The Half-Life 2 VR mod makes even reloading seem cool
See how Oculus and Hydra combine to revolutionise shooters.
VR headsets and motion controllers are nothing new in the world of gaming. It's not even rare to see them together. But what is exciting is Valve's new VR mod for Half-Life 2 that recalibrates the game to take advantage of this emerging tech.
As demonstrated by YouTuber, Goldfish, this new mod adapts the Half-Life 2 control scheme in a host of exciting new ways.
First off, guns are no longer locked to your head movement, so they can be aimed freely. This means that you won't have a crosshair, but instead will manually position the gun in front of your face, close one eye and peer down the iron sights.
But it gets more interesting from there. If you want to reload, you'll have to mimic the action of reloading by pantomiming adding a new clip to your firearm. So with a revolver you'll actually have to unlatch the barrel, flick it over, empty the clips, pretend to put in new ones and flick the chamber closed again. Sure this is way more cumbersome than tapping a button, but it's also a whole lot cooler.
You can also toss grenades in an arch by holding a trigger and miming a throwing motion. This looks a lot trickier than simply hitting a button to toss it in an already marked arch, but there are advantages to this. For example, you can run in one direction while throwing a grenade in another. You can't do that with a dual analogue setup now, can you?
The VR mod not only offers to new, more realistic maneuverability, but changes the HUD too. Now you check your ammo by looking at your guns, while your health is on the back of your wrist, so you just turn your hand over to look at it as if you're checking the time. Neat!