First, there was the leaked codes.
Then, of course, there was the fine tuning of the game so that it was beyond ready for release. This lead to delay after delay after delay.
Now, the day has arrived. The internet flooded last night with people trying harder than hard to get the downloadable version of Half Life II from the Steam network. Good idea I suppose...and all in the name of anti piracy. Good enoigh crusade at that. Needles sto say that there are already cracked and ready versions on some of the uber leet bittorent sites.
I was in game the other day talking about the inpending Half Life II maddness when I friend told me that it was already available at Best Buy. Of course, I though tthis impossible. But, it was apparently true. True in the fact that you could buy the disks, but had to wait to validate it when the servers go up at midnight last night.
Interesting.
As we speak, my roomate is huddled in his room playing it right now. He got up and picked it up while I was at work. It is usually best not to interrupt him during the new game experience. His girlfriend is already convinced that she isn't going to get laid for days, and to that I would have to sadly agree with. And I know many others in that situation.
Is it worth it?
Probably. I decided to buy the expansion pack to FFXI: Chains of Promethia instead. Hype that the level that Half Life II has obtained always leads to disappointment. Halo II was kind of like that. I wasn't a fan of the first one, and I will admit that the new one has enough to give it nominal playable value, but as a renter.
I will wait until it is possible to sneak into the HL II cabal, after the hype. I can only image what the Steam service servers are still going through and the next couple of weeks of heavy network usage as HL II finally comes home.
Let me know what you think, would you?