Well, The taggification process that has been happening all over the GSverse has got me taggified,Bulletsword and TheIndianChild being the culprits. Now I have to Spit out some 5 things about me. so let me take this as an opportunity to tell some embarrasing old facts about me and also shamelessly brag and promote about things I have been doing, oooh yeah! Get ready!

1. Childhood

When I was a small Kid, I was nothing like how I am today,I was VERY thin/skinny whatever you like to call it and I never used to like studying,Used to be 12th among 20 people in CIass and always used to run outside and play. I and my bro along with all the kids in the neighbourhood would play things like war games and others ,where we took shaped sticks as Guns and Hid in abandoned Aluminum Sheds to take cover and shoot others, this was like when I was around 5 years old and my bro 9. Other things were like roaming around in the neighbourHood and playing Goty-Billa's (no, nothing to do with Game of the Year ) Its a game with marbles where we have to try and shoot others Marbles with ours so as to make them fall inside a dug hole on the ground (we used to have non-permanet roads everywhere) I think other Indians here would easily understand what I am talking about

Other than I and my Bro used to Collect Stickers a LOT, and there was this sticker game where all used to throw their stickers in air and the one whose sticker landed on the picture side would get everyone else's sticker and everyone used to be so seriously involved in this game that,one used to select proper stickers with right size and weigth by observing the wind and everything and there were some"legendary stickers" that we used to hunt for and challenge man, those were really fun days, roaming around in the block and challenging other sticker playing kids for their stickers. and this was when I was around 8.

Oh yeah, I used to play Cricket also, and I was the "No Runs but hit boundaries" kinda guy who used to not run at all and only see for boundaries I Can say I played pretty well too

Hah, If I wanted I can keep going on with my childhood filled things for the Whole blog Now onto the other things.

2. Academics

Till Third grade, my schools were very far away from home and I remember that I used to cry always on the first day of school in every new school And in my new school in Second Grade, the campus was very big, I don't remember actually what happened, but I kept searching for my CIass,found it and sat there in the last bench all sad and everything. Soon attendance time came but my name was not there in the attendance list.So the teacher asked me, who I was. I said I was the new kid, and after a bit of asking the clerk and everything they realized that I was in the WRONG CIass Soon the clerk took me to the right CIass room and I was greeted nicely like all 2nd grade people are greeted, by making me stand and all singing some "welcome" song No wonder the people in the other CIass looked to grown up and formal type, they were 3rd grade or something.

After I turned 9 years old, there was some kind of transformation in me, I turned from being the run-around-&-play-but-not-good-at-studies kind of kid to Sit-and-play-at-home-learn-new-things-and-be-VERY-good-at-studies kinda kid. I still remember the first time this thing happened.

When I came to HYD , I joined the school late(being the transfer student). I took notes from my soon to be CIass ates beforehand (the CIass teacher gives the notes when a new student comes, by taking them from the good students, that's how it works here in India ) Then on the first day came to CIass there was a Oral test on the Q&As from one chapter(White washing of Tom Sawyer ). The teacher asked me a question and I was able to answer it correctly, not only that, but also all the other questions too Everyone was shocked and wondered if I was from another school in the same area.

After that till my 10th grade it has always been either CIass 1st or 2nd for me. Getting 100% in maths and very good in almost everything else too Even though I used to not read a lot, I kinda got good scores.Usually, what the teachers used to teach in CIass would get stuck in my head and hence I was able to do things with less preparations.

And I absolutely don't like By-hearting(AKA Battifying/Ratt-na) Also I don't like doing reverse engg. In MCQs and finding the answers without knowing actually whats happening. Because of that stupid habit of mine, I am very good at Descriptive type papers and not so good at MCQs

Oh yeah, and I don't like Coaching/Tuition Centers AT ALL. I feel like they are factories and they give some standard things to students and they are made into brainless zombies.

As for non studies thing, I've been getting 1st/2nd in all essay writing and elocution competitions since I was 9 (English and Hindi ) now don't be thinking all the other kids were dumb or something some of my CIass mates are in top level colleges in State/India now :O (even me ofcourse )

Hmm. Now aboot computers

3.Computers

You might be surprised to know that in some of my friend circles, I am known as a "computer guy" and they don't even know that I like games Almost everyday I get a call or two from close/distant friends and help them with their computer problems.I've already mentioned in my old blogs about the things I did with computer and all those things

As for computer related things I know.. here is a small list.

