The 1980’s was a difficult time for video games. It was a new medium and its novelty created an initial spark of interest that encouraged game developers to create in this new frontier. At such an early stage there were no established industry standards in place. This led to a lot of experimentation in game creation and gimmicky games as developers learned what did and did not work. The fascination with video games was short and intense and the industry was on a decline to obscurity, but that changed with the release of Super Mario Bros on September 13, 1985. Mario legitimized the medium and sold more consoles than any game before it. Some could say that we are living through a very similar time currently with the relative newness of virtual reality gaming and the release of Half-Life Alyx. Much like Mario saved video games in the 1980’s, Half Life Alyx may be known as the savior of virtual reality gaming today.
Half-Life Alyx is the industry’s first AAA addition to a pool of smaller indie games and tech demos. Valve, the developer behind the game, invested an incredible amount of money and talent into the game and it shows. The game creates the most immersive and well-polished VR experience to date. The intuitive controls, like the inventory management and reloading mechanisms, set the standard for all future VR first-person shooters games. The world they created in this game begs to be interacted with, and the gravity glove items used throughout the game keep the real-world movement to a minimum while keeping the immersiveness at peak levels. The sound design wraps up the experience with ambient noise and music that places you right in the game, from the squeak of a locker as you open it to the subtle sound of your pant fabric when you crouch. In every metric Half Life Alyx scores off the charts.
An encouraging sign is how well the game performs critically and also commercially. In Half-Life Alyx’s first few months of release it sold more than one million copies. These would be encouraging results for a conventional game, but when considering playing the game requires owning a VR headset and an exceptionally powerful PC to run it the numbers become even more astonishing.
Valve today has done what Nintendo did in the 1980’s. They saw the vast amount of low budget, gimmicky and unsuccessful games offered and set themselves apart with an exceptionally designed game that will inspire developers for years to come.
Sources:
https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/how-mario-saved-the-world-of-video-games
