Somewhat hot take… I’d argue Boneworks (not Bonelab) was “better”, at least if you’re used to VR and if you judge by freedom and replay value. Don’t get me wrong, playing through Half Life Alyx was fun and engaging, but to me it had little to no replay value, since for all it did great in visuals, audio, accessibility, and especially story, it failed dramatically in physics. Since I played Alyx right after Boneworks, I kept trying to pick stuff up which I ended up not being able to for larger objects, and the first time I tried to knock a Combine over the head with a pipe I was so sorely disappointed. Alyx has absolutely everything Boneworks is missing, yet that physics core is what kept me coming back to the latter. It really clicked for me when I noticed how many things in Boneworks one can solve in alternate ways by “abusing” physics. Climbing is a learned skill and combat can be as much shooting as it can be using knives, fists, shoving someone off a ledge, or grabbing an enemy and throwing it at others. It’s what truly made me realize how much potential VR had, being able to interact with a full physics simulation, where even your own body is a physics object, with your physical hands is amazing.
There is, yes, but it’s pointless. I think some people are missing the point of Alyx being a VR game, the game would suck pretty bad in pancake mode. It’s the intricate interactions with the world you simply can’t get with a mouse and keyboard that make it special compared to other Half Life games. They didn’t just make a regular Half Life game and said “well we’re just gonna force this to be in VR now”, they made a VR game and set it in the Half Life universe.