Love it.

Finally gave in the to urge. Yup, bought The Orange Box from Valve for 44.95 dollars (or roughly RM 161.82 assuming a 3.6 exchange rate).

You see, yours truly, despite self-claiming to have a gaming hobby, has never played Half-Life 2 yet. But as you see, putting off playing it for so long has its merits. Not only is the game already much cheaper, but so are its expansion packs and mods. The Orange Box has the following:

1. Half-Life 2
2. HL2: Lost Coast Expansion
3. HL2: Episode 1
4. HL2: Episode 2 (to be released)
5. Portal (to be released)
6. Team Fortress 2 (beta?)

Now to be frank, I’m no multi-player freak. I’d take a long, immersing single-player game over any multi-player game, any day. So for me, The Orange Box is really all about Half-Life 2 and its expansions. The good news is, that’s all I’m paying for anyway. Yup, buying just Half-Life 2, Lost Coast, Episode 1 and Episode 2 would’ve cost me 44.95 dollars anyway. So I figured, what the heck, Team Fortress 2 is generating such a buzz I might as well get my feet wet in multi-player gaming now. Besides, I’m almost sure I want to play Episode 2 anyway. OK, that was my feeble attempt at justifying having spent money on a bunch of games

Not that I have anything against multi-player gaming, it’s just that broadband wasn’t as widely available when I was younger nor was original (read: non-pirated) games. Glad to say with broadband and the emergence of e-commerce (got mine off Steam), it’s easier to get original games nowadays. And with publishers giving great discounts for older games, I find that’s its less enticing to buy pirated stuff. Besides, paying for software gives a cozy feeling that I’m helping pay another geek’s salary some where else in the globe.

Now, comes the part I hate most. Waiting for 5 gigs worth of files to be downloaded. Urgh…