How Modders Fixed Half Life Alyx

Half-Life Alex is incredible it's one of the best VR games ever made and to many people myself included is still the best but it's not perfect valve knew that this would be a lot of people's first VR game so they played it very safe not just with regards to motion sickness but also making sure not to overwhelm the player with enemies that are too hard when I finished my 15 hour playthrough I was both massively impressed but in other areas found it lacked Challenge and it was missing some of those great set piece moments the series is known for luckily the game has Workshop support with a range of tools modders can use to tweak things as well as create new levels and single player campaigns to play through the first thing you're going to notice when you play through the game is how slow you move you can use teleport to zip around quickly but if you're like me you won't want to do that and the movement speed feels like you're going through a gentle walk Even In the Heat of combat luckily that's an easy fix with a simple launch command you can tweak the movement speed for General gameplay as well as when in combats whatever speed you want I won't bog this video down I'm showing how it's done check the description for a link to instructions as well as my own personal settings and a way to turn off Dynamic resolution now you can move around quicker when you just sort out making the game harder the game does have different difficulties a playthrough on normal but going too hard just adds more hit points to the enemies it doesn't actually change their behavior or add more bad guys to kill we've got two options to fix this first you've got campaign plus this is a mod that overhauls the main Half-Life Alex campaign it's got tweaks combined encounters with new types of combine soldiers you've got some with armor which is unpenetrable so you've got to aim for other parts of the body they move and react faster some can heal themselves and some can actually heal others some sections of the game have got new encounters that weren't in the original but when you first get to the northern star hotel there are no enemies now with the mod you get ambushed and this is actually a pretty tough fight they also added zombies which are zombies created from combine soldiers these were in Half-Life 2 but not in Alex they have grenades on them that they can detonate and some of them have armor this is a great option if you want to play the game again and have some things changed up normal zombies head crabs and all the other enemies are untouched the other option is the merciless mod which changes all the enemies in the game you've got the kanban which react faster they're more accurate and they deal more damage so you actually die faster headcrabs normally do a little warning before they jump at you which makes them very easy to deal with now whilst they're in range they jump and they won't miss so they're much more deadly and they can catch you off guard if you don't spot them before they jump the ant lions usually do a little dance and a few backflips before they finally decide to attack now they just go straight for the kill making them much harder to deal with zombies are faster and take more damage and this mod also works with most of the custom levels which I'll talk about later and I personally have it on by default now unless the custom level uses its own tweaked AI you can tweak the amount of shots that an enemy takes to kill by using the difficulty I personally use normal which is a nice balance but you can go easy if you want them to die with less bullets or hard if you like it hard then let's face it who doesn't like it hard let's look at weapons by default the game has three weapons pistol shotgun and SMG they are all 100 weapons as valve didn't like the feeling of two-handed weapons in VR luckily we have a bunch of different add-on weapons to spice things up there are a bunch of replacement pistols my personal favorite is the USP match from Half-Life 2. this is a really high quality mod with the glowing magazines to make them easier to scavenge you've got custom animations you can two-hand the grip rather than the teacup pan poles which a lot of people don't like it's got a built-in ammo counter and is fully upgradeable with its own custom reflex sight which looks great so you can actually use it through the campaign and upgrade it like the default gun it sounds nicer and it's overall a much more satisfying pistol over the valve one foreign there are some two-handed weapons the Tau cannon from Buck Mesa with a really nice animation for reloading and then it spins up you can't hold to charge but it has got energy projectiles this can be held with two hands but the 200 weapons are integrated into the game so your offhand doesn't actually do anything it still acts like a 100 weapon for aiming another one is a CS go Aug it's got a custom reload and you can rack the bolt at the front both of these replace SMG and again 200 but off hand doesn't influence the AIM you also have a recurve bow that you can use through the main campaign this works really well grabbing the arrow over the shoulder and it's a One-Shot kill for most enemies it even has its own little size built into it another thing that was missing from the main game was melee luckily you've got some options for this as well you've got stun sticks which you can store in your wrist Pockets the angle is actually a little bit off with this making you bend your wrist a little awkwardly and it's not perfect but it works it's actually a physics object which is nice because you can use it to push open doors or move things around you also have the Halo energy weapons which will instantly kill enemies there is a crowbar mod but it's got some bugs so I can't recommend it there's actually a test level called scripted item test range Mark II this includes a bunch of weapons to play with these include a lore launcher a Mac being gone it literally shoots baked beans a Gatling gun foreign this works great it's got a nice feeling of weight and you have to 200 because to activate it you have to twist it offhand like a motorbikes throttle this picks something up and then you flick your wrist forward to fire it these act like proper two-handed weapons the reason this is possible is because the modder was able to implement his own Locomotion system that enables him to modify things that aren't in the main game unfortunately without the engine being opened up with the SDK it isn't possible to do these changes for the main campaign I still need to make a separate video on this because valve really could do a lot more to help with this problem and from VR in general let's talk about custom levels and campaigns I personally have over 50 hours just in custom levels there are so many really good polished custom campaigns I can't list them all in this video so I'm just going to pick out some of my favorites I'll try to separate them into some groups let's say you finish the main game and you just want more of the half-life world and universe a recent Campaign which literally feels like DLC is levitation this takes place directly after the main game it takes about three hours it features all the