LOGO - Was pretty good at it, learnt it when I was 9 years old.
BASIC - Learnt it when I was 10 years old, but didn't exactly "master" it.
HTML and FLASH - Learnt it on my own reading books and stuff when I was 12-13 years old. Made some funky websites and animation back then

After all that my 9th CIass came from when I went more studies oriented type so didn't learn anything new on my own till I was 17! After that I started learning more of such things rather than exploring OS possibilities(which I did in those gaps). I can say I am pretty good at all of these

C,C++ and of course PS I think almost everyone at present is kinda good at PhotoEditing

Presently learning Java and ASM programming, loving em both! But Have more fun during ASM programming, for some strange reason, the fact that I am talking in a language that is more easily understood by computer than the rest, makes me really TALK more to it, lol.

Yeah I am crazy like that, talking to my computer and calling it names and stuff

Oh yeah and I am also on my Path to become a Oracle Certified Professional, Recently finished my 1st exam,82% woot!

Also did some batch programmin on Windows, made some shutdown timers, auto close softwares for media players and other things that make my life easier. Also assigned them to my customisable MM Keyboard and everything is done at the touch of a button

Oh yeah and I love reading about Computer hardware and how things work, a LOT. Its very interesting to see how all of it was made, trying to emulate how exactly human body works, its almost like they always had biologists guiding them when the advanced computers were made.

Theres more to tell, but I think that's enough for some bragging

4.No Replay

I've never replayed a game after completing it (ofcourse,after the SNES era, SMB etc, were always replayable), when I first play a game, I play it at a slow pace , enjoying everything that the game has to offer. And most of the times when I complete it, its very near to 100%.

If its not 100% then 90% of the times its because the extra things are tedious tasks that feel more like a chore than enjoyment. GTA being the best example with those Rampages and stuff, I mean, doing 1 -5 is fun, but all 25? It feels more like a chore to just get that silly "100%" in the completion stat. Also if we leave it like that, somefine day when I am in the mood to play GTA, I will have those Rampages to kill time with. Hence leaving them like that is good

5.The Internet

Internet first started commercially for home use at around 1999 or something, and just when it first started in our state, We took internet for our home. I remember the first websites I went were "Cartoonnetwork.com" and "Games.com" I also found "Gamespotter.com" I don't know how... after that I came across Gamespot.com. And since then I can say, I've been coming to GS regularly.

At first the internet was 33.6K dialup and all so doing internet was rather tiresome, so it was like, once in a week or so I visited GS, and also we had to use less of the internet as it costed not only the telephone bill but also those internet charges AND the line would be engaged if we used internet. Hence we used to go online very less.

Then we got a dedicated line setup just for the internet (@ 1 Rupee) and started using internet regularly (and me coming to GS regularly started from then). And thus ~ HALF of my life I've been coming to GS and in that Half you can say, the second half I started coming to GS Daily, even when I was on vacations , in some other country

I don't know what or why, but GS has been a very integral part of my life, and its where I learnt many things and had lots and lots of fun. Even after the whole JeffG issue and most people leaving the place, for some reason something is holding me here, I think its all the great friends that I've made here. Knowing all of you and talking has been a great pleasure!

Along with one of my Friends (SM2099) last year, we did a podcast thing for E3 , just trying out if we could sit and talk about games and not get bored, and we talked alright! For >3 hours! Lol.. we had to make the podcast in three parts and our podcast was selected by the good people at Videogamesblogger.com you can see it HERE or HERE

And recently we thought maybe we could make a blog somewhere and talk nonsense just like that, so that whatever new things we learn , others can also know its not something we are trying to make money or something like that(hence no ads) we are just trying to show our perspective to others.

And mostly because I have this blog of mine RESERVED as my special journal, that would be the place where I rant but no worries, people from Artist's café, I will still be a regular there

-------

Yup, I think that's all for self embarrassment and Shameless bragging/promoting from me So becareful people, next time you "Tag" me or try to do something funny, you are going to get Overdosed

Ah, and how can I keep quite and not "Tag" some other... so.. who shall it be?

I choose.

U1, neerajkumar_4 , yian , Bozanimal , and mnbskydoll

And since I wrote this long blog and also since 2 peopletagged me.. as extra bonuses

kenshinhimura16. thalesa7x1 PeldonPeldon

ProtegeRuckus I tag you!! Ooh yeah, you said you wont be blogging, but wait, what are you gonna do now?! Hehe (I hope you are still there )

Also AbuSharkas8 , where have you been man, hope this taggification brings you back!

Oh yeah, that's all for now, I would have written a lot more, like things about me being a Underground GS score betting Champeen, Music,anime, movies, and all, but lets leave that for some other virus infestation.. maybe...

