I haven't even played it yet ... It deserves better hardware than I currently have! But from everything I heard, it sounds like a clear winner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dgJCnkZoTg

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/game-of-the-year-2020-half-life-alyx/1100-6485617/

Amazing how that game has been so ignored.

I think that you have to play as a woman is what really annoys you, guy.

In my experience, disembodied VR hands are not something you really notice once you're playing. Since VR only tracks heads and hands, it will have to guess the position of the arms and the rest of the body. Having a visible body that doesn't line up with your true body position is immersion-breaking too.

In any case, a VR game with disembodied hands is still 1000x more immersive than any monitor game.

And how much did Valve pay for that? A million here, a million there, and reviews are always on your side. Just look at Cyberpunk 2077

I don't think VR will ever be that mainstream, for various reasons (the biggest of which being the same thing that kept 3D niche, people not wanting to wear headsets while they relax). That's not a knock on VR, just saying I don't think Alyx was capable of making it a mainstream technology, at least not yet. Maybe when it's half the cost and a quarter the weight.

Anyway, I'd love to play Alyx but VR is a total no-go for me because of my astigmatism. I doubt they ever port it to normal screens, so... oh well.

No, unlike CC P Red Valve used their funds to make a decent game, CC P R spent all their funds on cameos of plebs.

I am mainly ignoring it because it is apparently designed as a VR headset game, and I don't have one nor am I going to buy one (at least for now). I care too much for the health of my eyes, to put some LED screens right in front of them.

Plus, since it is a Steam game... I rarely buy Steam games.

I'm not sure that is an issue. The focal distance in most HMDs is 2 meters, much further away than your monitor.

^ Putting words into people's mouths to falsely smear them as "haters" then attacking your own projections for cheap likes is pretty low even by "amateur hour" troll standards...

Best of lists? In 2020? Yawn.

You mean the same GameSpot that heavily marked down Skyward Sword because the reviewer was too stupid to actually know how to play it? (The game has a thorough tutorial, yet he was trying to use the IR pointer/sensor bar to aim when the game does everything via gyroscope, not IR, and blamed the game for his ignorance, and didn't even retract his score after he was proven wrong.)

GameSpot is even more of a garbage shill company than even IGN.

Are there any mods out there to run HL: Alyx w/out VR kit?

Maybe, but I am not only concerned about that, but about keeping radiating LED screens right next to my eyes for hours and hours. I rather let others be the guinea pigs.

It is not like I'd put my nose to my LED monitor or TV either, especially for several hours. Better safe than sorry. I guess we will have some answers to the prolonged exposure within the next 40 years or so.