Half-Life: Alyx has a number of accessibility options for players with disabilities, players who are prone to motion sickness, and players who are new to virtual reality. One of the most useful options is the ability to play Half-Life: Alyx seated.
Many mainstream VR games allow you to do this, but since Half-Life: Alyx is a full-length VR game and a VR-exclusive–meaning there will be no other way to play it except with a VR headset and PC–we thought it was particularly important to highlight how to do it.
Below you’ll find a quick guide on playing Half-Life: Alyx seated. For more on difficulty options, how to adjust for motion sickness, how to play in one-handed mode, and more, see our full Half-Life: Alyx accessibility guide.
Enabling Seated Mode In SteamVR
Before you play Half-Life: Alyx, you’ll need to go through SteamVR’s room setup. One of the first thing it prompts you to select is to set up for Room-Scale or Standing Only. Don’t let the wording mislead you!
The Room Setup window in SteamVR.
The Room-Scale option still lets you play Standing and Seated in VR–you’ll just choose that if you have at least a 6.5 x 5 feet space in your space to play. If not, select Standing Only, which also allows for Seated experiences in VR. It’s also for people who have limited space to play, regardless of whether they’re sitting or standing. Choose the one that works for you, but take note that you’ll have to recalibrate your setup if you or someone else you share a VR station with will be switching between standing and seated play.
If you’ve set up VR before, you’re probably already aware of what settings work for you. If not, you’ll probably need to play around with room setup a few times to get things right. One step to note in particular is floor calibration.
Height calibration in SteamVR setup.
If you’re playing seated, one way to do it is to have the headset on your head and calibrate your seated height instead of the floor.
Once you load up the game, there are more options to help you play in seated mode.
Enabling Seated Options In Half-Life: Alyx
Once you’re in Half-Life: Alyx, navigate to the accessibility options in the main menu screen. You can also access these options mid-game. You’re looking for the Height Adjustment options, of which there are four. Find them listed below, along with their in-game descriptions:
Height Adjust: Crouch – Crouch action only. Stand is disabled. When the crouch action is enabled, toggle to quickly duck or adjust to a lowered position.
Height Adjust: Stand – Stand action only. Crouch is disabled. When the stand action is enabled, toggle to raise your position to help with reach. Recommended during seated play.
Height Adjust: Crouch And Stand – When the crouch and stand actions are enabled, use them to lower or to raise your position on two separate inputs.
Height Adjust: Hybrid – Hybrid uses a single input for both crouch and stand actions. To crouch, click to lower your position. To stand, press and hold to raise your position.
The in-game options note Height Adjust: Stand as the recommended option for seated play, but that will depend on how you calibrated your height and seated height in SteamVR setup. It may very well work for you, but another option to consider is Height Adjust: Crouch And Stand. This maps crouch to the left controller’s joystick button and raised height to your right controller’s joystick button. Press down on the joysticks to lower or raise your height in the game. You can rebind inputs in SteamVR settings as well.
Height Adjustment With Single-Controller Mode
Alyx’s gravity gloves. It is possible to play Half-Life: Alyx with one hand.
If you’re using single-controller mode, things may get tricky. We have not tested height adjustment options combined with single-controller mode yet, but we will update this guide if we learn more about how it works.
Other Tips For Playing Seated
If you’re playing Half-Life: Alyx seated, you may have a more limited range of motion than players who play standing, but there are ways to hopefully improve your experience.
One thing you can do is experiment with different walk mode options, which you can learn more about in our more general accessibility guide. Learn the nuances of each one and find the one that best suits your own range of motion.
For instance, Half-Life: Alyx may require you to lean in and out of cover. The default Blink motion is great for people with motion sickness, but it also places more emphasis on your own body to execute some of the more precise in-game positioning. Using one of the continuous motion options will let you slide in and out of cover with just the controller. Again, this is something each individual player should experiment with in the early game, before encountering enemies.
Also, even though you’re playing seated, you will still need some room around you to reach out with the controller. If you’re playing at your desk, make sure to have some room between you and your actual desk–especially your monitor–to prevent any accidents!