"The GS Tag 2: Sequel to the chain that snapped em all"

Welcome once again everyone, to another entry of my continuing journal where I talk about the games that I have played in the past. Last time, I had a look back at the games for the PSone that I liked a lot. In this entry I will show you guys all those not so great games that I bought. Also, being the kid I was, I bought a lot of those franchise oriented games, which I regret buying even now. But with every such mistake I learnt a new lesson! I will talk about all those mistakes and lessons in this entry In addition to those, I will introduce you to the game that I think that was by far one of the worst games I ever played. So let's begin!

*Lesson 1: New Dimesion + old games = Bad result

Being a huge contra fan during the Nes days, I wanted to try out how they looked in 3D and bought C: the Contra Adventure for PSone, and well, it was nothing like those uber cool NES games where you had great levels, awesome music and good 'ol S gun.This was no where near fun, and what was this with the 3D thing? I mean the back view 3D gameplay was plain bad!

Lesson learnt: Games that were "super cool" in previous generation need not be as cool as they were when they are brought into the new generation with CHANGES. This theory is highly supported by another game... "First person BOMBER" anyone?

*Lesson 2: Digimons don't always do the same thing.

Next on list were many other games based on digimon.After playing Digimon Digital Card battle and having 100s of hours of fun, I started thinking every other digimon game was that cool too. And bought Digimon world 2 and Digimon Rumble arena games, both I played for some time and left off... they were nothing like card battle and were a bit boring. The rumble arena game was in theory pretty cool, we could evolve during the game, stages had some effect, but after playing it for a while realised it was TOTALLY a dud.There are so many things that active imagination can do to you, I thought of something really cool, but this was not all that great. So after a few sessions, I said bye bye to the game.

Lesson Learnt: Games based on the same franchise need not be of the same quality, they can be of different genres and hence not as good as the one that you liked. For Ex. You have Mario and then Mario's Pyjama party.

*Lesson 3: Lemon&&Orange = Citrus, but taste different.

After playing some really nice platformer games, I wanted to play more of those kinds, and Croc2 caught my attention, I saw that croc going around and saying all those "pshukao" and other sound effects as it hit others and was like "Wooow awesome, I want to play it!" and then soon, got the game. I liked the the gibberish talking thing in the game, but after that , the game's controls and camera made me have a not-so-good experience with it. The character moved VERY slowly, and because of the not so responsive controls and bad camera controls it was hard to complete some quests (like that boating thing in the first level).I tried my best to "enjoy" the game, but after a few hours of playing it, I finally gave up and shelved the game.

Lesson Learnt: Every game of the genre you like will not be as good as the games you like from that genre.There is Monster Truck Madness and then there's Big Rigs.

*Lesson 4: Beware of Franchises!

Psone really taught me that franchise (movie/cartoon etc) oriented games should not be bought unless you really really want em.... But most of the times, since I was a kid back then, I "really really" wanted the game if it had the name of the cartoon I like(d).Hence started the ever-growing list of such games in my Psone collection, most of the times I had no clue what the game was , I used to just see the title then go "OMG Captain Wonderpants!!" and get the game, then while playing, realise its some game about Captain WonderPants Ironing his ThunderPants

A good example that really happened with me was with a Rugrats game, with RUGRATS written all over it with huge letters.The game happened to be something about angelica doing girly things like shopping and stuff. I still wonder how did I ever buy that game (oh yeah, I forgot, I "really really wanted it" as it was based on a cartoon I liked back then) I played 3-4 floors of that game and then it seemed like every game was just repeating with random characters for all the minigames . so just left it after that(played 2-3 hours of it nevertheless )

More Franchise Oriented games would be games like Toystory Racer, Looney Toons Racing, and other such racers, all were the same, very much like Mario kart (which I hadn't play back then) they all had some extra modes with collecting things and timed tasks,I did have some fun with those, because of them saying their punch lines and all, but no matter what, after playing these games for some time the fun drains out, there were only a few good levels, it was not that challenging and for LTR the load times were long.

There were a lot of disney games too, games like Disney's Dinosaur, PeterPan, the LAND before time (OMG this game was ________) all were NOTHING like the movies and were pretty boring too.Then there was a Scooby Doo game, and I thought "This can't be bad!" because I played the Scooby Doo game for SNES which was pretty awesome, had graphics as good as the cartoon itself and was pretty interesting too (finding the ghost, laying a trap and then unmasking him! ). BUT, this game was NOTHING like that, it was a 2D-back-view-run-a-thon. Just saw some of the cinematic, played a few levels, and then SHELVED!

I was (and AM) a big fan of the Jungle book movies and show, and I Love the "bear necessities "song and hence I also own...."Jungle Book Rhythm n'Groove" although I didn't (and don't) own a dancepad I bought the game ( I realised afterwards it was THAT type of game, lol).Since the movies' songs were really nice and the difficulty was EASY, I just went through the whole game one song after the other and it was like revisiting that movie again.The songs were great, the dances were not and it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be

And a few new games like SHREK's Treasure hunt and Harry Potter games also I bought, all again making me wonder why I even bought them.

