YMMV / Half-Life: Alyx

• Adorkable: Russell's a good example of an Adorkable character who's grown into old age. Despite his age and the state of the world, he's still insistent on naming his gravity gloves after himself and tries to come up with a rather silly acronym before giving up on the last letter; and generally making optimistic business plans for life after the humans finally kick the Combine off of Earth.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Did the Combine actually manage to capture the G-Man, or did the G-Man let them capture him to further his and his employers goals?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Many fans expected Alyx to be nothing more than a gimmicky spinoff that wouldn't advance the story in any meaningful way. Needless to say, these fans were extremely happy to be proven wrong when Alyx turned out to not only be far and away the new gold standard for VR games, but also finally moves the story of the Half-Life universe forward, even if it's just a little.
• Award Snub: Many were disappointed that the game wasn't nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2020, despite that Alyx won Best VR/AR Game during the show. Technological accessibility was most likely a factor, with VR headsets for the PC platform being relatively expensive among other requirements.
• Best Level Ever: While there are a couple contenders, "Jeff" is the most mentioned in reviews, thanks to its interesting Survival Horror atmosphere and gameplay revolving around maneuvering past the eponymous unkillable enemy.
• Catharsis Factor: Although the events that follow are undoubtedly tragic, the G-Man allowing Alyx to kill the very same Advisor that murdered her father in order to retroactively save his life is nothing short of satisfying, especially when considering the twelve-year gap between this game's release and Episode Two, where the last thing players saw was Alyx crying as she held Eli's dead body.
  • In the chapter "Jeff", after dodging Jeff for most of the distillery, being completely powerless to confront him as he relentlessly hounds Alyx, finally getting to trap him in a garbage compactor and crush the bastard feels so good.
• Disappointing Last Level: The final section is found to be somewhat lackluster compared to the rest of the game. The main criticism being that the gameplay turns into nothing more than throwing grenades (or green orbs that function as "instantaneous grenades") at the enemy.
• Evil Is Cool: Following the release of Alyx, there was a noticeable increase in love for the Combine Soldiers coming from fans of the series, with more portrayals as terrifying yet badass supersoldiers rather than mooks with funny masks and voices. This can be attributed to Valve's efforts to flesh out the soldiers in Alyx, such as giving them new unit types, extremely detailed models, and even small hints of personality and emotion in their voices.

  Ordinal: Give us names.
  Eli: We didn't steal anything-!
  Ordinal: We don't care.

• Fan Nickname: "Grabbity Gloves" as a purposeful mishearing of "gravity gloves".
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • After Russell gives you the pistol and some ammo, you can decide to test out your gun before you hop onto the train. When you run out of bullets, he'll provide you with another magazine. Due to the game only checking if your weapon itself is empty and not counting any extra ammo laying on the floor, if you load it into the pistol, chamber a round, release the magazine, and then pull the trigger, Russell will give you another magazine. This can be repeated infinitely and, if you're persistent, you can wind up with a ton of ammo ranging in the hundreds. Shown here.
    • Another variation of this bug can be found here.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • In Alyx's refuge at the start of the game, you can find a picture of a small version of D0g before his larger appearance in Half-Life 2. D'aww...
  • And of course, the Snark that you can feed. You can tell how delighted it is to get its lunch for the day.
  • There are many, many examples of Let's Players being driven to tears by the ending of the game, especially the post-credits scene, ranging from misty eyes to outright sobbing, to where it seems the majority of players all had the same reaction of shock and disbelief. It just goes to show that even after so many years fans are still so passionate about the series that a mere glimpse into what may come in the future causes such intense emotional reactions. It's like a positive version of being Driven Mad from the Revelation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In this game, Ozioma Akagha is a Time-Shifted Actor for Half-Life supporting protagonist Alyx Vance, replacing Merle Dandridge. She would later do this again in Marvel's What If...?, swapping out with Letitia Wright to play a younger version of Shuri.
• Memetic Mutation: See the series' page.
• Older Than They Think: Alyx is not the first Half-Life game to introduce time travel into the plot. In fact, the writers actually went back and looked for instances of time travel in the series to justify it in this game, and they found one in none other than Episode 1, where the Vortigaunts undid the ending of Half-Life 2 to stop Gordon from being taken away by the G-Man.
  “When we first started doing this, we went back and reviewed all the games,” Wolpaw says. “And I didn’t remember it, but they do this in Episode One!” Pinkerton nods in agreement: “Episode One starts by retconning the end of Half-Life 2. Essentially it just rewinds time 30 seconds so that a different outcome happens.”
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic:
  • When some gameplay was shown that had Alyx instantly teleporting up a ladder instead of grabbing the steps and pulling herself up, many expressed disappointment. A later gameplay video showed off an option that let you turn the ladder-teleporting off, allowing you to climb it yourself.
  • The same also happened with barnacles; When a gameplay video showed barnacles no longer pulling the player upward like in previous games, people complained, leading Valve to include it as an option.
• Salvaged Story: The ending finally resolves the infamous Tear Jerker of a cliffhanger from Episode Two by undoing it and changing the whole situation, restoring Eli to life while having the G-Man take Alyx, leaving Eli, Gordon, and D0G to saddle up and get her back.
• Shocking Moments: THE ENDING! The G-Man allows Alyx to alter time and save her father, but as payment, he decides to take her as his new employee, now that Gordon has been released from him and his employers' grip by the Vortigaunts. Eli promptly loses it, curses the G-Man, and immediately begins trying to find a way to rescue his daughter with Gordon's help.
  • Not to mention the part after the credits is essentially a teaser for Half-Life 3.
• Tainted by the Preview: While Valve's return to Half-Life was met with much rejoicing, there were also a subset of fans who were disappointed that Valve's grand return to the series after twelve years was an Interquel made exclusively for VR. This sentiment petered out when Valve revealed that Alyx wasn't going to be the end of their return to the Half-Life series.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • The mere announcement of this game brought back tons of fans that were waiting to see a new entry in the Half-Life franchise. Upon release, it seems their hopes were validated, as not only did Half-Life: Alyx receive near universal acclaim, but Valve has confirmed that this won't be their final foray into the Half-Life universe.
  • And for those that were still skeptical, the huge Sequel Hook that basically confirms a continuation of Episode 2 instantly revived their faith in the franchise.

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