Play 2 hours of the following VR games:
“The Under Presents” and “Half-Life Alyx”.
In order to get you all through both games before Mid April, you really need to book your time in the lab as soon as possible. Other classes are also using the computers for their class assignments. Here are the following instructions in order for you to reserve a VR station in the Immersive Media Lab.
PLEASE NOTE: When you reserve the VR station you have to select the specific computer that has both games installed under the steam account assigned to the computer. You don’t need the steam account as the student staff who work in the lab know the username and password to get you logged in.
In order to book your VR station to play the 2 games: (You can book up to 4 hours at a time).
Please go to the following online booking calendar for the CAMD Immersive Media Lab: https://www.supersaas.com/schedule/Immersive_Media_Labs/Book_VR_or_AR_computer_stations
Then select your day and time
Then if you are going to play both games during the same appointment then please book 4 hours. If you are going to play each game on a different day then please select at least a 2 hour block of time to get through each game.
You can only play both games on the following computers in the Immersive Media Lab. Please select one of the following when reserving the VR computer station:
PC1 = (Has a Vive Pro Eye VR headset)
PC 2 = (Has a Vive Pro 2 VR headset)
PC5 = (Has a Valve Index VR headset)
PC6 = (Has a Valve Index VR headset)
PC8 = (Has a Vive Cosmos VR headset)
PC9 = (Has a Vive Cosmos VR headset)
NEXT STEPS:
Please start reserving your time ASAP on the calendar.
If you run into any issues at all please email Jason at j.duhaime@northeastern.edu and Samantha at s.gorman@northeastern.edu. Jason needs to know of any issues you are having while you are in the lab so they can fix them right away. They try our hardest to always make sure everything goes smooth for everyone using the lab but if issues come up please let us know right away.
Post a 500-1000 word response about your experience playing the game below. The response serves to show that you played beyond the intro of the game and will be the basis for the in-class discussion. Consider what things in the game you responded to and were frustrated by, as well as anything that was inspiring.
DUE SUNDAY, APRIL 10th at 11:59pm
Half Life Alyx:
This was my first VR experience of a full game, and I loved it. I spent about 15 minutes just throwing the cans from the balcony that the game first opens up at. The intricacies that the game has, from the physics of grabbing objects to the way cans can be crushed, the gun reload not restoring any bullets left in the magazine that was just ejected just blew my expectations. I found the game story as catching as the original half life that I played as a kid which brought back the reminiscent feeling of the old game with some of the alien characters repeating. This game in my opinion fixes a lot of the issues…
I have already finished Half-Life Alyx before, and I replayed some levels in that game and was still got impressed a lot by the creative interaction design in the VR environment. The into the level, there is no pop-up introduction of mechanics and HUD, it just sets the player in a space where the player can try to interact with those objects in the environment. I really like this design because the only thing I want to do at the beginning of a VR game is explore the environment. And instead of showing UI in a panel, this game puts UI on a physical glove of the character, so it can create an immersive feel when the player checks health…
Since I experienced several VR games last semester, this assignment was the second time I tried Half-Life: Alyx in the VR lab. Nevertheless, I still felt puzzled and uncomfortable during my game experience.
Half-Life firstly showed a sci-fi, scrappy-style urban environment to me, who acted as the female protagonist Alyx. But I had not had time to appreciate the wasteland buildings before my attention was drawn by the flying helicopter and giant spider-like robots. Both in the first attempt months before and the second attempt this time, I was strange with the performance of the VR controller, hence not efficient enough to figure out my duty and aim in games. Fortunately, a few minutes of groping enabled me to find…
As for Half-Life Alyx, the gameplay of this game mainly includes two points, one is fighting, and the other is solving puzzles. First, I would like to discuss the combat design in this game, which is shooting. The player's operations in the game are closer to reality. For example, to replace the magazine, you need to withdraw the old magazine, install a new magazine and reload. After picking up the item, you need to put it in the backpack on the back. To throw a grenade you have to throw an arc with your hands and so on. The close-to-real combat style makes it less likely that players can kill multiple enemies as easily as they can with a keyboard,…
This is my first time playing VR game, but I watch a lot of streamers playing VR games before. Compare to those games I watched on youtube. I think the most impressive thing that Alyx shows me is that it have some interaction method that designed for VR devices. Such as using your hand to climb a ladder, or switching the magazine with your own hands. For PC games, usually, those two actions will be achieved by a simple key on the keyboard. But in Alyx, it gave me an unparalleled experience that I never tried before. What’s more, in Alyx, most of the items have their own model, which means I can grab most of the things I saw…