As we celebrate the one-year anniversary since the launch of Half-Life: Alyx (more on that here), we thought it would be interesting to look at some of the great mods that the community have been creating that bring so much more life to HL Alyx. We enlisted the help of Craig Pearson, a journalist, writer, and Alyx-mods-aficionado, to play and write about his favorites.
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Im Craig Pearson. Ive worked for PCG, IGN, RPS, Facepunch, and more. Im also a big fan of Half-Life: Alyx, and Ive craved more ever since /that ending/. The community didnt disappoint me. Just weeks after the game was released, before the official tools were out, there were mods to play. Then the Workshop arrived with the bespoke tools, and Ive been stuck in City 17 ever since.
Theres been a steady drip of weapons, levels, and oddball scenarios to keep me entertained. Armed with this experience and, more importantly, an intimate knowledge of the development teams home addresses, I begged them to let me put together a list of my favourite mods.. They agreed. They following is a collection of the mods that kept me locked in my Valve Index during 2020.
Ive made two lists: the first is for those of you looking to replay the campaign, and it adds new enemies and new weapons, and new play styles. Youll have a blast taking on the Combine while carrying their shield. The second list is full of levels thatll challenge and surprise everyone who thought they knew what the original game was capable of. You cant get further from the intense battles with the Combine than a round of mini-golf.
I hope you enjoy whats here. To me, there's no better way to celebrate the first anniversary of Alyx than with more Alyx. Even more so, I hope you share your experiences, favorite mods, and exciting moments from Valves return to the Half-Life universe.
[h2]Part 1 - New enemies and new weapons, and new play styles[/h2]
[h3]Scalable Init Support[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2182586257
Not the most exciting addition, Ill grant you. But its a mod-loader that you should just enable and leave on, so download it before we get to the good stuff.
[h3]Campaign+[/h3]
After /that/ finale, you might need a few moments--or months--to take stock of what happened. And if you decide to return to see it all again once more, Campaign+ is a great way to do that. Its a fairly chunky overhaul of the main game, and assumes youve already been through everything. You start off with upgraded weapons, but thats balanced out with new enemies, encounters, and more.
The enemies have new variations and spawn in new places, but they often come with new weaknesses to help you out. The Armoured Grunts have armour which forces you to headshot them. There are Combine Medics, running between their comrades and healing them in battle. The Shield Squad all deploy their barriers as they move around, which takes 20 bullets apiece to destroy, but you can also target the power source.
Every encounter is far tougher, far more fraught with danger, but also hugely rewarding.
[h3]Handheld Combine Shield[/h3]
This evens the odds between you and the Combine, adding one of their shields to each level (aside from the intro, outro, and J**f) as an item. Just stick it in a wrist pocket and deploy in battle.
It gives you some excellent new options during combat, fundamentally shifting Alyx to a more aggressive playstyle. With it you can melee enemies and deflect grenades or bashed chairs, and it of course lets you fight in open areas without worrying about the need for cover.
[h3]Recurve Bow[/h3]
Right-handed or Left-handed
Valve took the controversial decision to make a VR action game without a bow. This rights that wrong and turns you into Hawkeye in the process. Though it doesnt fit as snugly into the game as your hands do into the Russells, it does complement the guns quite nicely.
The bow is an item in the game that spawns at the beginning of a number of chapters. You stow it in your wrist slots, and when grasped in either hand (there are versions for lefties and righties) you can draw an infinite number of arrows.
It adds the same sort of friction to the combat that trying to reload while surrounded by enemies does. Pulling the arrow, knocking it, and firing is a learned skill. The results are brutal one-hit kills, or hilarious, panicked retakes. Aiming is a challenge, and Id much rather it just replaced a weapon and was bound to a hand, but thats a limitation the mod has to live with.
[h3]Glorious Gloves[/h3]
This handy addon turns the Russells into full-blown gravity gloves, bringing the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator into Alyxs grasp.
It allows you to pull large objects across the level. Instead of leaping into your hand, the object floats just in front, waiting for the player to punch it at a victim, though it takes some training to be accurate. Theres no subtlety when you do; you simply hurl whatever you were holding at an enormous velocity. Aiming and maiming in one clenched fist.
[h3]Auto Pickup[/h3]
A mod that I cant live without, now. Seriously. I uninstalled it and Im now writing this in a coma. Instead of having you toss all your ammo over your shoulder, Auto Pickup simply stores it as soon as you grab it and let go. It has reduced the terrible blight of Alyx Shoulder that has been overwhelming sports doctors all over the country.
[h3]Energetic Hands[/h3]
Ever wanted to fight like a Vortigaunt? To send an arc of green lightning from your fingertips capable of killing whatever it strikes? You have? Same! Here fistbu -- fashhhhhhhooom!
Energetic Hands gives Alyx the ability to power up energetic blasts from the Russells and fire them right from the start of the game. Its not a simple procedure, though. You use movement and gestures for different effects. Grasping your hands like a prize-fighter powers them up, then you can blast the energy out by throwing your hands out like a dramatic magician, or tilt them open to produce grenades. Its a fun shift in the dynamics of the combat, putting you in a position of power and endless mayhem in ten seconds bursts.
[h3]Sustenance Mod[/h3]
Theres food all over City 17, so why not have a bite to eat to recuperate instead of squashing that poor whateverthehellthatis in the health station? Sustenance Mod not only lets you snack yourself back to health all over the City, but it also means when youre offered up dinner, you can be a good guest and eat whats given to you. Drink doesnt have an effect, and rotten food harms you. Balanced? No. Delicious? Also no.
