It’s Half Life Alyx day today!

[Mr Whippy]

EK993 said:

Thanks for all the feedback guys appreciate it

This looks like a good option - has an RTX2070 and reasonable price

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Leopard-10SFK-047-i7-10...

Not sure on specs etc, but I went looking for a backup/client carry round gfx workstation/gaming laptop 3 years ago and bought an MSI in the end.

It’s still going strong now. Really nice hardware, good driver support so ran Win7 and Win10 on there.

I’d not hesitate to buy another top end MSI laptop.

But it’s not quiet if you’re hammering the CPU and GPU.
Mine’s a thin form factor like the one in the link.


Also no easily removable battery and it does really chug through it doing any real work on it!

[nigelpugh7]

Well guess what turned up this morning!





Looks like it’s going to take the rest of the day to do the download of Alyx though!

Still pretty god damn excited!

[Mr Whippy]

£920!!!

Does Alyx come with it?

[rustyuk]

Aren't laptops labelled VR Ready? I've got an old alienware laptop and it works great!

[nigelpugh7]

Mr Whippy said:

£920!!!

Does Alyx come with it?

Your god damn right it does!

Still your right it’s a lot of cash, but never wanted to play a game more in my life than this one!

[mackie1]

You will not be disappointed, you will be terrified.

[nigelpugh7]

mackie1 said:

You will not be disappointed, you will be terrified.

I’ve just spent a few hours playing with the VR set up.

It’s unbelievably cool.

And I’m not sure if it’s beaxuse the quality of the VR image and world is so good, it’s the first time I’ve played on a headset that doesn’t make me feel motion sickness!

I’ve had a quick hour or so playing Alyx, it sure is stunning.

I think I need to re Calibrate the sensor bases though, it seems to keep loosing where it thinks my hands are.

Perhaps I need to put them up higher,,at the moment they are on the same table the mouse and keyboard is on.

Also just for sanity, I do have the controllers set up correctly done i?

The movement for jumping to the next location is on my left hand controller, when it seems like it should be on the right hand one logically?

Also if you move, at first it feels like your face is right up against the wall you have moved to be by, you have to use the right hand control to click back to see everything else.

I am loving it though.

[mackie1]

Assuming it’s the same deal as the Vive the base stations should ideally be above head height, in opposite corners and both be aimed at each other with the centrelines intersecting with each other in the centre of your play area at about waist height.

I’m a wee bit jealous but I’m really enjoying it on my Vive with Index controllers. Massive upgrade over the the original wands.

[Jonesy23]

mackie1 said:

Assuming it’s the same deal as the Vive the base stations should ideally be above head height, in opposite corners and both be aimed at each other with the centrelines intersecting with each other in the centre of your play area at about waist height.

It's all SteamVR so exactly the same as a Vive.

Ideally avoid any reflective surfaces (windows, screens, whatever) around the place too, otherwise you can end up with the tracking going mad as it gets confused about where the base station actually is.

[Mr Whippy]

Wiring/mounting black base stations in the lounge... shudders.

Tempting though. I’ve still not experienced a decent VR setup/game, that’s the hard sell for me when spending £900.


Zero time to play currently any way. 3yo and 7mo at home full time haha.

Fingers crossed that Alyx acts like a true catalyst for a generation of games (like HL1 and HL2 did imo), and VR really picks up from here... and gets cheaper and better again!

[130R]

Mr Whippy said:

Wiring/mounting black base stations in the lounge... shudders.

Tempting though. I’ve still not experienced a decent VR setup/game, that’s the hard sell for me when spending £900.

Have a look at the Rift S. I'm impressed with it having had the Rift CV1 previously. No base stations as it uses inside-out tracking (i.e. it's all in the headset). It's also considerably cheaper, although constantly sold out at the moment so you need to be quick to get one when they do come in stock.

[Mr Whippy]

To be fair I’ll go for the Index if I do at all.

Valve know their stuff, and to have made a ground breaking game around it, and priced it so highly, suggests it’s all worth it as a package.

If Alyx doesn’t sell VR on the Index, then nothing will.

[CerbWill]

fk Jeff! That is all.

[CerbWill]

Anyone else finished it? Great game, interesting changes of pace in the last few chapter. Not sure I like what its done to the story though, and I'll stop there before I spoil it for anyone else.

[FourWheelDrift]

Apparently there was a developers non-VR version still available to download via the Steam ID until a few days ago. Where the developers could check everything was ok without having to be in VR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFPLieBpiU8

[Mr Whippy]

It'd be like playing a racing sim using a digital keyboard.

Pointless to a point.

[FourWheelDrift]

A glowing review on steam.

[satans worm]

Just bought it and walked through the opening sequence (first half hour), it managed to blow my mind and shat my pants at the same time!

Given im well into my mid 40's and stared on a commodore 64, this game (or at least at this point the promise of) is the pinnacle so far that i have ever experienced, not sure how im going to cope with the bugs flying at me, but the feeling of scale is amazing, and the atmosphere built up is amazing.

I just have to learn not to flinch when hit!

I hope this game doesnt give me a heart attack!

[mackie1]

I just finished it at the weekend. I'm tempted to play through again on a harder setting. I see they've released to mod tools for it now so it'll be interesting to see what people come up with using the engine and assets.

Not sure what to try next... I guess Boneworks is probably the obvious choice but while my non-gamer wife would geniunely enjoy watching my play HL:A I doubt the same would be true of BW.

[nigelpugh7]

mackie1 said:

I just finished it at the weekend. I'm tempted to play through again on a harder setting. I see they've released to mod tools for it now so it'll be interesting to see what people come up with using the engine and assets.

Not sure what to try next... I guess Boneworks is probably the obvious choice but while my non-gamer wife would geniunely enjoy watching my play HL:A I doubt the same would be true of BW.

I thought it was time for an update.

So despite my Devoted half life fan status for 20 odd years, I have sad news to report.

The game, the graphics, and the gameplay, well it’s simply brilliant.

And the interaction, and challenge puzzles, are all so good it’s just almost too good?

And I think that’s the issue, as half life 1 and 2 players, on Xbox 360 and Xbox one, it’s great to play and easy to pick up where you were last time.

But this game, and the VR requirements for the play environment just make it too hard.

It’s the play area needed, the headset, the cables the whole Shabang and rigmarole to get it out, set it up and play, that makes it a ball ache..

There’s no easy way to just say, fancy a quick blast on half life?

And in minuites your would be playing and having fun.

The complexity of the whole setup for this, is for us the reason it’s not been played with at all.

And I do mean at all, I’ve played it twice,Tom has played it perhaps 5-6 times in total.

That’s not a good result for a setup that cost us over £2K and we did that on a budget.

So I asked Tom and his mates why they weren’t playing it, they answered, simply it’s too hard to get it all set up to play, then it’s actually a pain to play as the room isn’t big enough to play as we stumble and trip.

For reference we set it up in our dining room, it’s not a big room, but it’s 6M * 4M.

It’s still not enough for the whole set of movements.

And for me it comes down to what we loved about half life, you could sit on the sofa, spend a few happy hours playing and then just dip in and out as needed.

For alyx that’s just not the reality, it’s hard to get it all set up and running.

Even harder to play in , what we thought was a decent size room.

As as such you can’t just play it when you want for some fun.

And remember we have had a lot of time on our hands over the last four months.

And yet still it’s been played less than 10 times in total.

So we love it, but we don’t play it, and ultimately it’s going to sit in its box and never get played.

I’m sad to report I can’t see a full valve index and a mega powerful gaming pc being sold on for dimes on the dollar of what we paid for it ,,and very soon indeed too.