New Half-Life games make me do stupid things. When Half-Life 2 came out on PC, I trekked to GameStop to trade in my Xbox, controllers, and games. I had hoped to score hundreds in trade-in credit, but the associate discovered my console was soft-modded and quartered the quote as a result — barely enough to cover the game. It didn’t run very well on my parents’ eMachines desktop (as a console player at the time, I didn’t know what recommended specs were). I was very sad when a port of the game eventually came to Xbox.

Half-Life: Alyx launched on March 23, 2020, nearly five years ago. I actually had a solid gaming PC that could run it. However, I didn’t have a VR headset, which is a necessary component. I immediately had to have one, ideally a model that wouldn’t leave a $1,000 crater in my checking account like Valve’s Index would. I ended up buying a refurbished Oculus Rift for $250 or so, and over the course of a memorable week, I beat Alyx, then promptly returned the headset for a refund while my jaw was still on the floor from its incredible finale.

It wasn’t long until I bought the wire-free

© Polygon