So you think you hate Steam?

I mentioned in another thread that I had picked up the Season Pass for Bioshock Infinite. No spoilers, so suffice it to say the end of the second part does a great job of tying Infinite back to the original game. After finishing these two short add ons, I decided to again play the original. It's been about 7 years since I played it.

I went to my games folder and fired it up, and it ran - a good sign. Went into graphics options and set 1440P with no issue. All good so far. Started a game - no sound. Hmm, exited and went back in, still no sound. Rebooted - STILL no sound. So I looked at the version, and I was at 1.0, I decided to do an update. I downloaded the newest patch and started to install, only to have it lock hard on me. Fired up task manager and killed the update.

I went to the game folder and saw the tell-tale BioShock.hld file, which is how I back up an .EXE that was cracked. I should have known by now there was trouble. I restored the .exe and patched the game, no trouble this time. Double clicked on it, and it asked for my key. I sighed, and thanked the Steam gods that that crap was over. I searched through my old CD cases and found the Bioshock case, kewl, I was in business. Except it wouldn't take my key. I tried 30 different ways with upper, lower, 1li O0, all that garbage. No luck. So I called the support number, which astoundingly still worked. I waited on hold for a half-hour, then the person from India questioned me, and gave me an unlock code.

FINALLY I can play. Double click and I get "wrong CD entered." I had already dug out the box, so I put in the CD and it tried to install the game. I stopped the install, and remembered why I downloaded a NO-CD patch back in the day. Then the game refused to read the CD, so yet another reboot. Finally, the game loads, and no sound...

So I search the forums and find out that the Reverb, which is on by default, is hosed, Disabled it, and the game finally runs.

This kind of nonsense USED to be the norm, we all had to fight all kinds of games and predatory DRM just to play. Steam has made this garbage a thing of the bitter past.

I love Steam.

GOG is the absolute best for this. Steam still has some issues getting things to run, particularly older games (a friend of mine bought Tron 2.0 the other day and hasn't been able to get it to work, for instance), because Valve just kind of throws the game out there and then doesn't really support it. The GOG guys go to great pains to make sure everything runs well.

::edit::
Not that I don't agree that even with Steam things are a lot better now than they used to be.

I had similar issues with GR:AW back in the days.... needless to say I love it when I don't have to search for the CD/DVD case to get the game serial #'s anymore!!

When I look back, I remember that this was so common. The nonsense of codes and CD's just about killed PC gaming. I credit Steam with getting rid of this, but GOG and other sites are also involved.

My only issue is weird inconsistencies in games. For example, SF IV works great on my machine, on my HTPC it refuses to recognize my Xbox 360 controllers.

Other than that, I've been happy with Steam and GOG.