Lesson Learnt : Keep away from these things even you "really really" want them... only buy them.. if you "Really really really REALLLYYYY" want them.Its so clear now, why they still make games like Open season and others , people like my old self will definitely make their parents buy them (and there are going to be a LOT of kids like that) I wonder how many will buy LOST game with blind affection, it's not just the kids afteral.

*All Franchise games are not Bad

BUT, there were quite a few games that I bought, which were based on something that already existed as a cartoon, movie or some in some other media, and enjoyed. Games like Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster, it was a really interesting game, the starting logo thing by Jackie himself is still stuck in my brain "~~Radikul entatainment~~" the action in it was great,the character animations were also cool, only thing was that character likeness was...... I was wondering if that guy really was jackie chan. But well the cover did have his EXACT photo on it.

Goofy's Fun house, The game was not that good, it was very very simple and was practically the easiest game I ever played, I finished it in one sitting, but why was it good? Well it had many Goofy cartoons in them whenever one mission was completed a new cartoon was unlocked, so seeing that there was a nice reward I completed the game in one sitting. It was the game's reward that makes me thing that this game was worth it it was fun while it lasted, after wards I got a software to rip videos off the disc, and lo, I have them on PC

HotWheels Turbo racing was quite good and entertaining, it was one of those games that I always wanted to play when I had free time, for some reason it seemed cool, maybe it was because I was racing hotwheel s

*All bad games are Not Franchise oriented

All this however, doesn't mean that only franchise based games are BAD, well there are bad games in this world which have no BG and were made in the first place to be a GAME and were still BAD, how can this happen I wonder, if its some kind of Bug loaded game then maybe ok, but if its really bad, having no point at all, then why even release it? I really feel sad for the people who spent hours on that game.

This brings to the game that I mention in almost every place where I am asked about bad games, its none other than LONE SOLDIER! Oooh, such a cool name, no? Lone soldier : "I am a lone soldier going to kill you all with me guns and grenades" that's what I thought, first rambo came to my thoughts and then I thought "omg, this is going to be as cool as CONTRA, is this 3D contra? I can't wait to play it!"

So I put the game in, and the starting cinematic was this cool 3D thing in some kind of industrial place with red lighting being shown, and I was like "Ooooh so ThreeeD" then the game started. No intro of character, no Mission , no nothing, I was thrown in some waterfall type area (if my memory of this years old even is right) given a gun and then, Shooot, shoot shoot.

The character animation was the legs moved on their own accord without having relation with the distance being actually moved, the turning was like some manikin, the grenade explosions were __ there was NOTHING in the game, just walking (in a strange way) and turning (in a stranger way) and shooting blindly... and yeah, die-ing, for every minute or so. I feel like making AVGN type video of that game, or atleast, have him review that game it sure meets the characteristics to be commented by AVGN, Its BAADD really really BAAD.

Oh yeah, the game is STILL on sale I mean people really want to buy that game? For 18USD? Omg, my deepest regards for the one who actually buys it and plays it.

As for the game,I couldn't leave the game just like that, because I was feeling sad inside that I made my parents spend money on this game, so no matter what I sat and played a bit more of the game, and then after I felt I was punished enough (by having to play the game) This was the FIRST game, I used as a cup tray, and also gave it away for free.

*A new Beginning..

From this experience something new started, Whenever I bought such a game which was bad, I would punish myself by completing the game or playing it for as long as I could bare. So that I would learn not to make the same mistake, but Alas, I didn't learn from the first time.the NEXT generation was more punishing, because I went as far as Playing the Whole game whenever it was really bad, it was a bit masochistic, but, well that sure did teach me a lot and made me what I am today. (I didn't buy that transformers game or any game based anime I like)

Oh wait...... I did buy THIS GAME...

Ultimate Lesson 22: As nostalgic and fun it is to buy games by having no idea about them and experiencing them first hand.Do so only if you can justify the purchase by either getting some money back (not possible for me, as no ebay ) or if you are daring enough to play through it completely.

OR just go to the interwebz (Which was just a starting phenomenon in my locality, then) and visit sites like GS BEFORE buying a game, you will have a basic idea atleast of what type of game it is.

Well that's it for now folks meet you next time in my entry about the final games I played on me PSone before entering into the then NEXT GEN gaming.

