M
meatcatcher
Guest
10:07 AM – My hands are sweating a little. I ask for the Gordon Freeman box. On the way out of Gamestop I give HL2 a big fat kiss. A small part of me wonders if kissing Gordon makes me a homosexual, another small part is glad it wasn’t the G-Man, but most of me is so desperately focused on needing to install the game, it feels kind of like I have to pee really bad, but out of the wrong head.
10:10 AM – I live 5 miles away from Gamestop, no freeways. I have no time for silly things like speed limits, unlocking and opening doors, or bantering with hungry children and angry wives. Besides, they will only become hungrier and angrier over the next few days. I sweep all aside and place disc 1 into my CD drive.
10:25 AM – I’ve given the wife a handful of dollars and sent her on a mission to feed the children. Steam is installed, and HL2 has begun installing. Slowly. I wander around smoking, changing discs as prompted, and making sure the computer room is fully stocked before I barricade the door.
10:42 AM – I come back to my computer to drop off an armful of soda and wasabi chips. The installation has died on disk 3. I begin saying bad things about the evil entity of Valvendi in my head.
10:59 AM – A short investigation of message boards shows that disk 3 is a naughty misbehaver for other people as well, and it’s a problem with the disk being incompatible with some drives. I begin saying those bad things about Valvendi out loud as I tear the computer graveyard closet apart looking for that old external USB CD burner.
11:05 AM – The installation process begins again. This time I babysit it, counting every single status bar. When my eyes start losing focus on which bar I’m watching, I use the mouse cursor to bookmark it.
11:23 AM – Oh dear god the external drive is slow. Minesweeper or Solitaire are straight out of the question, the system deserves every iota of resources available to it. I settle for moving my optical mouse around on my face and watching the cursor move on screen.
11:34 AM – I’ve passed disk 3. My anger at Valvendi subsides a little, but not much. My computer room is fully stocked and I’ve placed the bookcase against the door.
11:47 AM – Installation is complete! I take a deep breath for the coming battle with Steam, for I know from others who have survived that it will be long and terrible. I start Steam. My cable goes down. Comcast anger rating: 8 out of 10. Valvendi anger rating: 7 out of 10.
12:01 PM – I dig the 56K out of the computer graveyard, install drivers, and connect. I find that I miss the old days of hearing the modem scream before I got online. This moment of nostalgia puts me in a slightly better mood, and the Steam account registration actually goes without a hitch. I begin to hope. Poor fool.
12:23 PM – My connection drops in the middle of, if the status bar’s rate of progress is to be trusted, what appears to be a 3 day download. Verizon anger rating: 9 out of 10 (if the Verizon building suddenly became an invasion point for world dominating homicidal weasels, I would feel sorry for the families of the Verizon employees but not the Verizon employees themselves)
12:24 PM - The voicemail light is blinking. I make a mental note to check the message later, find out who is responsible for interrupting my precious downloading, and divert the living flood of weasels from Verizon to their house instead. I reconnect but use *70 this time. I don't remember if that's the correct code for turning off call waiting and consider double checking, but time is too precious to waste on such things.
12:25 PM – Steam refuses to connect. I imagine in my head a deep pit filled with employees of companies whose names start with V, into which I would be able to rain acid, razor blades, my pee, etc. etc.
12:55 PM – I manage to reconnect to Steam. I now hold myself perfectly still so that nothing may disturb the fragile connection established by the phone cord. It occurs to me that the phone cord is like an umbilicus, delivering HL2 nourishment to my computer. Then I remember how f!cking slow it is, any baby depending on an umbilicus that slow would be screwed.
1:37 PM – I’ve got status bar stare. Nothing quite seems to matter. My mouth hangs open as I wait for the next little square to appear on the screen. Time’s passage is nebulous, immaterial. The urge to defecate on everyone at Valvendi, so burning and insistent just half an hour ago, is now distant and inconsequential. I figure there are 8 little squares to go.
1:54 PM – I start to move around a little when the next to last square appears. I realize that I bought the game almost four hours ago and am still waiting to play. That gets me going again, and I sit up straight, ready to curse at the next problem.
1:57 PM – The last square appears. HL2 files have finished downloading. I begin to warm up my mouse hand. Yes, that is actually as disturbing as it sounds.
2:05 PM – CS:S files are downloading. Jesus on popsicle sticks. I wonder if crying will make me feel better, then decide to fire up my browser to check on the NBA instead. The browser instantly freezes, and moving my mouse around leaves tracers – my outdated computer is now on the verge of crashing with at least 10 little boxes to go on CS:S. Good work, dumb@ss. Myself anger rating: 8 out of 10
2:34 PM – CS:S is almost finished. I try not to get too excited about this fact. Besides, the computer will sense my excitement and that will send it over the edge, crashing it for sure. I remain calm, sneaking furitve glances at the status bar.
2:43 PM – I have finally arrived. The HL2 loading screen is being displayed.
2:46 PM – The loading screen is still up. I hold my breath and put my head down to the computer case. Yes, the hard drive is still grinding away at something.
2:47 PM – I’m at the HL2 menu. I rebind my keys and FINALLY jump into the game. After another seemingly interminable load time (the first of many to come) the opening cinematic starts and I totally forget about the last five hours of bullsh!t. I don’t even mind the audio skips that much, I’m so glad to be finally playing this game. And this game plays like the best – the last time I had this much fun was in HL1. I spent 5 minutes in the beginning of the game just breaking bottles, or throwing soda at the cops, then retreating behind the turnstile where they couldn’t get me. It was silly and a waste of time, but I had a blast doing it, Valve got that certain something right when they created this game. I'm very glad to say that this game truly was worth the trouble. If any other company tried to pull of something as audacious as Steam and requiring online registration for single player games, they would die a fast and ugly death. I don’t agree with Steam at all, I despise it, but Valvendi has something special in HL2 and unfortunately people will accept the ‘necessary’ evil of Steam because of that.
