Half-Life: Alyx

Should you invest in this game? ...will probably be the first question anyone has about "Alyx". The game itself is first rate, very much worth playing, and a worthy addition to the "Half-life" series. But there is only one way to play it, and it requires VR goggles. Consider that even modestly-priced VR (Virtual reality) goggles are at least $500 (Oculus Quest is the one I bought) with Valve's VR goggles offering being almost twice that. And after having played the game, the answer to the question "Is it worth it?" is really yes and no and depends, unfortunately, on how much discretionary income is available to you for buying the goggles since you cannot play "Half-life Alyx" without them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the most important question really might be this, Is VR c. 2020, really worth the expense? Considering what you pay ($500 and up, although almost certainly we can assume that cheaper used VR goggles will become available before too much longer) vs what you get (the VR experience c. 2020) - my answer would have to be no! My reason for this is because, while VR is certainly novel and new, it is not revolutionary enough to be worth causing yourself financial hardship to get it.

And if at all possible, do try VR goggles before you buy a set. The visual effect of VR really needs to be experienced to answer the question for yourself. And I repeat, the truth is VR right now is really nothing revolutionary. It's basically just optical trickery, which is fine, except I'd describe the effect as not too different from the old time 3D movies from the 1950's. These 3d movies required you to wear some paper glasses with red tinted plastic over one eye and blue over the other. And VR goggles are really not too different from old-time 3D. By showing one eye one perspective and your other eye a different one, and your grey matter does the rest. The result is certainly a noticeable visual effect, which makes it different from every other game you've played up to now - but paying the freight to get it may not be worth it to you.

There are plenty of images on line that will show you a very good representation of the 3D minus the goggles, and if anything the effect is kind of like watching the game action through a piece of glass a foot away, with more action happening 10 to 20 more feet away, in other words, two perspectives at once. The feeling of actual depth is there at times, it is interesting to see, and it does make gameplay more interesting. But the interface you have with the hand controllers is of necessity very slow. Navigating through this virtual world is awkward and clumsy. You cannot react quickly to anything in the game, and so almost everything that happens gives you plenty of time to react. This removes a lot of the tension from the gameplay but is probably unavoidable.

So whether this game + VR goggles is worth it to you, is something only you can answer. By the end of the game I did not feel cheated or disappointed, but just wanting more. It's obvious Valve left out a lot of stuff - landscapes, visual effects, et. al. that will surely be there when they finally come out with "Half life 3" (they have not announced it yet but the mere existence of this prequel game basically confirms HL3 beyond much doubt). I thought about this game for several months before actually getting the Oculus Quest to play it, I had modest expectations that were mostly met by this game. But if you're on the fence about it, and $500 will make a significant hardship for you, I'd tend towards the answer being NO! My reasons for that, beyond the high cost, is that virtual reality still has a very long way to go. Maybe in 5 to 10 years they will finally have something truly groundbreaking instead of 1950's 3D. But as of 2020, they are still a long, long away from anything truly revolutionary in the optics field.