A few months ago, I happened upon a shop that sold a box containing Half-life 2 and Half-life 2: Deathmatch for only P1095 (around US$27). Intrigued, due to the numerous praises I’ve heard about the game and the relatively cheap price, I decided to get it.
Getting home, I immediately installed the game, and I was hooked. I was quite hooked that I decided to chuck my old 128MB Geforce MX4000 and get a 512MB Geforce 7300 GT to get a better look at the graphics. This box also introduced me to Steam, the (in)famous file distribution service of Valve software. While there have been some rough spots, specifically on the speed (or the lack thereof) of their email-based support system, I was pretty satisfied with what I got.
One of the bad (or good, depending on the perspective) things about Steam was its online store. Hesitantly at first, I decided to buy Counterstrike and the original Half-life, later on getting the entire Half-life Anthology package. Currently, I’m hooked on The Orange Box, especially Team Fortress 2. For the first time in my life, I am addicted to online gaming. Fine, I’m not too good at it, nor do I spend as much time immersed in it as other gamers do, but this is quite a change for me, buying games and upgrades to my PC instead of buying books with my extra money, as I used to do.
I realized that I was seriously hooked when I started modifying my PC just to be able to work around the numerous compatibility issues of Steam. Whether this is good or bad, I don’t know. Right now, I’m seriously considering buying Rome: Total War, but do I buy the Steam version or the box version? Tough choice.
I like getting boxes, since they give you this nice warm feeling of owning something tangible, but Steam almost always sells games at a cheaper rate, especially in the Philippines, because the government hasn’t caught on to taxing those kinds of transactions. Now they will, as I have announced it, but I digress.
I may not be good enough to get an invite on those locked servers, but I sure do enjoy myself.
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