How Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with Windows 8

This post isn't directly related to PC gaming, but I'd recon it would still be an interesting read. You will find references to gaming, though.

From a purely technical point of view, Windows 8 is just a faster, more efficient and improved version of Windows 7. Microsoft has a history of releasing good and bad Windows Operating Systems alternately (Windows 98/2000 were good but Windows ME was terrible. Windows XP was a resounding success whereas Windows Vista was a broken OS which was probably released while still in Beta Testing phase. Then again, Windows 7 is considered the best version of Windows while Windows 8 was widely panned). But the main difference is, previous Windows OSs which flopped (like Window ME and Windows Vista) had some fundamental technical shortcomings whereas there was technically nothing wrong with Windows 8. So then, what really went wrong? Read on to find out.

Microsoft had really ambitious plans for Windows 8. Their idea was to provide a streamlined experience across all devices using the Windows OS and create an ecosystem which allows complete cloud-based backup and synchronization across the devices (which include PCs, laptops, Windows Phones, Windows tablets and to a certain extent, also the XBox consoles). In fact, Windows 8 has slightly lower system requirements compared to Windows 7, and boots up much faster too.There was actually no way that this ambitious initiative could possibly fail, but Microsoft still managed to botch it up due to poor decision making and a hint of arrogance.

Their biggest blunder was the decision to force the touch-based Metro UI as the default interface down the throats of PC/laptop users without a touchscreen, and the removal of the start menu. This UI was really cumbersome to use with a keyboard and mouse/touchpad. The once-familar desktop was relegated to just a 'legacy app' on Windows 8. Windows users who were accustomed to the 'desktop and start menu' interface for over a decade, realized that they had to struggle to perform tasks which they could easily do earlier. In other words, they actually had to 'learn' to use the Windows OS all over again. Switching between Metro apps and regular desktop apps was a chore. And at times, people were totally confused and lost. To cut a long story short, Windows 8 was a totally unorganized mess with two entirely different interfaces. I'm sure everyone agrees that this is annoying. But when you consider this in terms of office-based usage, it results in a criminal decrease in productivity. In Microsoft's defense, this change was necessary in order to achieve their primary goal. And they did achieve this objective to a certain extent (I owned a PC and laptop with Windows 8 and also a Windows Phone 8 based smartphone, so I could appreciate the actual good stuff). But if they had just provided a simple option for the user to choose the default interface (desktop or Metro) before installation and retained the start menu for the desktop, then Windows 8 would have been a resounding success. Agreed, it is possible to use third party apps like Start8 or Classic Shell to obtain the same interface as the previous versions of Windows with the performance/efficiency of Windows 8. But most people (who are casual users) wouldn't be aware of these options, or may not want to spend an additional $5 after buying a brand new OS at full price.

It was Microsoft's foolishness (and perhaps, arrogance) to assume that users would lap up their offering in spite of their stubbornness not to include the option to choose the default interface. Since this was achievable using third party apps, it meant that Microsoft never actually removed the code for the start menu or making desktop the default UI. They justified their decision in several ways and even posted encouraging sales figures for Windows 8. Still, its an open secret that Windows 8 was a failure which actually made most users develop hatred towards Microsoft and call for an end to Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop/laptop market. Valve's Steam service, which is the major digital gaming service on the PC, never even officially supported Windows 8 (although Steam did run without issues). In fact, the backlash was so huge that it resulted in the immediate resignation of Steven Sinofsky (president of the Windows division) and was one of the major factors for Steve Balmer's decision to retire within a year.

Microsoft still didn't want to give up on Windows 8 and accept defeat, so they began their 'damage control' tactics. In this regard, they announced Windows 8.1 which boasted a host of usability-related improvements over Windows 8 (although they were still adamant about not bringing back the start menu). People who actually bothered to try Windows 8.1 (me included) were convinced that it was a significantly improved experience compared to Windows 8. But these people were the minority because the damage was already done, and most users had decided to avoid anything related to Windows 8 like plague. Of course, Windows 8's failure couldn't have had much impact on Microsoft's long term revenue, but it dealt a massive blow to Microsoft's reputation as a brand.

Microsoft recently revealed their plans to release Windows 9 during 2015, and indirectly hinted that they wouldn't want to have anything to do with Windows 8. If they manage to restore the usability of Windows 7 and also retain the best features of Windows 8/8.1, then Windows 9 could turn out to be a winner. It would also continue Microsoft's tradition of releasing successful operating systems alternately. In any case, Microsoft is an innovative company who do value customer feedback (reversal of their initial XBox One policies is proof of that). So hopefully, the negative feedback regarding Windows 8 was just a wake-up call for them, and they'll be back with a bang with Windows 9. Fingers crossed!