As a closing ceremony, Here's my latest user Vid

My bro has gone back to the US for a while now , and I finally have some free time so I can tell you guys what exactly did He bring here are the answers! pic-by-pic

As Everyone easily guessed, its a WIiiiiIii (Wii code added in my profile )

• Performer: Its a Remote controlled Helicopter (We both wanted a Remote controlled flying thing since childhood )
• Bright Box Below That: A Seagate 320GB Sata HDD (along with another 320 GB Ext HDD because of which I have 26 partitions XD)
• Wii Play and Extra Nunchuk
• Uncharted: Drakes Fortune
• Super Paper Mario
• A Box with Lxxxx written on it: Its a Legacy Wooden Finish Wireless GH Controller for the PS2 with Extra Pedals!
• Another Small Box below it: A Mutli DVD collection of 50 Horror Movies!!!

• Super Mario Galaxyyyyyyy (super awesome game!)
• Transformers Special Edition DVD
• Super Mario Strikers Charged

• A special Metallica CD.
• Metroid Prime Corruption
• 4GB Kingston Pen Drive

• A Special HeadPhone set, which when USB powered has super Bass Producers that BOOM and shake at the ears (awesome in action!)

• Special Component Cable to Connect my Wii,360 and PS3 all together.(Using only for 360 and Wii)

• All those things along with more games (not in pictures) and Many Cartoon DVDs(all of which we watched) and
• Planet earth Blu-ray collection (4 Blu Ray discs of awesomeness! )
• Blue Planet DVDs
• etc, etc

Phew! That was a big list! there were more things he brought not pictured But this is all I can show

As for my Present life.... two great things happened

First of all, A video I sent to CNBC (india) was selected and aired in their Tech Show, and the prize for getting selected reached me recently and it was.....

a Nice 3rd Gen Ipod Nano I never wanted to buy one, and now I got one for free, so am enjoying it to the fullest Copied AVGN videos and TTFF(dragonForce) video that a good friend introduced me to!(I know you know who you are,Numbered person ) and all the songs I love(most of which to which I was introduced by a semi numbered person GS friend )

And Just yesterday, I went to a college's(IIIT Hyderabad's) Tech Fest (Felicity).I met my GS friend Shiben there and had an awesome time watching his office and all the cool Computer graphic things he is doing research on.

The Fest also had a EA Mobile workshop there. I just visited that place, because this was the FIRST time I ever saw anything related to gaming have such a thing.

The whole thing was basically like an advertisement to join EA Mobile games , they did show some nice and secret Spore and other videos though

I came with a friend who was telling that we should leave, as soon as the PPT ended, But I told him NO, because I knew that there would be goodies after the whole thing, and YES there was!

They told that they would ask questions and the person to answer it would get a gift. With full excitement I sat and heard the questions.

"What is the latest Burnout game, and for what platforms has it released on".......

I was like and answered it in a flash and got a Free game! I could select one of the three (C&C3,NFS MW, and MoH:A ) I took MoH because the other two I own and I already decided that I would never buy MoH

after that they asked more questions, 2nd one was

"What are the controllers in Rock Band"

Without a seconds gap even before I got back to my seat I answered it expecting another free game (well no problem if I get more, no?) and they cancelled the question, lol.

but even then I answered the 3rd question, and they were like

"No, you can't answer any more questions"

So I told the answer for the next question to a person sitting beside me and had him have the game

Afterwards they started giving T-shirts and caps, I was going to answer, but even then they didn't allow me to answer, lol. they were bascially asking easy question (but others couldn't answer them ) They were asking me to come to the place they were standing rather than sitting in the audience

well, after everything finished I went out and showed the thing to my other friends and they asked me to pose for a Pic, and well,

This is the best I could do

Well, thats it for now, and I think this will be my last timepass type blog, and I will resume my Gaming(life) blog from next post

Have fun Everyone!

Here's a Clue for something no one guessed in the last post....

I am still enjoying all those things my bro brought and if anyone knows how to get Guitar hero Games(for Ps2) in India (Without Guitar) please tell (Is this another Clue?)

Go to Previous post and see if you can point out the new ones

My bro returned home today after being in the US for more than 1.5 years..... and.... O.M.G

look at all the goodies and surprises he got me

I am still in awe..There are many more things not in pic! (like a REAL bass guitar ) My bro is sleeping for sometime because of jetlag... we will start unpacking and stuff soon!!

man, I am sooooo happy now

I got to see my dear bro after so long, and also sooo many things like a santa he brought!

Now the TRINITY is complete! I can turn on all three at the same time and travel to the other dimension and play among game characters

and yeah... I think this will go down in history as my shortest blog!

