anyone need a copy of HAlf-Life 2?

so, i picked up a copy of the game of the year edition seeing as it had a remake of the original using the new engine, and i'd never played the original. the thing cost 35 quid, but i felt what the heck, that works out to only 18 per game, really.

well, i'd opened it up to read the manual (which is appearantly on the CD, darn it!) and i haven't even installed the thing yet, and now i find out that in a month's time, Half-Life 2 Platinum will be out, including everything on this Game of the Year edition PLUS the expansion pack PLUS some more junk, all for 39 quid.

having opened the packaging on the copy i bought, i'm now unable to return it. getting a copy of the expansion pack on its own will be almost another 30 quid, so i'm almost better off buying the platinum edition anyway, and getting a couple of other remake freebies.

now, i could offset the cost of getting that platinum edition a bit by taking my copy down to a second hand shop, but i'm only likely to get a few quid for it. thus, i thought i'd be a bit of a wanker and spam the boards to see if anyone wants to take this off my hands at a reasonable price? failing that, if i DO go and buy the platinum edition anyway, then maybe i'll just offer it up as a trivia contest prize or something.

I would if I didn't already have it. You can't usually buy the game second hand because it's useless to anyone else once you've played it (which you haven't I know), you have to register your copy with a special code unique to your cd and email address and Steam account - so they're normally unusable for anyone else. It might be difficult to sell it to a shop because they know this too.

romano may take it off my hands, but thanks for pointing out the Steam account thing, Mal. I was hoping that wasn't completely necessary to sign up for just to play the single player thing :-x ah well.

i've been inventorying my game collection over the past few nights. i'm up to over 300 titles now, and i've got well over a thousand older ones archived but uncataloged...

it's not like i'll actually get around to playing half-life any time soon, no matter what edition/copy i eventually install.

[quote:1197a99bbc="Garner"]romano may take it off my hands, but thanks for pointing out the Steam account thing, Mal. I was hoping that wasn't completely necessary to sign up for just to play the single player thing :-x ah well.
[/quote:1197a99bbc]Yeah, it's the first game to do things this way. It installs the entire thing on your computer so you never use the CD again once it's on there and the files get updates via the Steam account. It's a bit annoying really if you only want to play single player, and totally useless if you don't have an internet connection - though I guess they figure most people buy it for the associated internet games anyway.

It is a good single player game, great atmosphere I think. I'll probably play it again all the way through.

now, correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't steam also used to just buy entire games online? buy direct and download the software?

i suppose that has potential... but like mp3s and things, i prefer having hard copies to hold in my hand. i'm still saddened that it's so rare to find a manual that's more than 10 pages long these days... ah well.

Me too... It makes so much more sense, especially if the manual holds not only technical details, but also game related stuff like a who-is-who, or, say, a compendium of spells, to have a book lying next to your screen you can check in while playing the game, instead of a data file you have to open, and interrupt your game for it.
And printing it all out before you start playing? Silly.

but cheaper for the companies. i've shelled out extra for 'special editions' just to get decent manuals before

[quote:d68fe9a2ff="Garner"]now, correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't steam also used to just buy entire games online? buy direct and download the software?

i suppose that has potential... but like mp3s and things, i prefer having hard copies to hold in my hand. i'm still saddened that it's so rare to find a manual that's more than 10 pages long these days... ah well.[/quote:d68fe9a2ff]I haven't really looked at it for a while so I'm not sure, but Steam used to be just a sort of online engine that runs all the Half Life related games and updates them everytime you switch it on, the game or Steam that is. It can be a bit irritating when you don't even want to play on the internet but it makes you wait till it's downloaded the latest files before you can even get onto the single player game.

I also prefer to have proper CDs and manuals. I recently had to buy a web design program called Dreamweaver that was £400, which you can download or have them ship you the CD in a box - so obviously I went for the box, I'm not paying 400 quid for some zeros and ones coming to me via email.

Anyway I was quite surprised that the box also contained a proper manual, a real book with a couple of hundred pages!

P.S. There's even talk of computers in the future that have no software on them at all, so all you get is a monitor and keyboard and the hardware and software resides on a dedicated server in a warehouse somewhere - all for a monthly fee. Never need to upgrade anything as they do it all for you. Sounds aweful to me.

and a good way to keep you shelling out cash, too :-x

... world of warcraft is an online game though. online only. it's rather a case of apples and oranges, man.