support)
There are other good ones out there but that’s the list that justifies the headset to me.
Also there are some good VR ports of non-VR games out there such as Myst and The Talos Principle. Also there are some good Minecraft mods that add VR support (Java edition of course). Stay away from the Skyrim port though.
- the walking dead games
- Walkabout VR (putt-putt game)
- Dungeons of Eternity (quest exclusive)
- Any flight/racing sim (this is actually the biggest selling point I can make. Seriously if you like flight/racing sims, please get one. It'll change your life)
- No Man's Sky (one of my demo games)
The Skyrim port is amazing! …with 100 mods.
Vertigo 2
What? Quest 2 is like $250 and it connects to your PC and works just fine for Alyx.
Dude, VR has been affordable for over half a decade now. Get with the times.
The headsets have (if you can stomach Meta). Thanks to the combines efforts of Nvidia, scalpers, crypto-bros and AI-nerds, the hardware cost has been sailing into the distance and shows no sign of stopping.
you can get a used rift cv1 or a vive for around 200 USD
Get a Quest 3 for like $400 CAD, incredible for its price.
Oh, sod off with those posts allready.
I know perfectly well that I'm old, even without those "Hei, didyo know that yu are closer to WW3 than The first single of the Brian Eno"
And, lets review where we are: Valve is supposedly making a new Half-Life that will reportedly be both flat and VR.
Hands down the best game I ever played. The immersion is unreal and the ending left me with goosebumps and a dropped jaw.