P.S: special Cookie to anyone who guesses ALL the things in there

Disclaimer: The Characters and Events depicted in this Entry are REAL. If you happen to be one of those people in the events, I say....."Hi, Nice to meet you here"

And another note: This isn't Orange Box preview /review/impressioins/conclusions etc. Its about the series of events that made me spend a lot of time just to get the thing finally working. So if you are one of the 10% of the Orange box retail population who have had problems Installing the game via the Discs,at the end you will find a cost effective solution to fix it.

-End of Notes

*The Hype

On Feb 2006 there was a news on Gamespot Saying that HL2 would soon come out, I was neither surprised nor excited. I had yet to play EP1. Ep2 was supposed to come out till "end of year"(year =2006) and after a series of Delays, to "Early 2007" and then "Summer 2007". Finally in summer they told it would ship on Oct 9th 2007. My excitement for this would have died somewhere in between, but the thing that kept me waiting for the release was This announcement that was made amidst the delay.

Orange Box and Black box(cancelled later), What was so special about them? Well, I saw a trailer for Portal and being the nerdy, brain-usage-having-game-liker I am, I became an instant fan of the game. From then on, whenever a friend or a GS staff mentioned orange box in their blogs, I would just go and say " I am getting it only for portal" Later I looked into the other games, and it increased my excitement.

Now October was near, and all those HD gameplay vids of portal were filling my HDD. The only thing in my mind was, "how much would it cost". Me being in India , The price of the games is something that often makes me not buy a game when I go to the store, because there is no prior info on the game's price and often I find out its Rs.2500/- or in that range, which might not sound much when converted to USD, but still is quite a lot. And from out of nowhere I saw a blog post by my friend in GS(who also happens to be an Indian) in which he said that the game is going to sell for Rs.999/- and that's just 25$! You can see my excitement in the comments I made

*The Purchase

And the price was really ONLY Rs.999/-

The original Release date was oct 16th but it got a bit delayed and came on oct 18th, on Oct 20th I went with my friends to IMAX theater to watch Transformers on the big screen, and I also planned on buying Orange Box that day. We enjoyed the Movie on Big screen and then as soon as we came out, I went to the gameshop in the multiplex and bought the game with no second thought.

Just like the time I got my 360, I was very much excited, my friends suggested I have a pic taken to remember this great day, and there-> you can see it

Soon after paying McDonalds a visit we started for home, the whole 15Km journey took 1 hour. Coz you know, THIS is how Indian traffic is on a VERY good day. I reached home at 11 PM and was very exhausted. So I slept just so that I could wake up the other day and have full energy to complete Portal and EP1 on the same day

*The Events Begin!

I woke up early in the morning, it was Saturday and I had the whole day to just sit and play, I started to install OB at 8:00AM and at the first setup screen I saw which games to select. The whole thing required 15GB! I had only 7 GB free in my 180GB HDD (UT,Oblivion,Dreamfall, etc take a lot of space :S ). So I selected only Portal in the beginning (as I didn't want 0 GB free). With the same enthusiasm I had when I first saw the trailer, I was watching those yellow steam bars move forward. But then .... I realized something 20 mins have passed, and my spongebob face was fading . The bar was still moving, the disc bar got filled and started over again.

And then THIS happened.

Da Da Da Daaaaaam.

I was completely _______. Only thing I could do was take a screenshot for "future references" and then I ejected the disc, surprisingly, it asked me to insert second disc, and, you can't even guess what happened, the showed up "EMPTY" and "Unformatted"

I couldn't make head or tails of anything, I bought a NEW Sealed Box and I get such Discs? I was in full despair. I saw the 2nd disc and it had a huge scratch on it, as you can see the BOX of the Orange Box was quite badly made, it had a "Cheapo" feeling to it, it was no where as good as my CoD Delux edition Box (which I got from abroad). And the box was a "5 Disc Capacity" one, hence there was Huge Empty spaces, and maybe that was the reason for the scratch.

Nevertheless I tried again, I put the First disc again, and this time it was taking a very long time to read the disc. Now even the first disc had gone bad? Luckily it was read after some minutes. And It was installing but at a speed of 1 MB per 10 mins! I just quit the setup after that.

*Steam @ 8K no good

Now you all might be wondering, "Why didn't you just download it off steam" well the thing is that, living in a developing nation has some limitations, the internet connection I have is only 128Kbps during the no-download-limit time (10PM to 7AM) and 512kbps on the remaining times (2 GB download limit). And the thing was 4 GB(only portal)

It would take me 4096*(2^10)/(16*60*60*24) = 3.034 Days of continuous download and with my limitation I have only 9 hours a day to download that would bring it to 8 days! Also steam servers are not the world's best servers either, I was getting 10-12 KBPS max download from them.

