Okay, I’m now well into Half-Life 2. It baffles me how PCGamer US could have given it the unbalanced rating of %98. Don’t get me wrong: the game is good. It’s very involving, with great character animations and detail. However, its not that good. The rating should have been circa %93. With the problems caused by STEAM however, maybe a %86 rating [what good is a game you cannot play].
But on that point, here’s some more Valve RantingTM. I was checking up how much Valve charges Cyber-Cafes… It’s $10/PC a month, with a 10PC minimum. Essentially, $120 a year per PC, or $1,200 a year for 10. Compare this with every other game, which is a one-time fee of $50 per PC. Get the picture? Valve is implementing all these really bad tactics that do one thing: give them more money at the expense of their fans. PCG doesn’t help much either by supporting them via their artificially high ratings to any hyped graphically-gifted game that moves.
Another Valve Ranting: STEAM updates. Takes quite a while for it to update anything on my Cable connection. Can you imagine having a *gasp* 56k? Way to think about your users Valve. And another thing: If I ever want to sell this game in the future, I will not be able to. Why? Because the CD Key can only be used once, and is attached to your account with STEAM. It cannot be transferred. So unless you’re ready to give your account details to someone else (which uses your email address as the user login), its impossible. I really, really, really, dislike Valve.