I Can’t Replicate The Circumstances I Played Half-Life: Alyx Under

I will always associate Taylor Swift’s 1989 album with my memories of being a junior in college and driving around with Welcome to New York blaring from my Saturn Ion’s CD player. Similarly, no matter how many times I return to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Odyssey in the future, I'll always associate the Nintendo platformer wꩲith a weekend-long marathon play session in the post-undergrad apartment I shared with my friends from high school. Sometimes, no matter how many times you experience a work of art, the sense memory of the initial experience will always stick with you.

Half-Life: Alyx Came Out At A VERY Weird Time

For that reason, I can't think about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Half-Life: Alyx without remembering the bizarre experience of exploring the dystopian City 17 while the real world descended into a state of crisis right outsid🐎e my headset.

Half-Life: Alyx, alongside 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Animal Crossing: New Horizons and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Doom Eternal, was among the first wave of pandemic games. Alyx launched ten days after the Trump administration declared a national emergency in the wake of Covid-19's rapid spread. It was one of the strangest times I, or anybody else alive, has ever lived through, and the way I remember Valve's excellent VR shooter can't help but be colored by those events.

Four years later, things have changed. Covid still exists, but it isn't shutting down events anymore, and most of the world has moved on from masking, distancing, and staying home from social events. It's nice to have a smaller number of reasons to be worried about the future. Unfortunately, it also means that the set-up I used to enjoy Half-Life: Alyx and other VR games is gone.

The player accepting Gordon Freeman's iconic crowbar from Eli Vance at the end of Half-Life Alyx, with Alyx and the Combine Advisor in the background

Sure I Want Half-Life 3, But I Mostly W💜ant To See What Happens After The End Of Alyx

The VR spin-off ended on a cliffhanger, and I need to know what h🦋appens next.

Posts 168澳洲🌸幸运5开奖网: 💙

I Just Don't Have Space For VR Any More

My wife and I live extremely close to her office. During those early pandemic days, I got permission to use the building to play VR games. Everyone was working from home, so the building was sitting empty. Valve had sent me an Index for the Half-Life: Alyx review, and I set it up in the building's vacant event space. I had tons of room to run around shooting and/or flailing at headcrabs without worrying about sprinting into my coffee table or stepping on a potted plant.

It was the perfect way to play the game, but it ruined VR for me in the long-term. Now that the office is occupied again, the only VR space I have is my cramped apartment, and that just isn't going to work now that I’ve experienced the optimal VR setup.

VR is one of the rare gaming formats that requires this kind of physical space. The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S need room for a TV, a place to put the console, and space for you to sit, but that’s it. Portable consoles like the Switch and Steam Deck take up practically no room at all, and you can use a gaming laptop anywhere. But VR — even wireless, towerless models like the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Meta Quest 3 — takes up more space. Before a play session, you draw the boundaries, and when I've tried to play any game that required more room than 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Beat Saber in my living r𝔍oom, I always end up edging up to the TV or couc🏅h. I’ve played VR games seated, but it doesn’t feel natural. For it to feel good, you need space to turn, move, and walk.

Whenꦏ I think about getting back into VR, that’s a huge barrier to overcome. I’ve never had much space in my apartment, and now I have a dog whose bed occupies a chunk of the space that I would have used for VR before. Some games require you to upgrade to a next-gen console or buy a new PC, but for me to fully enjoy them, VR games require an upgrade to my 🌌apartment.