10:10 AM – I live 5 miles away from Gamestop, no freeways. I have no time for silly things like speed limits, unlocking and opening doors, or bantering with hungry children and angry wives. Besides, they will only become hungrier and angrier over the next few days. I sweep all aside and place disc 1 into my CD drive.
10:25 AM – I’ve given the wife a handful of dollars and sent her on a mission to feed the children. Steam is installed, and HL2 has begun installing. Slowly. I wander around smoking, changing discs as prompted, and making sure the computer room is fully stocked before I barricade the door.
10:42 AM – I come back to my computer to drop off an armful of soda and wasabi chips. The installation has died on disk 3. I begin saying bad things about the evil entity of Valvendi in my head.
10:59 AM – A short investigation of message boards shows that disk 3 is a naughty misbehaver for other people as well, and it’s a problem with the disk being incompatible with some drives. I begin saying those bad things about Valvendi out loud as I tear the computer graveyard closet apart looking for that old external USB CD burner.
11:05 AM – The installation process begins again. This time I babysit it, counting every single status bar. When my eyes start losing focus on which bar I’m watching, I use the mouse cursor to bookmark it.
11:23 AM – Oh dear god the external drive is slow. Minesweeper or Solitaire are straight out of the question, the system deserves every iota of resources available to it. I settle for moving my optical mouse around on my face and watching the cursor move on screen.
11:34 AM – I’ve passed disk 3. My anger at Valvendi subsides a little, but not much. My computer room is fully stocked and I’ve placed the bookcase against the door.
11:47 AM – Installation is complete! I take a deep breath for the coming battle with Steam, for I know from others who have survived that it will be long and terrible. I start Steam. My cable goes down. Comcast anger rating: 8 out of 10. Valvendi anger rating: 7 out of 10.
12:01 PM – I dig the 56K out of the computer graveyard, install drivers, and connect. I find that I miss the old days of hearing the modem scream before I got online. This moment of nostalgia puts me in a slightly better mood, and the Steam account registration actually goes without a hitch. I begin to hope. Poor fool.
12:23 PM – My connection drops in the middle of, if the status bar’s rate of progress is to be trusted, what appears to be a 3 day download. Verizon anger rating: 9 out of 10 (if the Verizon building suddenly became an invasion point for world dominating homicidal weasels, I would feel sorry for the families of the Verizon employees but not the Verizon employees themselves)
12:24 PM - The voicemail light is blinking. I make a mental note to check the message later, find out who is responsible for interrupting my precious downloading, and divert the living flood of weasels from Verizon to their house instead. I reconnect but use *70 this time. I don't remember if that's the correct code for turning off call waiting and consider double checking, but time is too precious to waste on such things.
12:25 PM – Steam refuses to connect. I imagine in my head a deep pit filled with employees of companies whose names start with V, into which I would be able to rain acid, razor blades, my pee, etc. etc.
12:55 PM – I manage to reconnect to Steam. I now hold myself perfectly still so that nothing may disturb the fragile connection established by the phone cord. It occurs to me that the phone cord is like an umbilicus, delivering HL2 nourishment to my computer. Then I remember how f!cking slow it is, any baby depending on an umbilicus that slow would be screwed.
1:37 PM – I’ve got status bar stare. Nothing quite seems to matter. My mouth hangs open as I wait for the next little square to appear on the screen. Time’s passage is nebulous, immaterial. The urge to defecate on everyone at Valvendi, so burning and insistent just half an hour ago, is now distant and inconsequential. I figure there are 8 little squares to go.
1:54 PM – I start to move around a little when the next to last square appears. I realize that I bought the game almost four hours ago and am still waiting to play. That gets me going again, and I sit up straight, ready to curse at the next problem.
1:57 PM – The last square appears. HL2 files have finished downloading. I begin to warm up my mouse hand. Yes, that is actually as disturbing as it sounds.
2:05 PM – CS:S files are downloading. Jesus on popsicle sticks. I wonder if crying will make me feel better, then decide to fire up my browser to check on the NBA instead. The browser instantly freezes, and moving my mouse around leaves tracers – my outdated computer is now on the verge of crashing with at least 10 little boxes to go on CS:S. Good work, dumb@ss. Myself anger rating: 8 out of 10
2:34 PM – CS:S is almost finished. I try not to get too excited about this fact. Besides, the computer will sense my excitement and that will send it over the edge, crashing it for sure. I remain calm, sneaking furitve glances at the status bar.
2:43 PM – I have finally arrived. The HL2 loading screen is being displayed.
2:46 PM – The loading screen is still up. I hold my breath and put my head down to the computer case. Yes, the hard drive is still grinding away at something.
2:47 PM – I’m at the HL2 menu. I rebind my keys and FINALLY jump into the game. After another seemingly interminable load time (the first of many to come) the opening cinematic starts and I totally forget about the last five hours of bullsh!t. I don’t even mind the audio skips that much, I’m so glad to be finally playing this game. And this game plays like the best – the last time I had this much fun was in HL1. I spent 5 minutes in the beginning of the game just breaking bottles, or throwing soda at the cops, then retreating behind the turnstile where they couldn’t get me. It was silly and a waste of time, but I had a blast doing it, Valve got that certain something right when they created this game. I'm very glad to say that this game truly was worth the trouble. If any other company tried to pull of something as audacious as Steam and requiring online registration for single player games, they would die a fast and ugly death. I don’t agree with Steam at all, I despise it, but Valvendi has something special in HL2 and unfortunately people will accept the ‘necessary’ evil of Steam because of that.