Naturally, monumental expectations accompany the first Half-Life game in 13 years, and for the iconic franchise’s return to come in the form of a VR exclusive is undoubtedly bold. But at each step of the way, Half-Life: Alyx proves that almost everything the franchise did best is elevated by VR: the environmental puzzles that require a keen eye, the threat of a headcrab jumping for your face, the cryptic storytelling. The series’ staples are as great as ever here, and in its most powerful moments, Half-Life: Alyx confidently shows you why it couldn’t have been done any other way.
What’s a day in the life of Alyx Vance? In true Half-Life form, the entire game goes from morning to night in a single shot of first-person action in which you, as Alyx, trek through the undergrounds and abandoned zones of City 17. At first, it’s to save your dad Eli Vance from the clutches of the Combine. However, you’re subsequently led to uncover the nature of that massive floating structure that hovers over City 17, referred to as the Vault. With a cheeky sidekick Russell in your ear, and a trusty, prophetic Vortigaunt who comes in clutch, Alyx is more than prepared. A basic premise for sure, but the journey is thrilling, and the payoff is immense.
There’s a newfound intimacy captured in doing the things that Half-Life always asked of you. Because it’s a VR game, the way you look at and process your surroundings fundamentally changes, thus making the solutions to environmental puzzles more of a personal accomplishment than before. Simply finding the right objects to progress was fine with a keyboard and mouse, but when it’s your own hands turning valves, moving junk to find critical items, pulling levers, or hitting switches while turning your head to see the results of your actions, these become enticing gameplay mechanics rather than means for breaking up the pace. Without waypoints or objective markers to guide you, subtle visual cues and calculated level design lead you to the solutions, and progress feels earned because of that.
You may not have the Gravity Gun here, but the spirit of its physics-based interaction lives through the Gravity Gloves, both as a sensible thematic fit and tool for proper VR gameplay. They allow you to magnetically pull in key objects from afar, and catching them midair is always satisfying–especially when snatching a grenade off a Combine soldier to throw it back in their face.
Not only has Half-Life: Alyx made good on its shift to VR, it has elevated many of the aspects we’ve come to love about Half-Life games.
What’s just as important is Alyx’s multitool, which serves as a way to engage in the game’s simple yet enjoyable spatial puzzles. Rewiring circuitry to unlock paths forward is the multitool’s most crucial function, though, so you’ll need a sharp eye for tracing where wires and circuits lead and use the multitool’s capability of exposing the flow of currents. Trying to find solutions can be frustrating at times, but once you understand the rules, how they grow more complex and incorporate the environment as the game goes on, it then gives way to a sense of accomplishment.
Once you get the hang of its mechanics, combat ramps up the intensity.
Half-Life: Alyx revolves around the balance of the aforementioned puzzle elements and its suspenseful combat scenarios. It may not have many of the bombastic firefights, helicopter chases, or seemingly insurmountable enemies from the series’ past–most of that’s been exchanged for close encounters, sometimes tapping into a horror element that Half-Life had only previously toyed with.
Headcrabs aren’t the annoying pests they were before; at times, they’re terrifying because they will literally latch onto your head or cause the occasional jump scare. The same goes for Barnacles; trust me when I say that you do not want your own virtual body dragged up toward the ceiling by its disgusting slimy tongue. Other scenarios play on navigating pitch-black darkness with your wrist-mounted flashlight as Xen creatures lurk about. There’s also an entire chapter dedicated to “Jeff,” an invincible mutant with sharp hearing who can’t see, and he must be dealt with through clever environmental manipulation. A genuine dread you might not expect from Half-Life lingers throughout.
Combine soldiers may still be knobheads, but when they’re chasing you down in VR and your sick headshot skills aren’t there to save you, their threat becomes imminent and sometimes nerve-wracking. You’ll hear the familiar radio chatter of the Combine, and feel relieved at the sound of the recognizable flatlining ring of a fallen Combine soldier. It’s also nostalgic and oddly comforting to hear those signature old-school techno beats during most of these heated firefights, and then heal up on a health charger that uses the same sound effect since Half-Life 1. There aren’t many types of Combine soldiers or styles of encounters, but I was always eager to face them head-on in each scenario.
