It's kind of funny. I picked up the original Half-Life 2 when it got low enough, simply because I liked the game enough to consider it worth the money and the play. A damn sight more than I liked the original, certainly. And it came with a couple of other games. Counterstrike: Source being the big one for most people. But as they were multiplayer games, I paid them no attention whatsoever. Multiplayer shooters have never been my thing - a combination of lack of skill, lack of dedication, general irritation with the sort of assholes that tend to clog multiplayer gaming, that sort of thing. I did try Unreal Tournament online once or twice, but after being comprehensively owned, I stuck to the bots. Of course, as highly rated as Counterstrike is among multiplayer shooter aficionados, it could not be better designed to turn me away. "Realistic" damage where you die almost instantly if people actually hit you. Obsessively detailed but only slightly different guns. No respawning. And an infamously hardcore playerbase.
Fast forward to me bitching about the Orange Box being $50. I was certain I only really cared about Half-Life 2 Episode 2. Portal was sort of neat conceptually, but I'd played Narbacular Drop and hadn't particularly cared for it, so I had trouble imagining even Valve polish turning that into something I really wanted to pay money for. And as excited as a lot of people were about Team Fortress 2, for me it was just another multiplayer shooter. But then Black Friday came and Best Buy had the Orange Box for $25. Well, at that price...kinda had to pick it up.
And what's my highest played time now, according to Steam? Team Fortress 2. It was partially those wonderful class intro videos Valve put together. It was partly screenshots of the lovely, stylish art. It was partly the concept of vastly differentiated classes working together as a team. Combine all of those things, and plenty of gushing from people, some of them as terribly unskilled as I am, and I decided I'd give it a go after all. And...damn. It's really fun. I'm predictably bad at it, but in a team objective-based game, I can still provide a certain amount of value to my team and I do seem to be getting at least a little better. And the style is just so awesome. I love that when you get gibbed, your death screen helpfully identifies the bits. I love the automatic medic thanks. I love the clearly identifiable characters and the hilariously outsized weapons. I just love the whole darn thing.
Portal's pretty awesome too, but I'd actually already finished it prior to my purchase. Don't ask.
Fast forward to me bitching about the Orange Box being $50. I was certain I only really cared about Half-Life 2 Episode 2. Portal was sort of neat conceptually, but I'd played Narbacular Drop and hadn't particularly cared for it, so I had trouble imagining even Valve polish turning that into something I really wanted to pay money for. And as excited as a lot of people were about Team Fortress 2, for me it was just another multiplayer shooter. But then Black Friday came and Best Buy had the Orange Box for $25. Well, at that price...kinda had to pick it up.
And what's my highest played time now, according to Steam? Team Fortress 2. It was partially those wonderful class intro videos Valve put together. It was partly screenshots of the lovely, stylish art. It was partly the concept of vastly differentiated classes working together as a team. Combine all of those things, and plenty of gushing from people, some of them as terribly unskilled as I am, and I decided I'd give it a go after all. And...damn. It's really fun. I'm predictably bad at it, but in a team objective-based game, I can still provide a certain amount of value to my team and I do seem to be getting at least a little better. And the style is just so awesome. I love that when you get gibbed, your death screen helpfully identifies the bits. I love the automatic medic thanks. I love the clearly identifiable characters and the hilariously outsized weapons. I just love the whole darn thing.
Portal's pretty awesome too, but I'd actually already finished it prior to my purchase. Don't ask.