When the game launched in 2004, Half-Life 2 was widely heralded as one of the most immersive first-person shooters around. Now, a fan project is set to make Valve’s critically lauded sequel playable in virtual reality on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Back when the current VR boom was just getting started, a talented team put together HLVR, a mod that allowed players to experience Half-Life 2 like never before using an Oculus Rift DK1 headset and a Razer Hydra motion controller. Unfortunately, that mod is currently only playable using older development kit headsets but members of the original team have been hard at work bringing it up to date.
The new version, dubbed Half-Life 2: VR, is packing several enticing features. The game looks great, with HDR lighting, and updates to effects, models, textures, and maps having been applied.
However, those are not the only improvements the team has made. In the original Half-Life 2, weapons were basic models that looked the same whenever they were put in the hands of the player character, Gordon Freeman — in Half-Life 2: VR, they are remodeled so that players can move them around and view them from any angle, adding to the sense of immersion.
There are even brand new reload gestures, according to a report from Road to VR. Apparently, the .357 revolver requires players to tilt the weapon to discharge spent cartridges, before flicking it back into place.
Half-Life 2: VR will be released for free, although players will need to own Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2 to play it. The two episodes are not currently playable in VR mode, they are simply required for installation but the team hopes to add support sometime in the future.
The modders behind the project want to make it as easy as possible for fans to play the game in VR, so they are starting a Steam Greenlight campaign that is intended to make the mod available via Valve’s marketplace.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.