Customer Reviews

Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

This review is for the collectors edition only (the actual game is awesome).

The collector's edition - quite frankly - is a rip-off!

To make sure you understand what you are getting:
1) Half Life 2 - The game
2) Half Life 1 Remake using the new Source Engine
3) Counter Strike Remake using the new Source Engine
4) Prima Official Hint Book
5) A T-Shirt

The game itself is awesome, no questions asked. The remake of Half Life 1 is cool too, but you can download that for free when you buy the regular version of Half Life 2. The same is true for CS. So basically, you get a t-shirt (which is actually a nice shirt) and the prima thingy.

The Prima book IS NOT THE STRATEGY GUIDE! Instead, it is a tiny booklet with excerps from the strategy guide and the "making of" book ("Raising the bar"). It is an advertisement for these two books at best and by itself almost completely useless.

So basically, you are paying an extra 30 bucks for a t-shirt. Oh, but perhaps you want the nice big box? Think again! The box itself is crappy both in quality and in design. In fact, at first I thought the box got damaged and mangled during shipment, but it didn't. It just looks that bad!

This is probalby the worst collector's edition of any game I have ever seen. It delivers little value, unless you want a t-shirt. It doesn't even have a printed game manual for crying out loud!

This discusses the Collectors Edition of Half Life 2. If you would like to hear about how great the game is, venture to the regular boxed game, but I am going to discuss the SLOPPY PACKAGE that Vivendi Universal calls a "COLLECTORS EDITION."

First, I would like you to know, I recieved this on the day of the Half Life 2 release, 11/16/2004. Kudos to amazon.com, they are a great company. However, I would like you to know, that another Half Life 2 "collectors edition" (aka Half Life 2 Gold) can be purchased over steam (go to www.steampowered.com and download the client), for a mere 9 dollars more, and you get over 4 times the extras than this puny package.

This sad package comes with a DVD and a t-shirt

now tell me, what is the price of this? for a DVD with Half Life 2 on it, and a t-shirt, with the half life 2 logo. whats more rich is that once you install the game, you have to still unlock it via steam, and if the steam network is down, then good luck trying to play it right away.

the steam gold package comes with stickers, posters, a hat, a strategy guide, a shirt, the soundtrack on cd, the entire catalog of games played on steam (including half life 1, counter strike, opposing force), and a special edition box.

Make no mistake, this collectors edition is a complete rip off, buyer beware.

For those of you who are unaware, Steam offers Half-Life 2 on sale through their web site. I decided not to purchase and download from Steam because I wanted the box, DVD and manual. The book that comes with it is totally worthless. It contains strategy on a few levels and a few pieces of artwork. I wouldn't be sad if I lost mine or threw it in the trash. The shirt is XL size only. I can't wear mine because it would hang below my knees. There is no manual, only a small piece of paper that shows the controls. What I'm trying to tell you is the Collector's Edition isn't anything special. The only thing worthwhile about it is the Half-Life Source. If you're looking to get something similar to the collector's edition, puchase the Silver Package off of Steams website. For the same price as the Collectors edition you can get the Silver package. Not only does this come with Half-Life Source, it also includes Day of Defeat Source, Counter-Strike Source, Counter-Strike Condition Zero, and Steam's entire catalog of Half-Life games. Trust me, the oversized t-shirt and worthless manual are not worth purchasing the collector's edition for.

I paid 79.99 for the collectors to not be able to play it at all
because of the activation/bandwidth problems stream has been
having.

Avoid the nightmare: buy doom 3 instead and play right away, or
better yet...these bozos deserved to get their code stolen...

I bought this collector's edition because I didn't see any information on how to get Half-Life: Source...I didn't realize that they'd offer you both it and Counter-Strike: Source for free when you register any version of the Half-Life 2 game. So...if you're buying it for that, don't bother. If you think you're getting a strategy guide, that's not entirely the truth, either. I was hoping to see the Prima trade paperback inside, but what you get instead is a pocket-sized book of excerpts from the guide and what looks like bits from the book "Raising the Bar", a hardcover about the making of Half-Life 2.

The free T-shirt is just the logo, and it's only available in a men's XL.