different enemies from the game now some really stand out moments and set pieces like getting ambushed on a moving train it's got some custom voice work and animations so you actually get to be face to face with Russell again another new level is re-education which also has custom voice work for both Russell and Alex this is shorter about 30 minutes and takes place in and out of a score this has some of the most creative level design that I've seen and it was really enjoyable even after playing so many other custom levels locomotive takes place in a train yard you have to redirect some power and get the train ready to go it has more custom voice work for Russell this is a really nice level with a good mix of combat encounters and some really intense antline fires pyromaniac gatekeeper is a great level with some custom trip bombs you can use some really nice combine gun fights outside as well as a big finale where you have to fight a Strider if you were disappointed with the amount of time spent in City 17 then cityscape as you've covered this takes place between Alex and half-life 2. it takes about an hour and it has a real Half-Life 2 Vibe with some nice set piece moments and some very tough combine combat this is one of my all-time favorites and I must play field studies takes place in a museum with some nice custom assets it has some nice pacing with a mix of encounters and finishes with a tough combat battle on the roof this will also take about an hour there are also a bunch of Half-Life 2 levels that have been recreated for Alex we do have the Half-Life 2 VR mod now but it's still nice to see these old levels remade in a modern engine some of my favorites include root canal across the coast seesaw bridge and my overall favorite Prospect attrition this isn't actually a remake of a Half-Life 2 level but it's a level based in Nova Prospect they really nailed the feel of being in the prison with some excellent use of lighting and some great gunfights if you're looking for something that isn't just more Half-Life Alex then there are a few options as well gunman contracts is up there with the best there are two parts with the first where you go into a bar to rescue a hostage and the second in a modern art gallery taken out a Crime Boss both look absolutely fantastic and it feels like you're in a different game with human enemies the gun play really comes alive with a really quick time to kill this is all about going from room to room taking out the bad guys as fast as possible and it really is the ultimate John Wick Simulator the developer is now taking these levels and adding some more to it to a standalone game immunity so keep an eye out for that another level that's got similar Gunplay to gunman contracts is operator this has its own unique style some really cool music adds to the tension foreign it also has exploding heads which look a little odd on the flat screen but when in the action they don't look as bad and it gives it a really gritty dark Vibe this is a very tough level which will keep you on your toes return to Rapture chapter 2 is a long eight hour-ish campaign where you go to Rapture from Bioshock it is still mostly Alex enemies but it does have some custom ones like splices this does a good job of capturing the feeling of rapture with lots of custom voice work and plasmids it's a great achievement but it isn't as polished as most of the others from this list if you ever wanted to visit Rapture in VR this might be the closest we'll get there is actually a part one but I don't think you personally need to play it before chapter 2 and the second is much better I put your VR thinking about portals is a great little level that really captures the feel of portal 2. it's great to experience it in VR but there's no portal gun or portals because of our limited models are you moving companion cubes around but it's still good to see how Portal 2 would look in VR with Source 2. there are also a few golden iron spider levels if you search GoldenEye lx007 you'll find them my absolute favorite and one of the best levels overall is damn part 3. this has got a custom voice over a custom golden pistol which deals more damage a short vehicle ride a fight near some train tracks with moving trains and it's really good the undertow is a really creative level where you go into a nightclub with dancing zombies to meet a one eye combine he wants something that you have in a briefcase and then obviously things go south and you end up taking a pill and having a bad trip goon squad is a short map where you're part of a squad of combine you go through a section of the level killing zombies and headcrabs until something happens and you end up on your own a few levels are actually a little more horror themed include paralysium this takes place in a house in the dark and has some unique puzzles and a custom pistol Bella mosque is stationed which is only about 10 minutes was one of the first mods to remove the gravity gloves forcing you to have to physically reach and grab everything there's a section in the pitch black with only a flare to light your way and you're in thick fog so you can barely see in front of you you've got to fight off a few zombies and headcrabs another level with a similar theme is quarantine Street which has got a real Resident Evil feel to it you start on the streets at night and after going to a subway station with a flashlight that you have to hold in your hand and it uses that thick fog again so you can barely see what's in front of you a couple of other levels which have some of the most intense zombie and headcrab encounters include the underground which does have a combine fight near the end but the Highlight is a section in some underground tunnels when you're in some very tight corridors completely overrun by zombies industrial discharge is very head crab and zombie focused with some really well done sections which really throw some curveballs at you the last map I'll talk about which is another short 10 minute one is Victory of mine where you're in a mine shaft with a great sense of scale it has a really intense antlion fight where they come at you from all sides I'll give you a tip for this one make sure to scavenge for ammo as much as possible before you hit the switch there's actually more around than you think you just have to search for it all of these are greatly enhanced when using the merciless Half-Life AI mod like I said these aren't all the good ones I'll put a link to my favorites on Steam so if you want to have a look through the others you've got multiple hours of extra content there for free the modern Community have already enhanced an already great game it's just a real shame that valve didn't open up the engine and release the SDK because there could have been so much more with loads more custom weapons enemies and gameplay mechanics if they did and that's the end of the video If you enjoyed it leave a like and maybe subscribe I also have a patreon and YouTube memberships if you want to support the channel financially for as little as one dollar per month thank you very much for your support

Channel: Virtual Insider

Views: 721,052

Keywords:

Id: r-viqSum9JA

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023