Recent reviews by Sir Lucient

I like to begin by saying I’m a long time fan of the Half-Life series. I first played the original Half-Life when I was around 10 years old, and was hooked to the series ever since. I have thus played every single official Half-Life release, and many of the off shoot games from the same engine (such as Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team fortress etc etc) Heck I remember Getting steam installed for the first time with the release of Half-life 2! I feel I should also point out I have been playing VR for nearly 5 years now, and have played nearly every VR title out there. These points aside now, lets move on to Half-Life Alyx.

Lets start with what came out well.

Number 1: The Story
The Story was excellent, very enjoyable. Enjoyable characters, and getting some story on the events of City 17. Not much else to say other then that I did very much so enjoy the story.

Number 2: The Graphics
The Graphics are just hands down excellent. But as this is literally the single least important part of a game, I’ve not much else to say on this. I will however say that some optimization is pretty desperately needed.

Number 3: The Weapon controls
The controls for the weapons, and to an extent the weapon interactions and animations are hands down excellent. Other then the lack of two handed weapons, The weapons feel great in this game and are very responsive. Even a pulsing effect from the Zen Grenade, nice touch! It’s an absolute shame the actual combat is so disappointing.

Number 4: Interactivity
The interactivity with this game is hands down one of the best, everything from poking a weird Xen spore, to smashing a window with a chair. And best of all, it’s all pretty well smoothed out. There are some odd issues here and there, but over all the physics system in this game is top notch. In Many ways you can think of it like Boneworks, but a lot less janky, but also a lot less freedom of movement.


Now lets move on to What went wrong with Half-Life Alyx

Number 1: The Combat
Due to a number of factors, the game is very slow paced, and combat is very slow and tedious, rather then fast and exciting like every other half-life game in the series. Which I will get into more detail about as I go.

Number 2: Lack of Sprint
Not only does this make zero sense from a “Half-life” Perspective, but this just doesn't work well in general with this game. Once combat starts, you are pinned behind cover, as trying to “run” from one place to the next will get you shot because your max speed is a casual walk. Mind you, there is a Teleport function in this game, but I do not need to state that teleportation is the Cancer of VR. In general I feel the lack of a Sprint was a horrible game-design choice here.

Number 3: Lack of a Jump
There is no way to jump… once again, you can teleport, But no… actual jumping ability. Considering that on the Oculus they left several buttons unused with their control scheme (IE the X button on the left controller) seems like a Jump might have been a good idea to put here. Mainly for the fact that using a teleport function to “leap across” a bridge, or obstical completely removes the “danger” factor of these actions… Thus making them boring and uneventful. once again, this was a bad choice in my opinion.

Number 4: Lack of melee Combat
I could go on for hours why this was a horrible choice.. but suffice it to say… no melee combat was a bad choice. In combination with the next point

Number 5: Bullet Sponge enemies
A normal Combine soldier takes 8 shots to the face from a .45ACP to kill. This is in it’s self both silly and does not actually served to reward a player for being skilled enough to pull off headshots. Combine this with the surprising lack of ammo scattered through the game, and you make for a very tedious game. Combine this with the fact that the game doesnt allow you to actually conserve your ammo by storing a “half-mag” and you get a very annoying choice between losing 6 bullets or having a full mag at the ready. Mind you, By the end of the game I did finally start having a surplus of ammo, and I never got into a fire-fight where I fully ran out of ammo. I understand why the individual enemies were made into such bullet sponges, but this was a poor choice in my opinion.

Number 6: Lack of enemies
You will, at any one time fight no more then 3 enemies (with the exception of a few points with Zombies and combine, and a few points with the Antlions) I can understand from a performance level that they went with this to ensure smooth running frame rates, but Personally I feel some other things could have been sacrificed to allow some larger more actually challenging combat engagements. This is also why they chose to make the individual enemies so much stronger, as a result of their low numbers.

Number 7: Lack of a proper inventory
Now, this isnt really something that is entirely needed with this game, but the fact that the game limits you to only 2 pockets (on your wrists?) is pretty silly. Combine this with the fact that the game doesn't allow you to actually conserve your ammo by storing a “half-mag”and you too will start to wonder why Alyx doesn't have a backpack…

In Summery, as a major fan of the Half-life series I must say that despite some of the poor design choices Half-Life Alyx is still a very enjoyable VR game. Now, is this game worth 60$? Absolutely not, And if anyone out there is a huge fan and considering on buying this, wait for a sale. You’ll be much more happy with your purchase. Due to the Combat being the way it is, and for the game being fairly short (considering it took 13 years for us to get this…) and Extremely linear in it’s level designs, This takes away from the replay value. Now, if you are still planning to get this I highly recommend you look up the gentlemen that already figured out how to increase the movement speed, and that you play the game on “story” mode. Where the enemies are still quite smart, but they are a lot less bullet spongy. And you will be able to enjoy the best aspects of the game, without being too bogged down by the shortcomings.