Now in total despair I started asking my friends(not the ones with whom I went to the movies, they aren't gamers, like 90% of Indians) sabout their Copies, no one had bought it till now. I immediately called the shop guy and told him about this , and then he asked me to call another number which was of the main distributors of games in the whole south Indian region I called them and they asked me things ranging from "Did you put it in a DVD drive" to "Did you try it somewhere else" Well, I did put it in a DVD drive, and I have two, it didn't work in any of them. I however, didn't try it in any other's PC. They asked me to check it in another system, so I immediately went to my cousins house who only a few months ago bought a PC, and tried it there.

Sadly it didn't work even there so I called those guys again and they told me that they will replace it that Monday, the thing being, I have to go ALL the way to that place and get it replaced :S and here comes the big part, that place it 20-25Kms away and it took and 1 hour to go just 15 kms and I also had my exams from Monday, so I told them that I would come there on Saturday(next week) to get it replaced.

I however was not happy, All I wanted was to play these games for which I waited for so long, and now I had the box right infront of my eyes but could do nothing.My whole Saturday from 8 am to 8PM was spent running around and trying to get Orange Box working. But all work but no fruits.

It was Sunday and I started asking one friend after the other about their copies, again

*Friend 1

First came Gagan, he bought a new computer and Orange box on the same day(Sunday), and EVEN HE had the same problem but the first disc was working fine for him. First disc had HL2 and EP1 he already played those,so even he was suffering now The only access to internet he had was GPRS, and he was downloading the whole eps using GPRS from his cell Since it had no limitations, he could get them installed in 4-5 days. After being unsuccessful there I asked Neeraj

*Friend 2

Neeraj too was waiting for OB since very long, being a HL freak and all and when I asked him, even he got both discs corrupt He got them replaced the same day, but even those replaced discs were NOT working! But, he being in another region of India had access to 256Kbps unlimited internet and hence was downlading all the eps (that too would take 2 days of continuous downloads, not economically, and ecologically feasible)

*All Friends Same outcome

Similarly 5 of the people I knew had the same disc problems, I was guessing the whole Indian made ones had a problem, but one friend of mine, indzman, didn't have any problems. I just couldn't understand what the problem was.

Sunday was over and now I had my exams, everyday after finishing my exams I came and asked in Indian forums if anyone's copy was working, many days passed by but no one else's worked and soon I got a reply telling me that the discs that were "corrupt" showed up fine on a Mac. He suggested the Drives were old. But I recently upgraded my firmware for both the drives. And also gagan had a BRAND new PC, it should be working in that, but it didn't!

One of the days before Saturday came, I left EP1 for install at 10PM and woke up at 7 am to check it, and only 300 MB was copied from disc it was as slow as installing from Internet

A week of Orange Box Trial and Error had gone, I was so crazy about orange box that, everything I knew was being orange, even my desktop had a complete orange feel to it. But things happened, all the excitement and dreams I had for playing orange box faded away , I remembered nothing about the games themselves, other than getting them installed, I was in a complete Irritated stage for the week.

*Replacement Time!

Saturday came and I took one of my friends with me to that far off place, as it had a huge computer shopping area in there too and we decided to buy and check prices of computery things in the market. After finding the place we were greeted by the owners and they started checking the discs, in the 1.5 hour attempt to get the thing installed we had a great talk which I wrote down HERE they were in the gaming business since very long and I got to a lot of the "other side" of gaming which deals with publishers and how they ship game to India.Both I and the owner Enjoyed talking, and after 1.5 hr when we looked at the computer screen, even the cache files didn't finish being made

He immediately opened a new orange box and it had a different packaging the discs inside were kept in paper packs, I think those guys realized the problem of scratching and packed the later things properly. I checked the installation there and it installed nicely. He gave a "retailers only" catalogue for winter Ps3 games release date(knowing Indian release dates before hand is really cool) and also a halo3 poster, which I stupidly forgot to take while leaving

*Another Misfortune

The installation was happening nicely, 1 GB was copied in Minutes.. but it again stopped at 1.5 GB I couldn't believe my eyes, I removed the discs, cleaned the things and then tried again, but to no avail and the stranger thing is that, Drive A could read disc 1 and Drive B could read Disc 2 but not the other ,for both. I was in disbelief as I saw the things working in that place.

I went on trying doing many different things till 1:30 Am, I didn't get sleep, but with the exhaustion because of driving(total 4 hours, bike) and all, I fell asleep, Even in sleep I was thinking of getting the thing to work, I woke up at 5:30 AM and resumed trying to install it, I didn't feel asleep at all, I didn't have any caffeine either.

My aim to get the thing working was above all, I forgot about everthing else

*The PLAN.

Upto now I was working normally, but after seeing what happened the prev. day my brain went in overdrive,I started using my geeky superpowers. I calculated all possible solutions.

