HALF-LIFE: ALYX

Chris Livingston: Whatever tech wizardry Valve did under the hood, it allowed me to play Half-Life: Alyx for sessions lasting for hours at a time without headaches. That’s something I’ve never managed to do in VR before, as typically after a half-hour of wearing a headset I’m ready for a break. Alyx is also, by far, the best looking VR game I’ve ever played, with so many stop-andstare moments I lost track.

But Alyx’s true success is in somehow finding the waning interest I had in the Half-Life saga after all these years and setting it ablaze again. The first half of the game dragged more than a little, confining me to slimy sewers and throwing headcrabs at my face, but the second half became a thrilling adventure as the story finally began to unfold and I rushed wide-eyed into its powerful conclusion. As both a prequel and a sequel it seemed like it might be tied too tightly to past and future events to contain anything surprising or contribute much to the saga. But it cleverly tampered with events and characters we’ve known for years to put a new twist on the old story, one so satisfying it makes me fervently hope we don’t have to wait another decade or more to continue the tale.

Andy Kelly: I was not expecting Half-Life: Alyx to be such a good horror game. The Combine firefights are fun, but it’s when you’re in the tunnels beneath City 17 that the game becomes really special. Poison headcrabs were unsettling enough in Half-Life 2, but being in a dark room full of them, in VR, with nothing but a tiny flashlight to guide your way is the most my nerves have been wracked since Alien: Isolation. I always found headcrabs a bit annoying in the first two games, but in VR they’re sensational. They leap and screech at you, and you can’t help but flinch when they do. And your run-in with Jeff, a terrifying superzombie, is one of Half-Life’s greatest set-pieces.

It’s also a strange sensation seeing City 17 from such an intimate perspective. It’s always been a great setting, but now it feels infinitely more real and tactile. If you thought striders were big in Half-Life 2, wait till one’s towering over you in Half-Life: Alyx.