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Total Half Life 2 Installation Process Time: 1 hour

Total Playing around with Steam to Unlock the freaking game: 45 minutes.

I HATE STEAM!!!!

Why the hell do you ahve to registar your game via there crappy news pop up riddin' filth to play the freaking game? can'.t they just do like half life (original one)?

Sure "Marketing"

The Message they are sending out is: We annoy th heck out of you, so, buy our sh!t

And youc an't play without a Steam accoutn! WTF is that? I feel sorry for all the people without internet.

I had to restart my comp a couple of times just because the steam account thing crashes

becuase gabe is greedy and doesnt want people to crack the game for free or something

If assholes wouldn't steal the game they wouldn't have to do this. I honestly can't blame valve for being cautious with this game. It's probably THE biggest PC game release of all time, and after the source code being stolen last year they are probably really paranoid.

I'll probalby be getting the game tommorow, so hopefully the steam hooplah will have calmed down by then.

I don't like Steam either, but from Valve's point of view it's a very good idea to protect from it being leaked.

It does take time to get 5.5 gigs downloaded, and processed. It took me about 10 minutes to unlock everything.

Well I'm installing it now...well, registering it on steam. So far it's going fairly smoothly, though a bit longer then I would like. They should have handled this differently I think, they should have been prepared for the massive number of people trying to get this game on release.

i remember when i got steam for halflife 1, it completely runined halflife for me, as in it would let me play it after i installed steam. so i uninstalled steam and i still couldnt play the original. uninstalled then installed again, still couldnt play it because steam must have left some files somewhere.

i just hope i dont get a problem this time round with halflife2, got my copy infront of me, i shall begin the instalation process soon

Well, everything went very smoothly for me, got everything installed within about 30 minutes, I played HL2 for about an hour and a half, and just started playing CSource. So far it's totally money.

As for HL2, it's pretty amazing. Total emmersion while you play, you can just sit there and look around, everything is so detailed. The only problem is that about every 10 minutes or so you need to load up the next area, and it takes me about 20 seconds. This isn't major, but it kinda takes you out of the atmosphere.

Luckily, I've had steam on my PC for a while, so I didn't have to bother with all the steam crap.

yeah I think everyone hates steam heh.. but its what happens when there are so many thiefz0rz

Yeah and they pretty much amde sure nobody cans teal it, becasue of internet registration.

I brought Half Life 2 on its release (UK one Tues 16th Nov) and have only been able to begin playing it today (Wed 17th Nov), i feel so sorry for those without an Internet connection 'cos its an excellent game.

Peh, Half-Life 2 WILL be cracked one way or another.

Nothing is ever pirate-proof.

The fact you need to register the damn thing online means its just BEGGING to be cracked.

You don't seem to understand... Its like when youc rack a game with a key-gen or something, you can't access the multiplayer options because the serial is not valid, the fact that you have to pass it through the Net, is like trying to access batle.net without a proper serial, can't be done. BUT if at one point it will be done, then they just released a greater evil, as every otehr game will be able to use the etchnology to access multiplayer.

I think games cost enough all ready. If they want you to play their game they shouldn't embed a doorway into your computer. I used to love to play hl, tfc, cs all those games still kick ass, but I will not allow someone to take information off of my computer everytime I turn it on.
You who allow that kind of bigbrother activity are a bunch of sell out drones that should have more self respect.

Where's the source that says steam takes information off of your computer? I've never heard that and it sounds like bullshit.

I have no problem with steam, I've never experienced any problems with it.

"You who allow that kind of bigbrother activity are a bunch of sell out drones that should have more self respect"

Oh don't be such a drama queen. You have fun bitching and moaning like a little girl, I'll enjoy my CS Source and HL2 in the meantime.

I betcha he has soo much adware and spyware on his computer, its not even funny.

I think steam is quite good acturly, it prevents all those lame kids that dont want to buy the games and only download them from getting things that we have to pay for

It also gives alot more money to the Valve instead of the publishers. This means Valve has more money to spend on Half Life 3. Which is a really good thing (they know how to use thier money).

Which comes out in the next three years, I'm betting.

The Source engine allows Valve to input newer technology. This means Vavle doesn't have to spend so much money and time to program a new engine from scratch. I give them 4 year because Vavle will probably remake the game 4 times over.

I'd prefer they make a new engine for the next halflife heh. But ultimately I'd like them to do new sound algorithms.. original half life raised the bar on sound.. half life 2 didnt bother much with sound improvements.. I hope half life 3 will bring about the need for a seperate sound lab to recreate true 3d audio

I prefer that too but its unreasonable to think that they programmed for years and think they wont use it for another game. I read an article in which somebody from Valve said that they produced the engine so they can just insert a new brand of technology like that. So, it would be still the same engine but supercharged.
I enjoy the sound but i do agree that alot of it was a rehash from the original.