This is the game I bought VR for.
It was definitely worth it and it sets a good standard for what fully fledged VR experiences should be. As a huge Half Life fan it also scratches the lore itch in many ways, however it's got a bunch of problems. I highly recommend it but I'm gonna highlight my issues since most reviews don't mention them.
1. The story is thin. The game has long periods of nothing where exposition is just given to you over comms for a few minutes, then never mentioned for a while and then a big event happens out of the blue and it's just another act completed. Everything feels incidental and forgettable, the pacing just isn't great. The final act of the story just has everything neatly converge. The ending is amazing and probably the best way they could have wrapped things up, it's an absolute highlight but everything before it could have been handled better.
2. Valve always have the same problem with HL games, and this one has problem that HL1 and HL2 have. There's levels that are just way too long. In HL1 it was zen, in HL2 it was Route Kanal and in this one it's the early sewer levels. They are just boring and I stopped playing a few times because I was sick of looking at similar interiors. The Northern Star levels also dragged on a bit. I wish there more areas set outside and more areas like the Zoo.
3. Controls aren't the best. I played on a Quest 2, it was fine for the most part however reloading is inconsistent and grenades don't work. I notice reloading issues with the shotgun more than anything, especially with the speedloader, sometimes the shells just don't go in even in the right orientation, it defeats the purpose. As for grenades, I died more times from grenades just dropping at my feet rather going where I want them to than I died from enemies. I don't know what causes this to happen, I practised throwing objects, tried different arcs, tried moving my headset with the throw, tried keeping it still, etc. grenades just dropped to the floor 50% of the time.
4. Weapon upgrades are bad. My biggest regret was getting the sight for the pistol, I hated using it and wish I could have taken it off at some stage, the plain iron sights were far easier to use, it got to a stage where I just learned to hip fire when possible. The shotgun's laser also makes it hard to aim the gun when you don't want to hip fire, granted its rare but it did throw me off at times.
5. Performance isn't the best. I'm running a 1660 Super, 24GB of RAM and a Ryzen 5 1600x. Not the best CPU but definitely suitable for the game and can easily hold its own despite its age. My game suffered stuttering when teleporting or changing weapons. In some areas the frame dips were noticeable. I dropped settings right down and even dropped resolution through Steam VR. It didn't really help. I think the issue is SteamVR itself and a lot of players have noted it doesn't do well with the Quest, with performance gains seen by using third party programs to get around SteamVR. The game was playable for me but going from this to any other VR game where it is smooth is jarring.
6. Puzzles. Yeah opening the storage boxes, or fixing the wiring is cool the first 5 times but by the end of the game I wanted to ignore them all just so I didn't have to do them. I understand setting the pacing and slowing things down but there has to be a better way.
7. No melee combat. Running out of ammo isn't rare, I ran past a few encounters because I had no other options. Gordon Freeman's iconic weapon is a crowbar and yet there's no equivalent here, it feels like a missed opportunity and can lead to frustrating moments.
It was definitely worth it and it sets a good standard for what fully fledged VR experiences should be. As a huge Half Life fan it also scratches the lore itch in many ways, however it's got a bunch of problems. I highly recommend it but I'm gonna highlight my issues since most reviews don't mention them.
1. The story is thin. The game has long periods of nothing where exposition is just given to you over comms for a few minutes, then never mentioned for a while and then a big event happens out of the blue and it's just another act completed. Everything feels incidental and forgettable, the pacing just isn't great. The final act of the story just has everything neatly converge. The ending is amazing and probably the best way they could have wrapped things up, it's an absolute highlight but everything before it could have been handled better.
2. Valve always have the same problem with HL games, and this one has problem that HL1 and HL2 have. There's levels that are just way too long. In HL1 it was zen, in HL2 it was Route Kanal and in this one it's the early sewer levels. They are just boring and I stopped playing a few times because I was sick of looking at similar interiors. The Northern Star levels also dragged on a bit. I wish there more areas set outside and more areas like the Zoo.
3. Controls aren't the best. I played on a Quest 2, it was fine for the most part however reloading is inconsistent and grenades don't work. I notice reloading issues with the shotgun more than anything, especially with the speedloader, sometimes the shells just don't go in even in the right orientation, it defeats the purpose. As for grenades, I died more times from grenades just dropping at my feet rather going where I want them to than I died from enemies. I don't know what causes this to happen, I practised throwing objects, tried different arcs, tried moving my headset with the throw, tried keeping it still, etc. grenades just dropped to the floor 50% of the time.
4. Weapon upgrades are bad. My biggest regret was getting the sight for the pistol, I hated using it and wish I could have taken it off at some stage, the plain iron sights were far easier to use, it got to a stage where I just learned to hip fire when possible. The shotgun's laser also makes it hard to aim the gun when you don't want to hip fire, granted its rare but it did throw me off at times.
5. Performance isn't the best. I'm running a 1660 Super, 24GB of RAM and a Ryzen 5 1600x. Not the best CPU but definitely suitable for the game and can easily hold its own despite its age. My game suffered stuttering when teleporting or changing weapons. In some areas the frame dips were noticeable. I dropped settings right down and even dropped resolution through Steam VR. It didn't really help. I think the issue is SteamVR itself and a lot of players have noted it doesn't do well with the Quest, with performance gains seen by using third party programs to get around SteamVR. The game was playable for me but going from this to any other VR game where it is smooth is jarring.
6. Puzzles. Yeah opening the storage boxes, or fixing the wiring is cool the first 5 times but by the end of the game I wanted to ignore them all just so I didn't have to do them. I understand setting the pacing and slowing things down but there has to be a better way.
7. No melee combat. Running out of ammo isn't rare, I ran past a few encounters because I had no other options. Gordon Freeman's iconic weapon is a crowbar and yet there's no equivalent here, it feels like a missed opportunity and can lead to frustrating moments.