You know the feeling of your first game console and games like Mortal Kombat and Mario for the NES, than something new comes along and blows your mind all over again, for me it was Starfox 64 and Mario 64 with 3D graphics. Than later comes Halo and Grand Theft Auto, where you can get in and out of vehicles without loading screens and things are shiny, packed with new life, open worlds, and more. Than after all that in gaming things stayed the same for quite a while with very little change, physics may get better, AI smarter, graphics more defined but that spark of evolution was missing. VR is that next big step in the evolution of gaming, and no game better shows that than Half Life Alyx. Alyx is not some kind of test project (Boneworks) or some kind of sideshow arcade game, this is a full fledged heavily story driven 12-15 hour long campaign, it's a experience like no other in gaming currently. On top of that it answers one of the internet's biggest questions... Without a question though it's one of my top 5 gaming experiences in my 25 years of gaming. It would be number one but I just felt the combat could use a little more "BANG" as shown in some of the trailers. For example after successfully shooting a target (Combine soldier) in a critical spot 2 times you'd expect them to drop instead of having to shoot them 5 times in the head... I feel it would've been more exhilarating with more enemies and for critical shots being more "critical". (I'm aware they do this though because of current hardware limitations) Although that's not to say the combat in the game is weak, it's far from it and will bring you back for a second play through shortly after. Fighting the antlions or "leggies" and other enemies in the game was very fun as your critical shots were actually critical. One other thing I didn't really care for was that there was no actual jumping in the game, you can whats called "blink" which is exactly what it sounds like to get across gaps and what not leading to my last suggestion maybe add a actual jump option, I want to be able to look down when almost falling to my death. Speaking of things spooky, the game has strong horror elements that will get your adrenaline flowing and even give you a few good jolts. Even the sound design which is hands down the best I've ever heard at times can be quite horrifying and leave you hiding in game. With fantastic controls that's not a problem, and completely makes you forget that the game was designed for VR as interacting with the entire world feels almost seamless. Bottom line this is a masterpiece, runs great, and is totally worth the cost of a VR headset (I played it on the Oculus Rift S). [9.8/10] Hopefully we will be seeing Valve's next round of games in VR.

You know the feeling of your first game console and games like Mortal Kombat and Mario for the NES, than something new comes along and blows your mind all over again, for me it was Starfox 64 and Mario 64 with 3D graphics. Than later comes Halo and Grand Theft Auto, where you can get in and out of vehicles without loading screens and things are shiny, packed with new life, open worlds, and more. Than after all that in gaming things stayed the same for quite a while with very little change, physics may get better, AI smarter, graphics more defined but that spark of evolution was missing. VR is that next big step in the evolution of gaming, and no game better shows that than Half Life Alyx. Alyx is not some kind of test project (Boneworks) or some kind of sideshow arcade game, this is a full fledged heavily story driven 12-15 hour long campaign, it's a experience like no other in gaming currently. On top of that it answers one of the internet's biggest questions... Without a question though it's one of my top 5 gaming experiences in my 25 years of gaming. It would be number one but I just felt the combat could use a little more "BANG" as shown in some of the trailers. For example after successfully shooting a target (Combine soldier) in a critical spot 2 times you'd expect them to drop instead of having to shoot them 5 times in the head... I feel it would've been more exhilarating with more enemies and for critical shots being more "critical". (I'm aware they do this though because of current hardware limitations) Although that's not to say the combat in the game is weak, it's far from it and will bring you back for a second play through shortly after. Fighting the antlions or "leggies" and other enemies in the game was very fun as your critical shots were actually critical. One other thing I didn't really care for was that there was no actual jumping in the game, you can whats called "blink" which is exactly what it sounds like to get across gaps and what not leading to my last suggestion maybe add a actual jump option, I want to be able to look down when almost falling to my death. Speaking of things spooky, the game has strong horror elements that will get your adrenaline flowing and even give you a few good jolts. Even the sound design which is hands down the best I've ever heard at times can be quite horrifying and leave you hiding in game. With fantastic controls that's not a problem, and completely makes you forget that the game was designed for VR as interacting with the entire world feels almost seamless. Bottom line this is a masterpiece, runs great, and is totally worth the cost of a VR headset (I played it on the Oculus Rift S). [9.8/10] Hopefully we will be seeing Valve's next round of games in VR.