That said, here's the rest of the story: Half-Life 2 is an absolutely wonderful game. I cannot begin to describe how awesome it is: fun, scary, and real. Where the original game was frightening because the story was fast-paced and intense, and a lot of moments startled you, HL2 is more suspenseful and nerve-wracking because you feel more immersed in it. In any other game, running from the police in a city in broad daylight wouldn't do much for me, but here I feel frantic.

Despite the disappointments in the packaging, I'm still kind of glad I bought the collector's edition, for the "just because" factor. Call it a "special occasion" purchase. Half-Life: Source is a huge improvement over the original game, but if you have the "High-Definition Pack" that came free with Blue Shift, it's not much different from that: don't expect it to look at all like HL2.

One last thing: don't worry about Steam. It's not malware, it doesn't appear to be very intrusive, and I'm actually enjoying all the free goodies they offer me. Think of it less like having to activate Windows XP, and more like having a direct pipeline to the development team.

I have no idea how the game is because I bought it from an Amazon marketplace seller and now the "Steam" anti-piracy protection system won't let me play it.

I went to the Steam support pages like I was told to, and I read this:

"... you must have a copy of your purchase receipt from within the last 90 days to have the CD Key moved to your account.

"We do not accept receipts from online auction websites or used software vendors. If you do not provide a purchase receipt, Valve will not be able to transfer the CD Key."


I can't believe that anyone accepts this as a reasonable way to sell consumers a game in a box, but I guess they do!

I read a thread on some Half-Life 2 forum where the users were telling a guy not to bother Valve, the software creators, with questions about their policy, but rather just to return his used game to whoever he bought it from.

Unbelievable!

From what I hear, maybe if I send the right person at Valve an actual photo of my box, and wait two months, I might be allowed to play. However, that's certainly not what the text on the Steam support page says.

If this is really the accepted practice regarding used copies of Half-Life 2, then what is Amazon doing letting their marketplace sellers sell these used copies?

Unbelievable! How much research is one supposed to do when buying a game?

This is not a GAME review. I want to specifically comment on this EDITION of the game, which is a horrible let down. "I bought the collector's edition of the game and all I got was a lousy t-shirt" comes to mind... In fact, if that's what was on the t-shirt, it'd be an improvement. There is nothing worth the extra cash in this huge box. Compared to the amazing contents of the World of Warcraft collector's edition, which includes soundtrack, DVD, stunning full-size hardbound art book, etc., this is simply appalling. Do yourself a favor and buy the regular edition of the game (but if you buy WoW, get the collector's edition)!

The game itself was great. But the AntiPiracy Program "Steam" is a Steaming Pile. First off the Install takes forever.
Say you pop in your disc to play your single player game, Well if Steam wants to update your halflife copy. Well you'll just have to wait to play your game, Steam has some updating to do.
One time I popped in my disc, half hour later the splash screen has no link for single player... what is this. I don't want to play online. I just want to play my game. This is so Frustrating.
Because of a few people pirating games, us paying customers have to suffer. I would pay twice as much for a game to Never have to go through anything like Steam ever again.

What a rip off, you'd be better off getting the Gold Edition from Steam. This set isn't worth a dime, except the game.

With GOLD from STEAM, you'd get these:
? Half-Life 2
? Counter-Strike:Source
? Half-Life 1: Source
? Day of Defeat: Source*
? Valve's back catalog available (listed here).
HL2 Merchandise:
? HL2 posters (3 total)
? HL2 hat
? HL2 soundtrack
? HL2 sticker
? City 17 postcard
? Prima's HL2 strat guide
? Special collector's box
? Chance to win trip to Valve!

Now compare that with what you're getting with this Collector's Ed.

To play this game you have to be connected to "STEAM' with a persistant internet connection. Why! Obviously it is a veiled attempt to spy on my play or perhaps even extract personal information off my computer. I see no other value. All I wanted was a game to play when I want, in the privacy of my home. I can accept going online to verify that I purchased the game legally, but that is the limit of intrusion I will allow. If you don't mind Big Brother watching you, buy the game. Otherwise, you don't need this kind of gameplay.