poetic_power

Do you need to be online to play Halflife 2 because after installation the Steam account setup comes up when I click on "Play Halflife 2" and when I click "cancel" nothing happens? I'm not online at the moment, is there any way to bypass this?

P.S. Not sure if this is the right forum for this thread. If so, sorry for the mishap.

BeanDip0001

awe man the good news is you got a really cool game, the bad news online is required. if you've got dialup i feel really bad for you.

Nifty03

You will need a Steam account and be online to update Half Life 2 to 100%, after you have done that you can play it offline. There was a thread about this a while back where someone said..

"Like they said, you can play in "Offline Mode", but you have to have a valid Steam account. Best to install (or Start) the game when you are online, sign up for Steam (If you haven’t all ready) then wait for all of the downloads (there will be a bunch). Then I had to play through the first couple of save points in the game before it would actually play offline. Took me about two hours, but I’m on dial-up still. If you right click in the Steam list of games it will tell you if it is ready to be played in offline mode."

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ight=half+life

Centurion

This was really confusing for a lot of people including myself. In my case it was because I have never had to deal with something like this before. However, the game CAN be played without being logged-in to the internet.

With the game, there is a small card (about postcard size). On this there is a description of what you need to do to get the game playable offline. One of the things you need to be sure to do is place a check-mark in a box for something I forgot. Read that card and you'll be fine.

The worst part is, if you're on dial-up you have to sit for a long time letting the game download the newest updates, get your copy registered, etc. Just let this do it's thing and you'll be all set. You'll have to do this only once (thank goodness) and the game will be "unlocked" so to speak.

Enjoy it. It's an awesome game.

Terrell

Great game, but pretty damn sad you have to sign up for the Steam crap before you can play it.

Spicollidriver1

might want to take this to afriend with broadband and install it there

Ketamine

I don't see what the big deal is. It is just part of the requirements to play this game just like you need x amount of processor speed, X amount of RAM, etc. You don't have an internet connection, then you don't meet the minimum requirements and thus you can't play this game.

Steam has a number of benefits with the most important being automatic updates, patches, etc. It also cuts out the middle man and sends the money to the game makers and not some 3rd party. I see no real downside to it in this day and age.

Nifty03

Another cool thing if you have another computer somewhere, work or a vacation home or something, is that once you install Steam on the second computer it will download and install any game that you have registered so you don't need to carry the CD/DVD's with you.

Joe Molotov

After I formatted my computer, I couldn't find my HL2 DVD, so I just used Steam to download and reinstall it. Despite those inital problems during the release of HL2, I think Steam has turned out to be a pretty good idea.