Recent reviews by Soopa

Without a doubt this is the best VR game there is. Although the game is chronologically placed between Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 you must play through all HL games (1, 2, Ep. 1 & 2) before starting this one.

I played on a Odyssey+ ($250 CAD) and I rarely had any issues with tracking. Pretty certain an Index would still be the best way to play but $$$.

After finishing the game I'm extremely excited for what Valve does with Half-Life in the future. It would be hard to go back to a 2D Half-Life game after experiencing this.

Pros:
- Visual graphics and fidelity are absolutely beautiful and run great.
- Tense and immersive environments that showcase the alien terrain wonderfully. So many interactions with the world exist to make certain encounters easier that I would never think about doing in a 2D game.
- VR controls are excellent even with WMR.
- I was almost always in a constant state of fear without the game resorting to cheap jump scares.
- Combat is just so fun. Manual reloads take some time to get used to because each gun has a different way of reloading, but once you get the hang of it you feel so accomplished after a fight.

Cons:
- Combat is finicky at at times. Some Combine seem to have the most accurate shots with no spread from across the map while others will just fire at a wall until I peek out.
- Some levels are just extremely frustrating to deal with. One part has Barnacles and explosive barrels everywhere and one wrong shot can kill you and restart the level. I probably died around 10-15 times on Normal here because I kept trying different strategies.
- Gravity Gloves are iffy sometimes. It seems to prefer grabbing supplies and ammo most of the time but there were times when I was continuously pulling a box or trash instead.

Other:
- Plays more like a survival horror akin to RE:7 than any previous Half-Life game.
- Definitely should be played in a big room.
- There is no way this game should ever be played without VR.

Very unique gameplay mechanics. I highly recommend people to not read reviews for this cause there are cool events that happen.

The Steam Link is completely capable of meeting my need of displaying my desktop on the TV. The only problem that is blatantly obvious is the poor wireless (which is probably on my end). I used 802.11n over a fairly congested 2.4GHZ area and it really did not seem to be capable of streaming without hitches; an AC router that can broadcast on 5GHZ will most likely solve most of the issues over wireless. Switching to a wired connection is very recommended because I haven't had any problems with it.

I tested gaming on the Link by streaming Rocket League, and it felt like I was playing on my computer; input lag was minimal/non-existant for me. The option to stream the desktop is very useful because it pretty much turns my TV into a monitor. Since then I've only been using the Link to stream Twitch or downloaded shows which it does very well.

I have two monitors on my computer and the Link will display one of the monitors at a time. I can switch between the two by moving the mouse "between" the screens as if the monitors were side-by-side at my desk which is cool.

The hardware itself lacks a power switch which I find very strange. I usually keep the power strip the Link is plugged into turned off, and once I turn the strip on the Link also turns on. I would much rather have a button that I can just press if I wanted it on.

Overall, the Link is very good at streaming games, shows, and movies (they recently added 5.1 support so that's great). I haven't tested the Bluetooth yet since I don't actually own any Bluetooth accessories.

This game was very unexpectedly good. Great puzzles to figure out with a child-friendly storyline.