Alyx herself packs light when it comes to weapons, with only a pistol, shotgun, and SMG. However, all three have a few upgrades to make them more effective, which must be done at Combine Fabricator stations at certain points in the game. The only real collectible is Resin, and pieces are scattered about each level. With ammo often scarce and Resin tucked away in corners, scavenging is a core element, further emphasizing Alyx’s scrappy nature. And honestly, the slim arsenal fits the types of combat sequences throughout the game.
It’s as satisfying to take your punchy shotgun to a Combine heavy as it is to ignite conveniently placed explode-y red barrels or clip weak points off Antlions with well-placed pistol shots when four or five of them are fast approaching. That’s plenty to juggle in VR and strikes a balance between being simple enough to handle and complex enough to take advantage of VR’s unique aspects. You’ll physically duck in and out of cover and peek around corners ready to bust shots, and frantically string together the fun reload gestures as enemies barrel down on you–these are the qualities of any good VR shooter, though here, in its distinctly Half-Life form.
When looking at gameplay as a whole, Half-Life: Alyx takes many of the concepts we’ve seen evolve since VR’s inception and distills them to their fundamentals. It executes most of them to a T, thus creating a VR experience that’s a full, cohesive whole. A number of accessibility options are available as well; different movement and turning styles can help mitigate motion sickness, and there’s a single-controller mode that allows you to performing all the game’s necessary actions on one hand. You can also have crouching and standing actions mapped to buttons for height adjustment, making the seated VR experience better.
Fighting the Combine will bring back memories of Half-Life 2 with their radio chatter and flatline ring.
That said, environmental interaction isn’t perfect. Doors and mechanisms you need to grip don’t always react to your movements the way you’d expect, and sometimes there are just too many unimportant objects scattered about that obscure the thing you’re actually trying to pull in with your Gravity Gloves. Thankfully, these instances are rare enough as to not drag down otherwise intuitive mechanics.
For as well-executed as its various elements are, the front half of the game does settle into a bit of routine. You may start to see through some of the trite aspects of the combat challenges, scripted sequences, and reliance on narrow corridors for stretches. At one point, I wondered where the game was going or why I was putting in this effort to get to this mysterious floating vault. But there comes a turning point, and the practiced routines pay off as you begin to feel the game’s increasingly dangerous atmosphere.
The very concept of VR becomes the core narrative device–your hands, and by extension, Alyx’s actions, are fundamental to the delivery of its best moments.
You’ll be struck by the awe-inspiring sights throughout the journey across City 17, the thrill of firefights that ramp up in intensity while performing the VR-specific mechanics, and the unbearable suspense of some levels. Yet all those pale in comparison to the final hour, when Half-Life: Alyx solidifies itself as the boldest the series has ever been.
The very concept of VR becomes the core narrative device–your hands, and by extension, Alyx’s actions, are fundamental to the delivery of its best moments. In its finality, you’ll truly understand why VR was the only way this game could have even existed–it’s something surreal, revelatory, and incredibly empowering. Half-Life: Alyx has far-reaching implications for the future of the franchise, both in where it goes next and what forms future games can even take. And in true Half-Life fashion, more questions than answers linger, but for good reason and not without a reminder of why you love the series to begin with.
Some views across City 17 are breathtaking, especially in VR.
Yes, this game is somewhat of a companion piece to mainline Half-Life games, taking place five years before Half-Life 2, but that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Disappointment you may have felt in its 13-year hiatus will feel like water under the bridge, and in a way, have played into just how powerful Half-Life: Alyx turned out to be. The names, the faces, the iconic objects that have become synonymous with Half-Life have their specific place. And if you weren’t aware previously, you’ll see just how important Alyx Vance–the series’ most infallible personality–has been the entire time.
Not only has Half-Life: Alyx made good on its shift to VR, it has elevated many of the aspects we’ve come to love about Half-Life games. It may not be as bombastic as previous games, but the intimacy of VR brings you closer to a world you might have thought you knew over the past 22 years. Even when familiarity starts to settle in, its gameplay systems still shine as a cohesive whole. And as it concludes, Half-Life: Alyx hits you with something unforgettable, transcending VR tropes for one of gaming’s greatest moments.
