The mod’s just very well done but it’s amazing how well the base game translates to VR. Talk about standing the test of time when your 2004 video game can be modded into VR pretty much seamlessly and then blow Triple and Double-A games that are specifically made for VR out of the water

EDIT: Thinking about it, Half Life 2 and it’s consequences have been insanely culturally influential in the greater sphere. I mean from Gmod Youtube-Poops over to SFM all the assets are still relevant now due to skibidi toilet, and they’re nearing 20 years old now.

  • culpritus [any]English
    26•6 months ago

    Physics-based emergent gameplay is still the most compelling aspect of most VR titles. HL2 pioneered and popularized it.

    ‘Gravgun to gravgloves’ is the three-word short story of Valve.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]English
      17•6 months ago

      Gaben in a 20 year secret project to make grabbing stuff from further than you can reach in to a whole ass experience.

    • 7bicycles [he/him]OPEnglish
      9•6 months ago

      Physics-based emergent gameplay is still the most compelling aspect of most VR titles.

      Ehh, at least on foot. I played “The Key”, which is a short serious game about a serious topic (don’t wanna spoiler it) and there isn’t really all THAT much gameplay in the traditional sense but it did hit me a lot harder than if it was on flatscreen

      SPOILERS FOR THAT GAME

      spoiler

      It’s very artsy and full of allegories and stuff for loss and it turns out in the end it’s about the experience of refugees. It’s all very much couched in weird artsy fever dream aesthetic up until the reveal, in which it transports you into a very realistic bombed out middle eastern house and gotta be honest, that hit like a ton of bricks

      • culpritus [any]English
        6•6 months ago

        The sense of ‘presence’ in a space is the other special component of VR. I’ve only had a chance to play a few demos a few years ago, but the sense of scale and space is really profound compared to a screen. I think stuff like that could be really cool, but it doesn’t fit well with the mainstream gamer preconceptions of a VR game. One of the early demos featured being underwater as a blue whale swam overhead, and it was intense. Thanks for the info about The Key.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]English
          5•6 months ago

          I wish more devs would go hard on that. Stick the players in tesseracts, do all that stuff that Superliminal and the old Prey did. 720 degree circles, rooms that are longer when you cross north to south than south to north. You could get really fucking weird with space and presence in ways that are impossible in real life.

          I think the medium is still very restricted - Economically it’s very marginal with a limited audience. The tools are still quite limited. And the artistic language of VR is not mature at all.

          • culpritus [any]English
            3•6 months ago

            Something like Star Trek Away Mission scenarios could be really cool with that type of stuff. VR escape mission with friends would be a good evolution of all these coop survival games.

          • barrbaric [he/him]English
            2•6 months ago

            I imagine a lot of devs are cautious about that kind of thing because of VR sickness.