bingle

The game is unbelievable. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I am so impressed by the visuals, the physics, the AI, and the gameplay - amazing.

The install/Steam experience, however, leaves a lot to be desired. I purchased the retail package for various reasons. When I went to install it, I chose not to install CS:S (I'm not a CS player). When I got to the fourth disk, the install exited because it couldn't find a particular file - it turns out it's in the CS package even though it's needed by Half-Life. Valve's helpful suggestion on their support page is "Make sure you install both Counter Strike and Half Life!" - thanks. I didn't really need that extra gig of HDD space, anyway.

Then I finally get it installed and updated, so I go to play the game. "No CD inserted'... WTF? Doesn't Steam collect my personal information, make me authenticate each time I play, and sit like a resource-loving little goblin in my system tray all the time? Why the hell do I still need to put the CD in to play? That's the ONLY benefit I could see to Steam, honestly, and now I'm a little pissed off about it. I can't even get a no-CD crack like I did for my other games, because that will break Steam.

So then I get into gameplay, and after a bit I'm thrust out into a dark alley. And by dark, I mean I can't see anything. At all. OK, that's all right, I'll just adjust the brightness settings... Hmm. "Move the slider until you can see all three lines of text below." Well, I've moved the slider to the brightest setting, and I can't see ANY text below. And I can now make out a few outlines in the alley, but I can't really SEE anything. This is even more fun when I'm being chased by cops and I have to find my way up a black staircase in a black room to a black hallway. Fun! And HL2 doesn't seem to respect any sort of external brightness setting, either....

Argh.

Bingle