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Many of us currently have more time on our hands than we know what to do with, and finding things to keep yourself entertained while stuck indoors is crucial. It’s a great time to own a console or gaming PC, as the first big games of the year are coming out just as we’re all desperate for something to play. And fortunately, you can find some fantastic deals on games from the past few years if you’re looking to save some money. Amazon’s latest batch of deals slashes the prices on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch games, including critically acclaimed hits like Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. (While the sale focuses on console games, you can find some fantastic PC discounts at GOG, Fanatical, Green Man Gaming, and other PC-focused sites right now.)
Outside of PS4-specific deals, you can snag Borderlands 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition for $20 each on both PS4 and Xbox One. If you somehow don’t own Grand Theft Auto V by now, its Premium edition is just $18 for Xbox One and comes with a bunch of extra content and upgrades. Fighting game fans can jump into the action in Mortal Kombat 11 for $25 on Xbox One or $27 on Switch or PS4. The newest single-player Star Wars adventure, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is also on sale for $40 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Switch game deals are a bit lackluster on Amazon right now following the huge Mario Day sale, but you can still find several first-party games for $10 to $15 off, which is always a great price to snag them at. If you’re a new Switch owner or just haven’t picked up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild yet, it’s down to $49.49 on Amazon. Rocket League is a great couch multiplayer game if you’re looking for something to play with your roommates or family, and the Ultimate Edition for Switch is just $24.
You can check out all the best game deals at Amazon right now below. Be sure to note the shipping estimates–right now, many Amazon goods have longer shipping times due to stock running low and Amazon prioritizing health and household goods in its warehouses.
Best game deals at Amazon
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Animal Crossing has always allowed you to plant a toilet in the middle of your house, but they were always more decorative than functional. However, this latest entry New Horizons is a next-gen experience, and they wanted to add in the features that fans have been clamoring for. That’s right: You can now poop.
To be clear, however, you must meet certain conditions in order to achieve your digestive dreams. In New Horizons, if you eat fruit, you gain energy that allows you to perform feats of strength, like digging trees out of the ground. Once you sit on the toilet, your energy will slowly drain to zero, accompanied by a slightly upsetting sound effect. However, once you’ve made the decision to poop, you cannot cancel it, so be careful out there.
This isn’t the only surprise addition to New Horizons, however. The game allows you to get free items by playing the mobile spin-off Pocket Camp, some of which are exclusive.
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The third-person survival shooter World War Z has a new update that turns on cross-play between PC and Xbox One, with PS4 getting added “at some point in the future.” We’ve compiled the full patch notes below.
This latest patch for World War Z is called the “Crossplay Update,” a free piece of content that is part of the game’s Season Two content roadmap. You can check out an overview of the roadmap below.
Ooh, look at the free stuff!
As you can see, the “Crossplay Update” introduces a number of new additions to World War Z, including four new extra character skins, more missions, adjustments to horde mode, and more. The headlining feature, however, is the inclusion of cross-play between PC (via the Epic Games Store) and Xbox One. With this new feature, PC and Xbox players can fight together in PvE; it can be turned on and off in the settings menu.
World War Z’s “Crossplay Update” also makes a number of quality-of-life improvements, including UI fixes, server stabilization, clipping issues, and much more.
World War Z Cross-Play Update
New Features
Added Virus Sample functionality in Campaign:
AI Director will randomly spawn containers with Virus Sample that players can pick up.
Virus samples can spawn from Bombers that are taken down without them exploding.
The containers are fragile and they will begin to apply negative effects to players as they break.
If players will manage to finish the mission with containers intact, they will get increased rewards.
AI Director can spawn several Virus Samples, Bomber will also drop them.
Added 4 new weapon variants with unique perks:
Pistol – Increased penetration and damage vs special zombies.
Machine Pistol – Full auto variant, reloads primary weapon after a special zombie kill.
Classic Battle Rifle – Semi-auto variant, no penetration but deals a lot of damage.
Battle Rifle – Full auto variant.
Thumper Grenade Launcher – Incendiary grenades.
War Heroes character skin pack (included for Season Pass owners).