On top of all of this, despite the game being set IN CITY 17!! This game fails to really deliver that “Half-Life” feel (until the very end). At the moment, to me, Boneworks delivered a more “Half-life” experience then Alyx did. And that alone makes me worry. Truth be told though, Valve has plans to allow some pretty hard core modding, and that alone may be the saving grace of this game.

Zero Caliber Is a Fun up and coming VR Shooter in it's early days of development, but it already shows a lot of promise.

This game has a lot of features that show a lot of potential, But the users need to bare in mind that it is currently in Early access and as such it still has a long way to go. But over all this games Physics, and weapon handling is quite the experience, and not enough can be said about fighting an AI enemy that is actually smart enough to Grab cover.

Pros:
#1: Weapon physics: It's a rather awesome experience to have a bullet come flying from somewhere off in the distance and havening it slam into your rifle and knock it around. On top of this havening to maintain awareness of your rifle while moving around obstacles and other barricades is quite the unique and realistic experience. You begin to understand why it might not be such a great idea to always be running around with a rifle that is 4 feet long, or a magazine that hangs down to your knees. As the weapons actually physically collide with the environment and you have to stay aware of your weapon, and how you handle it. This feature is unique to Zero Caliber and is one of my personal favorite.

#2: Graphics: the Graphics in Zero caliber are top notch, and while certain textures on some of the land/buildings can be some what lower quality. The over all quality of the game is Phenomenal, and on top of this it runs smooth as can be. And I have an out-dated computer so that says something. Specifically on the Mission "hail" Be ready for some amazing scenery and an absolutely one of a kind experience. Now personally, I've always felt that good graphics don't make a good game, but they certainly add to the immersion in VR.

#3: the AI. While the AI isn't the best I've ever seen in a game. It is certainly on the right track, and are much much better then the AI of other games that just simply run straight at you while shooting. In Zero Caliber, you can expect the enemies to actually use cover, and while their aim isn't great when they are running, Once they stop and get you in their sights they rarely miss. Again it isn't perfect, but this is a huge step in the right direction for VR shooter games. And on top of that, again, it is a vast improvement over the low quality AI we see in most other VR shooter games.

#4: Weapons: guns! And Attachments! What more needs to be said?

#5: Co-op: shoot Tlaloki with your friends! Shoot them right in the face! Fun for all ages, fun for the whole family.

Cons:
#1: It's early access, and as such a lot of things are still work-in-progress. Which isn't a bad thing, but it does mean certain features either don't work right, or are buggy. Again not really a bad thing as this is also the stage where player feedback can influence how the game continues and the eventual outcome.


And that's really it for Cons. I would however point out that this game is very much a Run-n-gun. It has a very arcade feeling to it, and this isn't a bad thing if that's what you're looking for. Just understand that's what you're getting when you get this game. And while I personally am hopeful that in the coming development we will see a more tactical, hardcore, take on the combat. I understand that isn't for everyone. But at present stage you can expect to enjoy gunning down a lot of enemies, and practicing on getting those headshots!

I think Zero Caliber will eventually be one of the go-too games for VR. It will be the standard for VR co-op, There are really no other games out there that are really aiming to fill this nitch, and I feel that Zero Caliber will do it.

-Starting with the Positive-
The Supercruise space travel: The visuals are utterly beautiful. The galaxy is a massive and accurate recreation of the real thing.

And thats it for the positives....

-Negatives-
Absolutely everything else about this game.

The Combat: slow paced and beyond boring. It was fun for a day or so, then it’s simply slow and extremely unsatisfying.

Trading/Mining: The Economic system is indeed vast and "alive"..... But this is not a new feature to games, and many others have done it hundreds of times better.

Exploring: There is nothing to explore. Sure you can fly around and look at the Stars and Planets...... And thats it... There are NO other life forms in this galaxy other then humans, which only make up maybe 1% of the explorable galaxy the rest is completely devoid of life. You can not actually "do" anything while exploreing. This feature is being made more indepth, to include the ability to actually land on planets, but thats going to be a Stand alone game..... for another 60$..... Called Elite: Dangerous Horizons.

This game has so much potential, and an excellent foundation. But never the less this game is NOT worth 60$, it’s not worth your time. Good graphics DO NOT make a good game. And To top it all off, instead of updateing this game and adding the features that should have already been in it, they're releaseing a second game.

Seriously guys, Just cross your fingers and wait for Star Citizen.