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Half Life 2 Episode 1



  Punto/Clio GTT
anyone played? only like 4 hours or so of gameplay, little addition to HL2. aint played it yet, currently downloading
 
It's awesome. I'm curently playing the main game through again and then I intend to play Episode 1 again. I wouldnt worry too much about the longevity of Ep1, it's quite hard and is plenty long enough considering the price.
 

Darren S

ClioSport Club Member
How much is it? I haven't checked. I guess the only thing that's putting me off is that you have to use Steam to get it, iirc? Steam sucks the big one. :dead:

Want to play HL2? Steam kicks in.
Want to play CSS online? Steam kicks in.
Want to play CSS on your own goddamn PC with no need to verify online? Steam kicks in.
Want to download game content at a stupidly slow rate? Steam kicks in.
Want to send an email? Steam kicks in.
Want to burn a CD with Nero? Steam kicks in.
Want to fart? Steam does it for you.

(....I may have made up the last few ;) )

D.
 
Steam is superb. It keeps all your Valve games organised and 100% updated. There's no need to worry about patching. It also means no more searching for NoCD cracks, and you own the games, not a set of disks - you can download some or all of your games as and when you wish, as many times as you like, so as long as you know your Steam login you'll never have to worry about loosing a CD/DVD or bother with reinstalling and spending 4 hours patching.

Steam only loads into memory when you tell it, or when you open a Steam game via a shortcut. It's not a resourse hog and it ceratinly isnt bloatware.

Works out about £13 to buy Ep1 over Steam btw. Start it up go and put the kettle on, come back in a while and play your new game. It'd take you longer to go and buy a game in the shops, install it, mess about with the CD key on the manual, patch the game and find a NoCD crack.





To summarise Steam;

All your games are always kept 100% up to date with any fixes or patches, no matter how small. Steam/Valve decides when your games need patching and does it all for you before you play.

Valve know you own the games you've payed for. You can build as many new PCs, or reinstall as many operating systems as you like, and you'll always be able to re-download your games via Steam totally up to date. Obviously you can also back up local content to an optical drive, partition etc. to minimise the ammount of downloading in the event of a system failure, reinstall etc.

Edit: I'm unsure how Valve stop people downloading the games to mutliple PCs (friends). The game can probably only ever be linked with a single IP address at any one time perhaps.
 
Last edited:
  Turbo'd MX-5 MK4
you don't HAVE to use to steam to get it, you can buy it in the shops / play etc, I did.
 
Indeed, but personally I think it's best to use Steam. You DO need Steam installed to play the retail games anyway, so you may as well use it for content delivery also, especially as this means all the money goes to the developer and not the publisher :)
 

Darren S

ClioSport Club Member
I still dislike it m8. I've had the same conversation with a bloke at work who really likes it. I just hate online involvement with games from the developers - especially when you just want to play the bloody thing.

What happens when 10, 12, 20+ games on your PC all require their own 'version' of a Steam client? Jeezuz, you won't be able to move the mouse without 99% of your bandwidth being verified against several servers just to make sure that you've got the latest updates for the same game that was verified (again) only the day before.

If developers want to push out three patches a week for us to download, then fine. But allow me to do it on my terms, not when I am told to. And without offline backup, a clean install of HL2 takes 4 hours to update (just so you can bloody well play it!) - for approximately 200MB of updtaes. That's sh1t-slow. That turd of turdiness EA Downloader at least has the benefit of being quick.

From a developer point of view, it's green lights all the way. From my point of view, its a dark sign of the things to come. And unfortunately, there's jack all I can do about it. ;)

D.
 
  1.6 Focus, 1.6 122S
I think you've got completey the wrong idea about steam Darren, and also stating some things taht just arn't true. But I can't be bothered to type them out, not that your not worth the disscusion, i'm just too tired!

I used to hate Steam and got rid of it for a long time, once they had fixed all the glitches I reinstalled and how gaming and updates is soo eay and streamlined, doesn't eat my bandwith at all. Played HL2 EP1 when it came out, can't wait for EP2!
 

Darren S

ClioSport Club Member
Maybe Saner. I'm on 2MB BB now at home and first encountered Steam on a mere 512k connection. I guess because I didn't backup my files last time didn't help either.

It's still got a long way to convince me otherwise, though. ;)

D.
 
  1.6 Focus, 1.6 122S
Fair enough! I was the same as you went from 512 and now on 2meg. I truely hated steam to start with, cause so many problems and kept f**king up my PC it was such a headache.

Then after a gap of about 4 months being Steam free I reinstalled, haven't had a problem since. Also Steam will only connect if you want it to. You can play the games without Steam being connected. I only use the online feature to browse new trailers and occasioally get updates, and I leave the computer to itself to do this itself as I have always done, so I guess i'm not effected by the time it takes.

Mention of EA earlier, I have Generals and hate the update program with that! If I have to fresh install it, you have to update, start the game, quit, then update again.. etc etc.. argh its soo fickle!
 
I guess it helps having a 10mb pipe, but the Steam servers were only delivering HL2 c. 500-750K/s last time I downloaded it, which is a bit annoying as my connection maxes at 1.2Mb/s
 
  Revels Mum & Sister
I remember when HL2 came out it was pretty slow but that was just a few glitches and general overloading I think its a great idea

ALSO I like the fact that all the money goes to the dev's rather than a distro taking there cut and a shop etc.
 

Darren S

ClioSport Club Member
Yep - you've both got a valid point there (Roy & Rasclart). If the developers themselves get the lions' share of the money going back to them, they are far more likely to update and mod the original game for the sake of the community.

EA (imo) doesn't give a flying monkey's about customers once they have handed over their own hard-earned. As seen in BF2, they are more concerned about releasing expansion packs and generating more revenue than addressing the core issues that have been there since day one.

D.
 
  Monaro VXR
I bought the game via steam just cause it was cheaper thinkit ended up costing me around £12 compared to £20 in the shops. Same with HL2 i bought that via steam as well and you usually get more with the game buying it via steam. Like when you bought the HL2 silver package you got the entire back catalouge of valves games available on steam for free etc. I might not play them but i like getting more for my money.
 
Roy Munson said:
Steam is superb. It keeps all your Valve games organised and 100% updated. There's no need to worry about patching. It also means no more searching for NoCD cracks, and you own the games, not a set of disks - you can download some or all of your games as and when you wish, as many times as you like, so as long as you know your Steam login you'll never have to worry about loosing a CD/DVD or bother with reinstalling and spending 4 hours patching.

Steam only loads into memory when you tell it, or when you open a Steam game via a shortcut. It's not a resourse hog and it ceratinly isnt bloatware.

Works out about £13 to buy Ep1 over Steam btw. Start it up go and put the kettle on, come back in a while and play your new game. It'd take you longer to go and buy a game in the shops, install it, mess about with the CD key on the manual, patch the game and find a NoCD crack.





To summarise Steam;

All your games are always kept 100% up to date with any fixes or patches, no matter how small. Steam/Valve decides when your games need patching and does it all for you before you play.

Valve know you own the games you've payed for. You can build as many new PCs, or reinstall as many operating systems as you like, and you'll always be able to re-download your games via Steam totally up to date. Obviously you can also back up local content to an optical drive, partition etc. to minimise the ammount of downloading in the event of a system failure, reinstall etc.

Edit: I'm unsure how Valve stop people downloading the games to mutliple PCs (friends). The game can probably only ever be linked with a single IP address at any one time perhaps.

good summary :approve::approve:

I agree, steam is great at the moment! Altho, when it first came about a few years back, different story!
 


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