Horde Mode
Slightly reduced difficulty in Hard mode.
Significantly reduced difficulty in Normal mode:
Less Special Zombies will spawn in Normal mode.
Increased preparation timer between waves by 20% in Normal mode.
Supply points rewards will begin to scale down later in Normal mode.
Added significantly more random pickups in Normal mode.
Increased Auto Turret maximum ammo.
Capped by 10 the amount of Auto Turrets that could be placed simultaneously.
Fixed one of the shops not spawning items.
Reduced the amount of ammo secondary weapons drain from ammo boxes by 50%.
Reduced ammo crate cost from 100 to 70.
Significantly increased both XP and currency rewards.
Difficulty
Tweaked Extreme difficulty settings to restore pre-patch balance (it was changed to support crossplay).
AI Director will spawn less secondary weapon pickups.
AI
Reworked Bomber drop, he will spawn better Primary and Heavy weapons when killed.
Perks
Fixed several issues with perks stacking.
UI
Minor UI and localization fixes.
Stability
Fixed several gameplay crashes.
Levels
Fixed some gameplay bugs that were causing an inability to progress in levels.
Fixed issue that allowed players to clip through geometry in some places.
Pokemon Sword and Shield‘s latest Max Raid events are coming to an end very soon. The events are scheduled to wrap up this Wednesday, March 25, at 4:59 PM PT / 7:59 PM ET, making this your last chance to catch some rare Gigantamax and version-exclusive Pokemon.
There are two concurrent Max Raid events going on now, the first of which features Gigantamax Snorlax, Machamp, and Gengar. All three of those Pokemon are currently appearing in Max Raid dens in both games. Since Gigantamax Pokemon are normally incredibly hard to find, this is a good chance to catch to catch them before their spawn rates return to normal.
On top of that, developer Game Freak recently kicked off a second Max Raid event that makes a handful of version-exclusive Pokemon available in the opposite game. Galarian Corsola, Ponyta, Oranguru, and female Indeedee are appearing in Max Raids in Pokemon Sword, while Galarian Farfetch’d, Darumaka, Passimian, and male Indeedee are appearing in Shield. This event likewise ends on March 25.
Time is also running out to claim some freebies in Sword and Shield. Until the end of the month, you can download 20 free Battle Points and a free Bottle Cap–good for Hyper Training one of your Pokemon’s stats–via Mystery Gift. You can also claim three free TR94s, which can teach a Pokemon the Ground-type attack High Horsepower. You can see all the free gifts available now for Pokemon Sword and Shield here.
In other Pokemon news, Nintendo recently released an update for Sword and Shield that “fixed several issues,” including one that would cause the game to crash if you received a hacked Pokemon through Surprise Trade. Sword and Shield have two big expansions on the way this year: Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra. The first arrives this June, while the second will follow sometime in fall.
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For some clowns mean big smiles, floppy feet, and lapel adornments that spray water into your face unexpectedly. For others, however, the sight of make-up adorned children’s entertainers is traumatic. When it comes to phobias, clowns are surprisingly common. At the very least, a great number of people will agree that there’s something unsettling about them.
This, in some part, has to do with the fiction that surrounds them. Whether it’s Pennywise from Stephen King’s It or Twisty from American Horror Story (a more recent, but equally scary entry into the pantheon of killer circus performers), media has reinforced the idea that clowns should be feared. It’s no wonder then, that they exist as a terror to both children and adults.
But where did this fear of clowns come from? Well, it actually came from a very real, very horrific string of murders perpetrated by a man in a clown costume.
In this episode of True Fiction, Kurt Indovina digs into the most notorious murderous clown of them all, real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Speaking to Ryan, Greg, and Lucy from the GameSpot Universe team, he delves into the life and crimes of Gacy, explores how he impacted horror fiction, influenced our fear of clowns.
For more True Fiction, head over to the YouTube playlist, where you’ll find episodes on Twin Peaks, Jackie Chan, Star Wars, and more.
With the F1 racing season postponed through May due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the organization behind the sport is bringing a Grand Prix to F1 2019.