[h3]Gordon's Crowbar [/h3]
You know you want this. It adds a heavy, two-handed crowbar to the campaign. It can be used for melee attacks, prop-breaking, and starting off insurrections against a powerful alien hierarchy thats slowly consuming all life on the planet. It is very hard to play the game with it, but it looks so good in your hands.
[h2]Part 2 - New levels and campaigns[/h2]
[h3]C17YSCAPE [/h3]
C17YSCAPE is set in City 17, between the events of Half-Life: Alyx and Half-Life 2. Youre a prisoner whose Combine jail cell has malfunctioned, letting you escape through the terrifying underbelly of the occupied area. C17YSCAPE feels a lot like lengthy sections of Half-Life 2, where youre undoing the nuts and bolts of the Combines vast empire. With bullets.
The opening 10 minutes is slow going, but it pulls it all together with some frugal ammo and health and wonderfully timed enemy encounters. Ive played a lot of Alyx, but Ive never spent this much time cowering behind pillars or crouching and timing my shots between enemy reloads. Instead of holding onto health syringes for later, they get jammed into my arm like a champion bodybuilder aiming for a dubious world record. Even after picking the laser pointer to help me conserve my ammo, every encounter was TENSE. Thats right, I capitalized, boldened, italicized and underlined the word. I blame the shotgunners.
An excellent addition if you like shooting the bad guys and want about 90 minutes more of that.
[h3]Overcharge[/h3]
A map that was built before the official tools were released. Overcharge is a hefty chunk of Combine-infested City 17.
Theres nothing here that hasnt been done in Alyx, but thats not an issue. The space that youre playing through, where backdrops spotted through windows will become part of the level, guides you neatly though the enemy encounters and puzzles. Its economically designed. There arent many moments where youre overwhelmed by a huge number of enemies, but you will be taken by surprise a few times as you wander the level. There are a couple of metrics you can use to gauge how good a VR game is. During Overcharge my face sweated and my cable got tangled. Thats at least 7/10 from IGN.
Depending how you play, this should take about 45 minutes to complete.
[h3]Belomorskaya Station[/h3]
Belomorskaya Station starts off in a dim room and barely gets brighter than that. Youre crawling through a zombie infested subway in a straight-up scavenging survival horror level. Swathed in shadows and screams, Alyx is constantly fretting over her low ammo count. You have to check every nook for sneakily hidden shotgun shells.
Youd think in such a dark and dismal space that finding a flare would be a cause for celebration, but here the blood red light cast by it feels utterly feeble in the onslaught of darkness. Its of no comfort whatsoever.
It lasts about 20 mins, but it feels like youre down there for days.
[h3]Brewery Break-In[/h3]
Set before the events of the main game, Alyx has to investigate a brewery. There seems to be a lot of these in City 17, which often leads to some excellent levels but bad morning afters.
Though theres nothing bright and shiningly new in the level, its built very well. The puzzles are well-connected and the level loops in and around itself, letting you plan ahead a little. This is simply more Alyx, but theres nothing wrong with that.
Its only about 15 mins long, and sadly part 2 has yet to materialise. If youre reading this, Jake *waggles eyebrows*
[h3]Goon Squad[/h3]
Theres more to this map than Im willing to tell you about. Youre part of a Combine patrol squad stuck in a quarantined sewer system. You have to escape. Its about 30 mins long, depending on how much of a coward you are. That means it took me 7 hours.
[h3]Xenthug[/h3]
Xenthug was released before the mapping tools were made public, but even with that limitation its a fun, new way to play. Youre in a single level beset by waves of enemies. Survival is a little bit more complicated than just shooting them. You have to pay for the pleasure.
Each wave spawns all around you, leaving you frantically trying to duck around abandoned trucks and piles of boxes to gain a few seconds to reload. Some, not all, enemies drop Resin, and in between hordes you can speedily spend this in vending machines on simple ammo, health, and more.
The first wave is just headcrabs. If you gain access to the room in the corner (look for the keycard), you can use that to prepare for later fights. But if you trap a single headcrab in there the wave wont end until you kill it, letting you explore the nooks of the level. You have plenty of time to find resin, grab explosives, and move boxes to get to higher ground.Youll need any advantage you can get in the later levels, where youll discover movement and shooting abilities you never thought you had. Its a great mix of frantic and thoughtful, and youll lose hours to it.
[h3]BLOPS17: Emergent[/h3]
Sometimes the best way to play is to let the game come to you. This is an Alyxifed take on CoDs zombie mode, where you can toss vodka to kill the screaming, baying, headcrab wearers.
Its a very different horde mode to XenThug. Youre in a smaller space, constantly moving back and forth to tend to the access areas. Zombies break down the boarded up doors and you have to keep those blocked if you want to live to see another sunrise. It has buyable upgrades for ammo and the defences, but the reset between levels is far more frantic than Xenthug. Its quite a workout.
[h3]Minigolf[/h3]
You know whats harder than shooting a Combine soldier in the eye while dodging a Manhack? Golf.
A whole seven holes await you in this baffling but entirely necessary download. No more than ten minutes of your time will be spent knocking the ball about, but the fact that it exists and is well made is enough to consider having a putt.
[h3]Northern Star Bowling[/h3]
You know whats harder than shooting a Combine soldier in the e -- no, wait. Ive already done that one. Northern Star Bowling is a fun place to blow off some steam. A secret bowling alley with the G-Man serving his private reserve ales and four bowling lanes for you to try. Its not a perfect representation, largely because the physics dont really allow for anything other than a straight toss of the ball, but its still an amazing example of what the creators on the Alyx Workshop crafted. The pins reset and there are scoreboards should you get competitive with yourself.
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You can explore all the Half-Life: Alyx mods in the Steam Workshop here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/546560/workshop/
You can find Craig on Twitter
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