Quoting: Eikeit's a new level of gaming, comparable maybe to the change from pure text to images and from those to moving graphics.

Pffft.

At best, it's a new level of immersion. I'd only call it an improvement even there, but whatever.
But game mechanics themselves actually suffer because they have to accomodate the restrictions of human head & limb movement as well as the restriction of having to be in first person. Alyx itself is the best example - game's a walk in the park when you remove the need to fumble around with your hands and get superior mouse aim movement instead.
So much so that people keep saying about this mod "please only use it if you have to, it kinda ruins the game".

Like the Wii games of old, "difficulty" here mostly just comes from an input method that is inferior to what already exists in many ways. Of course, unlike Wiimote, there are definitely some advantages to VR controls and some concepts that are not possible outside of VR.

If a game makes you think "this would be so much easier if I was just using a mouse", you know something's fishy.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Mar2ckI love Half Life Alyx and I'm glad more people will get to experience it but I'm expecting people to play it like any old flatscreen game and then dismiss it as a mediocre shooter.

That's because gameplay-wise, VR offers practically nothing new.
The ability to use the camera and (up to) two hands independently of each other while in first person, yes.
Everything else is really just more clunky - just press ctrl vs having to physically duck, aim within milliseconds using the mouse vs seconds using your actual hand + head (please don't try to match mouse speed, you'll hurt yourself), etc. And nobody can tell me the "walking" in VR doesn't feel extremely weird - kind of makes you a camera with arms on rails / teleporter.

I get it, it's more immersive, no discussion here and I realize for some that's all they need - but immersion through graphics and controls is only going to last so long for most gamers.
That "whoa" passes and then? You are left with games that are limited by what your body can do physically, which is (except for the mentioned independence of your limbs from each other) actually less than what the abstraction through a keyboard or controller offers.
Which is why all VR games that are "made to run" VR-free end up feeling so lame and mediocre compared to other games in the same genre - cause that's what they are, as they have to be to accomodate the limitations of our wobbly, slow little bodies.

This might sound like I hate VR, I don't.
I actually appreciate it for the use it brings - I use it eg as a workout device that is vastly more enjoyable than doing "normal" workout.
And have you ever used it to digitally visit a house (some property companies offer that)? Pretty amazing.
And as a "story" device for games like Alyx. Can't beat the story immersion of VR.
But for gameplay? Nah, that honestly just feels like a step back, not forward.

tl;dr: If you want to experience Alyx, please use a VR device if you anyhow can. Even if it means not playing it at all until you can eventually afford that VR gear.
Or watch a playthrough of someone doing that - but careful, you might get dizzy because of the camera movement. At least that happens to me (and I don't get dizzy when actually using VR), not sure if that's a common phenomenon.

I feel bad, because I know a lot of people put so much effort into that conversion.
But playing the VR-free version is just going to make you feel bad about it, VR and non-VR games are just made differently and you'll lose so much while not gaining anything, really.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: mr-victoryThe price is a bit high for "supporting the developer" IMO.

Dwarf Fortress costs even more.

And both of them could cost three times as much and would still be worth it as they'd still blow other games out of the water at that price point.

When you buy a game, you always (well, usually, anyway...) "support the developer".

All that said, I hope they'll add workshop support, and that all the usual mods continue to work with this version and it won't cause some weird divide into two incompatible versions.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Cataclysm: DDA is such a marvellously great game.
And at least to me it was surprisingly easy to get into - of course, it is ridiculously detailed and some stuff (like the actual viability as a weapon of nearly every single item from a napkin to a kitchen knife) just makes you laugh at that.
But other stuff is surprisingly nice and full of QoL features - like automatically using nearby items in crafting; many more visually "polished" games still require you to have every single item in your very pants to start crafting.

... and then come the mods adding in magic, scifi, etc.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

A few changes to mission trees for a handful of countries, some new art, some new music pieces.
20 bucks, thank you very much.

Dear lord

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Reset the "Crappy PC port of major title" timer!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: WORMCS:GO's deck compatibility is still only "playable."

To be fair, CS:GO is a mouse & keyboard game.
If you played it with a controller (which I would count the Deck as), you'd go down easily and quickly.
Yes, I am aware that you can connect anything to the Deck, but most people do use it "as it is".

So I understand why the Deck is not a focus for Counter-Strike.
That Linux itself doesn't seem to be a focus for it is still somewhat weird, though.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Makes sense that they'd do a sequel to one of the few games left where they wouldn't have to count to three.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

That's one happy blob.
Which makes me a happy blob.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Seems pretty clear to me this is one of those games where you are better off just playing the Windows version through Proton.

2+ years for fixing a platform-specific bug?

View this comment - View article - View full comments