F1 announced Friday, March 20, that it is launching a new “F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix series” in developer Codemasters’ F1 2019 game that will feature a number of current F1 drivers and special guest celebrities. These virtual races are set to take place on the same day as every postponed Grand Prix race. The first occurred over the weekend on March 22.
“We are very pleased to be able to bring some light relief in the form of the F1 Esports Virtual GP, in these unpredictable times, as we hope to entertain fans missing the regular sporting action,” Head of Digital Business Initiatives and Esports for F1 Julian Tan said in the announcement. “With every major sports league in the world unable to compete, it is a great time to highlight the benefit of esports and the incredible skill that’s on show.”
These virtual races are scheduled through May although F1 did point out that the F1 Esports Virtual GP Initiative could be extended beyond May if the COVID-19 outbreak results in further real-world race cancellations.
Some special changes to the game were made to keep the virtual race entertaining including optional anti-lock brakes, reduced vehicle damage and more.
“Due to the wide variety of gaming skill levels amongst the drivers, game settings will be configured in such a way to encourage competitive and entertaining racing,” the announcement reads. “This includes running equal car performance with fixed setups, reduced vehicle damage, and optional anti-lock brakes and traction control for those less familiar with the game.”
No official championship points are up for grabs in these virtual races as these races are being held for strictly entertainment purposes, F1 says. During non-race weekends, F1 will host online exhibition races where fans will be given the chance to race against actual F1 drives in the game.
Control is about to receive its first major piece of story DLC, The Foundation. But that will come alongside a major update for all players with plenty of new content whether or not you dive into the new area. A March update video shows off all the new bells and whistles.
In the video, you can see the Shield Rush ability, which gives a more aggressive option to the existing Shield ability. Rather than just gather up debris to protect yourself, you can use it to charge into enemies and close the gap in the process. A couple of quality-of-life improvements are included as well, like better map readability and a revised ability tree with a points reallocation feature. On PC the update will also include Nvidia DLSS 2.0 for RTX users. That update will be available on all platforms.
On PC and PS4 only, the game will also get The Foundation DLC on March 26. (Xbox One owners will have to wait until June 25). The Foundation has Jessie heading into a new area to stop the Astral Plane from consuming the Oldest House. The adventure will explore more weird happenings within the Department of Control, especially as revolving around the character Helen Marshall, who had been presumed missing in the original campaign.
Our next FREE update brings all-new features and quality of life improvements to Control. Take a look at what you can expect in the March update and stay tuned for more info. Launching on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Epic Games Store on March 26, 2020.#ControlRemedy#505Gamespic.twitter.com/FwUppoVI8y
GSC Game World has revealed the first screenshot of its upcoming STALKER 2, noting that it was prompted to offer an earlier peek at the game due to the world having to go into social isolation amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The tweeted screenshot shows very little, but does reveal another grimy looking world, albeit one that looks significantly more graphically advanced than the 2007 original. Amongst the trees and abandoned vehicles is an ‘anomaly’; the supernatural energy disruption caused by the Chernobyl disaster that occurs before the first game. From the colour, it could be a harmful Tesla anomaly, or the more curious Teleport anomaly.
— S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL (@stalker_thegame) March 23, 2020
In a follow-up tweet, GSC Game World said “A lot of you are joining social isolation now. That’s why today, on a very special occasion, we are ready to slightly uncover the mystery of what we are working on. This is the first glimpse of STALKER 2.”
The tweet also promises more to come in 2020.
The original STALKER released March 20, 2007, meaning it has been almost exactly 13 years since it was released. STALKER was one of the most anticipated PC games of the time, with a long development process that was keenly followed by fans. We wrote in our review at the time that it “offers gamers a chance to experience something genuinely new”, and that it was “the truss work for an absolutely stellar sequel with larger zones, more character customization, better quest rewards, and stronger NPC personalities.” Hopefully the sequel fulfills these wishes.
As well as both a prequel and a sequel, STALKER also (sort of) spawned a second franchise: two of its development staff went on to create Metro 2033, which shares a similar Eastern-Europe post-apocalypse vibe. The Metro games also were well received, with the latest – Metro Exodus – getting a solid review from IGN.
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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.