In my first attempt I tried to create an image of the disc and then run it off image drives, but alas, the discs were only readable to certain extent, and hence read errors stopped the image from being created, after that I tried a lot of things, but all failed.

As a last ditch effort I googled again, and this time my keywords hit the spot, and I saw many people Buying NEW drives to play the game as their old drives were not reading. It was still not understandable to me. The disc is still of the same type, either DVD-R or DVD+R then why have the problems, if it uses a new type of file system my firmware upgrade should have fixed it. And also, Gagan's drive was a new one. Then I remembered that guy in the forums talking about it being read in a mac.

My mother suggested that I buy a new Drive which are worth around 1500 (more than the game). Being the "Get things done in cheapest way" guy I am, I didn't want to have another drive when the other two are working fine, just for one game.Also there was no guarantee that the new one would work (as is the case with gagan)

Soon I had a brain flash, and remembered that my friend has a dell laptop, Since it's a branded thing(unlike every other home PC I know, which are assembled) they are bound to be new and upto date in every way. I thought of creating an image there and then writing the images on normal empty Sony DVD Rs of whom I have stock. This would cost me only Rs.20/-

But then I thought that it will have copy protection, So I thought of installing the game in his laptop and copying the Cache files onto DVDs and getting them home, but I would require a Internet Connection to access steam and my friend had no connection, So I took my cell and Nokia PC suite to use GPRS for that purpose, But GPRS costs, so I searched for a way to circumvent the copy protection

30 mins of googling and I found out The Discs had no Copy Protections because of Steam and all . So I went to my friends room, and kept the discs there, when it was being read, I prayed as much as I could. And YES it was read I used Alcohol 120% and created the image, then burnt them on the DVDRs. The whole process took 1 hour and during the whole time, I, My friend, and the hostel mates were all singing and rejoicing

Everyone felt my pain and understood the sad situation I was in, and when I was finally getting it written all were happy After the writing was finished, as show of entertainment, I played a hard boss in Typing of the dead, in full uber fast typing glory and all were amazed, lol.

But soon, I thought, what if these written things are also not read? It is the file format after all! All happiness down the drain, and like a sign from god, another friend dropped by and he lives near my house.

I got another plan just in time, I asked him to stay there, and told that I will go home and try installing from the discs, IF the installation is not successful () I will ask him to get my friends laptop to my home, and then using my home made wifi network I can easily install the game in his laptop and then copy the cache files from his laptop to my PC and enjoy

*Mission Accomplished?

I left for home, and tried it immediately, and on Sunday oct 28th 1:30 PM I was FINALLY able to install the game! YES!! I called my friends and they were happy for me After that I finished installing portal in a RECORD SETTING 10 mins!

As soon as it finished installing! Nothing could stand between me and portal! Except for.... POWER CUT! Once again, a thing something you have to be accustomed to, by being in a developing nation.I played my recent addiction Tony hawk PG for DS, Awesome game.

Current Came back at 5 PM, I Finally started portal, but first I decorated my Orange Dtop which now looks like this.

~~~~~

When I started portal I couldn't believe my eyes that it was finally happening, a week of trial and errors, and two days with only 4 hours of sleep, all for a BOX and its games. And as and when I was playing all those dreams of me playing portal, Eps and TF2 were coming back, I was having a blast. With all the driving and no sleep, I was in a semi sleepy state, I spent almost 30 mins in lvl 17 for something whose answer was just beside me I was trying all this impossible things , because I was overthinking everything.

I thought of completing the game in one stretch but had to attend a party so left it at 7:30 PM I also had to read for my Next exam AND complete my LAB records, but the whole day I was busy with these things that I didn't do anything. I came back from the party thinking I would read, but I sat down and played portal

Completed the game at stroke of midnight and then heard the awesome PORTAL song! Filled with all those jargon that I like it was so cool. After finishing the game I realized that I didn't get the achievement for finishing it, as I was disconnected from steam, so I reconnected and played the ending again, and heard the song again this time, WITH ACHIEVEMENTS. I had basically every achievement except the camera one (only could do 19) for the story mode.. yes... Sorry Companion cube

Completed Portal in 3.5 hours, now off to EP1 and then EP2 and all full completion of Portal then playing TF2... for...ever?

That was how this series of misfortunate events surronding the orange box came to end with me finally getting to play the games have a blast!

*looks up* Woot, that was long, Hope this helps the people who have the same Orange Box retail problems. In simple words this is what you do.

"Take your Discs to some branded computer/laptop create an image of those discs and write them onto normal DVDrs"

Thanx for reading. Now heres the infamouse portal Song "Still Alive" Uploaded by my good Friend PeldonPeldon.