Recent reviews by JJl77

A classic! Works great under proton.

Good controller for people accustomed to a typical kb+mouse setup.

got it on sale for $5 too.

Works out of the box on Linux with my index. No issues to report so far

A must have if you own a VR headset. Easily one of the best games I've ever played.

Half-Life: Alyx and SteamVR work flawlessly on Linux too. I was pleased to find out I didn't need to boot up windows to play!

Probably the worst Half-Life game, but it's still a lot of fun to play. The OST kicks ass too.

One of my favorite entries in the series. Absolutely love the level design- really love being able to take a look at the uninhabited parts of the planet and what the resonance cascade has done to it.

Played it for a bit and it's a buggy mess and missing some features.
If not for the bugs and the unnecessary difficulty, I would be giving this thing two thumbs up. It's a free game after all!

Bugs we've experienced:
1. CONSTANT CRASHES. 50% of the time the game will crash between map loads
2. UNBINDS KEYS AFTER CRASHES. My keys get unbound each time the game crashes. Any keybinds from normal HL2 stay the same, but things from synergy (such as voice chat and give health) are all unbound. Custom keybinds are also erased.
3. the gravity gun sometimes gets lost when you die, so you can end up getting softlocked and need to cheat to get it back.
4. The jeep drives like ♥♥♥♥ with more than one person. Died multiple times due to this
5. getting stuck inside of NPCs (they dont move like they do in HL2)
6. getting stuck inside of the airboat
7. skybox is completely screwed on the helicopter boss fight level and it looks like there's a leak in the map somehow (you can see into the void which is absolutely blinding)
8. Physics are a bit floaty and weird. Not the end of the world but it's weird.

Design choices and other issues that make me dislike it:
1. spawns multiple helicopters during the canals for "difficulty", except that theyll instantly kill you if they both use guns. Complete BS
2. level transitions are pretty bad with vehicles. They're fine for when you're on foot, but I really hate how it takes you out of your vehicle and places you on the ground for the start of the next map. It ruins the flow of the game.
3. Some levels will start off with a puzzle (the canals washing machine puzzle, for example) and your vehicle will not respawn until after you complete the puzzle. I dont know why the devs chose this.
4. It spawns double the enemies for the most part, from what it seems. "Normal" difficulty is not normal, even with 2 people.

Things that I think it needs:
1. The ability to quicksave. No I do not know how this would be implemented.
2. A "ready" system like you have in TF2 MvM so the game wont automatically start. this is annoying if waiting for friends to connect.
3. Peer To Peer. Steam has an API for P2P connections. It should really be implemented.

Half-Life is an absolute classic. It's right up there with Doom, Quake and Blood as one of the most influential FPS games ever made. Half-Life 2 (and Half-Life: Alyx!) would go on to continue Half-Life's legacy of innovation.

That being said, it's got some 90s jank, for sure. Maybe I'm just bad at the game, but I get killed by doors more often than I'd like to admit, and some scripting sequences have a tendency to kill me too LOL. I won't even talk about how jank ladders are...

So far so good, but it performs terribly on Linux. I need to turn it down to low and reduce the resolution to 1080p in order to maintain a solid 60fps...and I have a i7-6700k and a GTX1070..

The sound design is phenomenal.