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"The game is fun."
- Reggie from Pizza Hut

This is one of those games that makes it worth it to buy a VR headset, even if this is the only game you will play on it and, assuming this bad boy sets the bar for VR games going (at least in terms of tech), it definitely wont be the only one you play. Let's do some quickfire pros and cons though, just for fun.

Pros

- Gunplay: While there are only three guns you get in the game, each of them is unique and a blast to use and some lunatic over at Valve decided to let you upgrade them too, giving you the ability to put a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grenade launcher on your shotgun. During my time playing, I have experienced very little janky ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with the guns, something you really cant say about most games on the VR market right now.

- Environments: Within literally seconds of starting a new game, I was completely immersed in City 17. Valve has done such a spectacular job with the maps in this game, to the point where a single map can take you over an hour to explore fully. That being said, those kinds of maps don't really come until later in the game, but we'll cover that later. Anyways, the true genius of this is that every single map has semi-optional collectibles (these crappy Combine-Brand Oreos called 'resin', which can be used to upgrade your arsenal, and ammo for your guns) sprinkled throughout every area, mostly hidden in side areas or in some sneaky spot. The beauty of this is that the maps could technically be sped through and completed in around 10 minutes each (less if you skip some enemies), while those who take their time and explore the beautiful environments will be rewarded.

- Physics: This game's physics engine is incredible. I can pick up a bottle and throw it at another bottle and they'll both shatter, but if I don't throw it hard enough, maybe only one will shatter or neither will. I can knock everything off a shelf to get to an ammo clip behind them or dump a bunch of stuff out of a bucket to get to the resin hidden at the bottom of it. I can throw a grenade into a room full of props and while that would probably lag out my game in something like Skyrim, I don't even dip below 60fps in Alyx, which is just amazing to me.

- Story: It's very good. I can't say much more than that without spoiling anything, but its a story worthy of a Half-Life game.

- It's a Half-Life game made by Valve.

Cons

- Accessibility: Don't get me wrong, this game has great accessibility features... assuming you aren't left handed, don't want to teleport everywhere, or have no arms. While there's not much you can do about the last one, Valve definitely could have given this game A LOT more options for how you want to play than they did, probably without much work, too. For one, if you're left handed and want to hold your guns with your left hand, your only option is to swap to a setting that not only changes the hand you hold your gun with, but also the control scheme of the game, with no way to change them back. Also, say you want to have continuous movement. Guess what, stupid! Now you can only move at walking speed with zero sprint options and if you want to go faster, you have to teleport still! What's that? You want to be able to jump? Too bad! You have to teleport if you want to go up a ledge too! Sorry, did you just say you want to be able to use smooth turn? Well, you can't! (This is a bug. There is an option for smooth turning, but it is not functional as of when I am writing this, though that will likely be fixed very soon.) Anyways, there's just not a lot of options to do stuff experienced VR users would want to have.

- Intro Levels: Valve is often praised for their games' implicit tutorials that teach you mechanics without using stupid 4-page instruction guides like some games insist on using. This, normally, is a good thing, but for some reason, Valve decided to stretch it out until pretty much the end of the third chapter. I'm going to discuss these sections in a bit of detail, so read at your own risk. So the first chapter of the game serves as a great introduction to the game's setting and characters. I have no problems with this chapter, it does what it needs to do without being boring in the slightest. Starting in chapter two, though, you start seeing bad guys. At first, Valve decided to only throw barnacles at you for the first stage or two of this part, which is stupid to me, since they aren't hard to avoid in the slightest and don't help much to create the challenging gameplay I was hoping to find early on in the game when I selected the 'Hard' difficulty. Eventually, they start throwing zombies and headcrabs at you, but they move sooooooooooooooo sloooooooooooooow. If you take a few steps back, you'll earn yourself like 5 seconds of time before they catch you. Granted, later in the game, they start to throw a bunch of zombies at you coming from a bunch of different directions, which makes them way better than the ones in this section. Once again, I just want to restate that this is only really an issue to me and is only an issue because of how long it stretches out. Past this section, the game becomes a much more enjoyable (and challenging) experience for players of all skill levels.

- Bugs: There are still some very bad, horrible bugs that happen in this game. For example, some people have had their game bug out and turn into acid trips where all the colors are completely screwed up. Other times, the game will just stop letting you move with the continuous movement setting when you load a save (this happened to me after falling off a very tall ladder in one section). Also, sometimes, the game just crashes for no reason, though this hasn't happened to me so far. Also some more minor stuff like weird jankiness when you grab items or incorrectly spawning in a ragdoll of an enemy which spontaneously comes back to life, scaring the ♥♥♥♥ out of you. Most if not all of this stuff is fixable with a patch that will definitely probably happen soon I hope.

- Puzzles: Some of the puzzles are dumb, specifically the ones where your hacking stuff. Depending on the type of thing you're hacking, there will be a single type of puzzle you have to solve to activate that object or unlock it that scales in difficulty over the course of the game. Spoiler for one of the puzzle types, read at your own risk: One specific one that's really been annoying me is the one with the sphere and the red lines that block you. That one is just hard to do due to me having trouble positioning my hands correctly. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion and isn't necessarily an issue you will have with the game.

Overall, Half-Life: Alyx is an incredible game that anyone who has VR or is interested in VR or has a friend who has VR that they can play the game with should play. it's a good game for experienced VR-users and first timers alike. I hope this review has helped you to make the informed decision to purchase the game for yourself.

TL;DR: Buy the game.