games

half-life 2

one of the most anticipated games in a while just came out, Half-Life 2.

if you haven't bought Half-Life 2 yet, i recommend NOT getting a copy at the store, but through the STEAM service instead. grab the Silver package. you get more games than retail, Valve (the hard working developers) gets more money instead of Vivendi / Sierra (the evil, big corporation publisher), and you dont have to deal with CD checks, cd key, or file authentication that the Retail version annoys you with when you want to play (the Steam version is ready to go without headaches)

you can read about the history of Half-Life 2 here. (removed)

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people on the Steam forum were driving me nuts

i wanted to install the High Definition pack onto Half-Life (updates some sounds, some character/player models, improves the look of some guns, etc).

the installer for the HD pack checks for the old/legacy registry settings to see where Half Life is installed to, and doesnt install if you have the Steam version installed - simply because the legacy registry settings dont exist with a Steam-installed version of Half-Life.

to find a solution, i did a search on the Steam forum.

i found lots of posts where people were asking to do exactly what i was trying to do, install the HD pack into Steam. some people even made the same post over and over in different sub forums looking for an answer.

this guide link was posted a few times as a solution to the problem: http://www.jan-ripper.de/articles/steam_hd/index.html

the person who made that guide lists the problem as being Steam not liking PAK files, and gives information on how to extract PAK files.
that info is helpfull --- but thats not the issue when installing the HD pack. the issue is if the HD pack doesnt find the registry keys from a legacy install, it wont install the PAK files in the first place. how can you extract the PAK files if you cant get them out of the installer??

so I made a post on the Steam forum asking if anyone had any REAL info needed to install the HD pack. people just told me exactly what the guide says - "install the HD pack, then extract the data from the PAK files" --- i mention that CERTAIN REGISTRY KEYS ARE NEEDED before it will install.

responses i got didn't help me at all, and made it seem like people were talking about something else. how many Blue Shift CDs were released with different versions of the HD pack? is my copy the only one that checks to see if you even have the games installed?

anyway, i figured out the registry keys it was checking for, learned exactly what keys it was looking at and where, and learned how to modify them to give me different options with the HD pack's installer.

basically, if the registry values arent there, you get this when you try to install the HD pack:

and if it does find the keys its looking for, you get this screen:

i dont know what i'm missing here - why i couldnt find any real information on the Steam forum, or why the people seemed clueless. what HD pack are they using that its install is so different from my version? i'm using the install off a Blue Shift CD i purchased at K-Mart over a year ago.

i made a simple guide that tells what registry keys to add to get the HD pack to install.

Update from the jan-ripper.de site:

"With the Steam Update on August 29th, 2005, Valve released the High Definition Models on Steam for all owners of Half-Life 1.
Since then you may easily install the shiny models for Half-Life 1, Opposing Force and Blue Shift."

Install the HD models:

steam://installaddon/halflifehd

Remove the HD models:

steam://removeaddon/halflifehd

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just got Final Fantasy XI

... so far, i'm not impressed. i just got the PC version, and the controls are really bad. i'm gonna try playing with my gamepad. i might even get an adapter to use my PS2 controller on my PC.
i think i enjoyed EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call 2, and Dark Age of Camelot a lot more when i first played those. however, i might actually like FFXI when i get to know how to play it better. if i still dont like it after a month, i might go back to DAoC or try the Star Wars Galaxies online game.

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GameSpot's history of Mega Man

fan of the original NES? fan of Mega Man?

GameSpot has written a little feature called "The History of Mega Man"

you can read it HERE. (removed)

i use to like the Mega Man games... well, starting with the second at least. when i first played the first one, i didnt really "get it" (it was a rental, and i found most stages too hard to get through, and never got to practice much before returning it). when the second one came out, a friend got it, and me and him put a lot of play time into it. he then got the first one, and we put a lot of play time into that. i rented the third, he bought the 4th, rented the 5th, etc, etc. we started playing the "X" series on the SNES and PSX after that.

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things that piss me off about games

ever since video games have been coming out, the market has always been flooded with SHIT.

its piece of shit after piece of shit released. maybe the people who made the game just suck at programming. maybe they are good programmers but made a game that just isnt fun to anyone but them. maybe it was something rushed just to try to make a quick buck, and the game had all kinds of things wrong with it.

whatever it is, it just means more shit games.

but that's not my point. far from it.

the thing that pisses me most off about games is their AVAILABILITY.

you'll find Acclaim's latest piece of shit Simpsons game everywhere, or THQ's latest shitty movie-to-video game releases on every shelf, or whatever else company's piece of shit game with a horrible rating on web sites, like a 2.0 out of 10, or a 30% score, sold at every store. and these companies just pump out millions of copies of them. un-informed parents are usually the ones to grab these. gamers "with a clue" stay far from them.

but what about the good games? do companies like Square release only a limited amount of their games? do they release half as many Final Fantasies as Acclaim releases Simpson games? or do they actually release like 10 times more?

regardless, unless you grab a "good" game when its new, there is a chance that you wont be able to get it when you finally "get around" to it.

when i decided i wanted to get a certain game, lets say Suikoden II or Final Fantasy Chronicles - i find out no local store has a copy. i dig through stacks of shitty games no one wanted, hoping to find a copy left.

you could say all the good games are bought up quickly. so why doesnt the video game manufacturer make more? companies that make shit games ship millions of copies of their crap just hoping that people will buy their game. companies like Square and Konami KNOW people will buy their proven *good* games, but they dont release any more.

sometimes a game comes out again as a "Greatest Hit" title or whatever. but sometimes not. people who missed out on Final Fantasy 7, 8, or 9 can still grab one of the 17 billion copies of those currently for sale every hundred feet around the planet. Square was kind enough ship more of those. but couldnt they ship them in 10,000 units, wait for those to sell, and then make/ship more when needed?

this leaves me in a situation where i can go to the store or check online and find a million games i dont want for $19, or $9, or even $1.00. but when i go for the one game i do want, i find that its not available anywhere, or i can get it online from some asshole who wants $40, $60, $100, or even $200 for it.

i hate paying $49 or so for a new game when it comes out, and i despise the idea of paying some guy i dont know on eBay $60 or so for a game just because i didnt rush out and get it. when was Chronicles released? 2001? and already the game is off shelves?

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