Half-Life: Alyx

I wanted to play Half-Life: Alyx since the announcement, it's my first VR game, and I also got my first gaming PC in literally a decade just to play it, so to say that I was excited to play it would be quite an understatement. And it didn't disappoint in the slightest! It's very much a Half-Life game, it builds on all the same gameplay elements and the atmosphere that made the original games so iconic, and adds so much more. HL:A draws inspiration from both HL1 and HL2, blending suffocating confined Xen-infested spaces with street battles against the hi-tech Combine, really a bridge between both HL games. I was going into HLA half-expecting it to be a VR attraction of sorts, and thank goodness I was so wrong. While the game features several "wow" moments, it mostly uses VR to immerse you in the setting, to bring the environment to life. You can interact with almost everything, with many mechanics and puzzles relying on spatial controls. In fact, using VR quickly becomes second nature, and before long you stop thinking about the controls and simply feel like you're there. The other thing that surprised me is the length of the game, I'd say it's about as long as HL2, there are a lot of things to see. For me, HLA brings so much to the table in every aspect, I consider it a full-fledged entry in Half-Life series, that in my opinion could as well be named Half-Life 3.