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Comment by pathartl | Hacker News Reader

Alyx is probably one of the greatest gaming experiences I've had... but I was also able to borrow a Vive from a friend to play it. I'm a Half-Life nut so I would have bought a headset anyway, but I'm glad I haven't bought a Quest.

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The immersiveness is fantastic, but movement feels like trying to use a 1970's pong controller while something is strapped to your head.

I want standard joystick-based movement. I suppose too many get motion sickness, or that joysticks are ergonomically awkward to place onto motion controllers while maintaining the "pointing" and "picking up" metaphors.

VR's "aim and teleport" mechanic is the worst, though. It ruins the entire experience for me. I just want to walk in a direction - easy with a game controller. But instead you have to aim, judge distance, and click. It's so weird and feels gross.

Alyx "smooth motion" is in settings - game settings, not Oculus or anything, and yes, you have to be careful. Sometimes I can barely maintain my footing if something happens too fast.

There's smooth movement and smooth turning options for most games, including Alyx.

The game asks you whether you want standard joystick-based movement when you start it.

As others have said, true movement and turning is an option in a good number of games. Having tried it myself, I won't do it again. I had a headache that lasted several hours as a result. Honestly, I was surprised how much it affected me, given that I've never had any form of motion sickness before or since. My brain did not like the perception of movement disconnected from sensing that movement.

Now, when omnidirectional treadmills become a thing so I can literally walk / run places in games, I'm onboard.

I get terrible motion sickness so I opted for teleportation. I still get sick in a playthrough. The part where you free the vort in the square was the first time I started really feeling sick, but that's because you have to take an elevator.

After like 3 playthroughs I've gotten the teleporting movement down and it's pretty much second nature. Outside of the game I found myself holding out my hand and flicking to try to pick things up IRL

You can use a Oculus Account (not connected to facebook) and then use Virtual Desktop to stream the game from SteamVR over Wifi. If you have a Wifi 6 router it's the best PC VR experience you can have (wireless, no base stations, really high resolution, very low latency) and besides the Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop you are not giving any money to Meta. If you are worried about battery life, I already player with a battery bank in small backpack without any problems! Absolutely awesome.

You don't even need Virtual Desktop, the Quest 2 supports wireless VR natively.

I've ranted about this several time on hn but Alyx was a huge disappointment to me. I did it on an index. The fakeness and heavy hand holding of the combat pulled out any sense of immersion for me.

How much do you have to move around to play Alyx? I have an old Oculus Rift gathering dust, but my gaming PC is in a super cramped room.

It has two modes. To play comfortably you need probably a 6x6x10ft area.

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