Why gamers should never go for pre-built PCs

I often see people who claim to be 'gamers' buy pre-built PCs (although this trend has reduced in the past couple of years) to avoid the hassle of building one themselves. This is a really foolish thing to do. Pre-built PCs might be a good choice for any other purpose, but certainly NOT games (this includes Alienware too). Read on, to find out why.

First, I'm considering the regular high-end PCs which are not marketed as 'Gaming PCs'. Such PCs often tend to include very powerful processors (such as the Intel Core i7), but less RAM (in gaming context) and no dedicated graphics card. For example, a PC having a 3rd generation Intel Core i7 usually has just 4GB of RAM  (of high frequency) and NO dedicated graphics card. 4 GB RAM is more than sufficient for most purposes, but would be just about manageable for modern games. Usually, the impact of having less system RAM  can't directly be observed in terms of game performance, but the game takes an eternity to load (that is, to enter into the game from the menu or load a saved game).

Now, the real major issue is with respect to the graphics card. If a pre-builtPC is not specifically marketed as a 'gaming PC', then it is almost certain not to have a dedicated graphics card. I'm sure most gamers know that no PC game released within the last few years can run satisfactorily with an onboard graphics chip. In fact, most games refuse to even launch, when they don't detect dedicated graphics hardware. This means, in spite of spending a lot on a high-end PC, the buyer needs to invest in a mid-range graphics card at least, as well as more RAM. Cost of RAM isn't too high, but the cost of a graphics card can be significant. And having a VERY high end processor is certainly an overkill with respect to games, because most games depend a lot more on the graphics card than the processor (except maybe RTS games). For example, a PC having a mid-range processor and a high-end graphics card can run a game much better than a PC with a high end processor and a mid-range graphics card.

Now, the REALLY enthusiastic gamers go for gaming PCs such as Alienware. Agreed, they are powerful enough to run almost all recent games at their highest settings. But they are GROSSLY overpriced. And although they do have a powerful graphics card, their high-end processor would be an overkill (as I have indicated in my previous paragraph).

The main disadvantage with pre-built PCs, whether they can run games or not, is the lack of component choice. The vendor offers some set combinations, and you have to choose one among them. You won't be able to customize every component as per your requirement. For a gamer, it is always beneficial to hand-pick every component of his PC so that it offers the greatest bang for the buck, without any component being a bottleneck or an overkill. He can then build it himself, or get it done by a professional for a nominal fee. When the main purpose is gaming, the combined cost of the components, and maybe the fee paid to the person who builds the PC, would still be much lower than a pre-built PC. So be smart, and choose wisely. If you're a gamer, always say no to pre-built PCs.

Life-cycle of my beloved first PC

You might want to go through this post before proceeding, but its not really necessary because I'll include the important points of that post here, as and when they're required. Also, this will be a VERY long post (just a prior warning for inpatient people who can't read long posts). But I haven't included any irrelevant information.

As previously mentioned, I got my first PC in October 1999. The specifications consisted of a 733 Mhz Pentium 3 processor, 20 GB hard disk, 64 MB RAM, 15 inch monitor and a dedicated graphics card, along with a printer and modem. This was considered quite high-end at that time (by India's standards at least). I was having the time of my life, playing all the latest games. Little did I realize that my joy-ride was about to end soon.

PC hardware was advancing rapidly, so it was just a matter of time before my PC would be unable to run the latest games. The first game which my PC was incapable of running satisfactorily was 'Prince of Persia 3D'. Although this game was released in 1999, I didn't attempt to play it until 2001. The game used to start, but only the main character was visible while the environment was fully dark. I was wondering if there was some configuration issue, because I was too naive at that time to realize that it was due to unsupported hardware. Then, through a lot of internet research, I came to know about a lot of interesting but disappointing facts. My graphics card's model was 'SiS 6326' and it had 8MB of dedicated video RAM. There were two popular APIs for 3D graphics acceleration in games, namely Direct 3D and Open GL. Some games used Direct 3D, some used Open GL and a few games were even capable of utilizing both. Apparently, Prince of Persia 3D partially utilized Open GL (although this wasn't mentioned anywhere on the box or the manual). To my dismay, I realized that my graphics card only supported Direct 3D and not Open GL, which meant that all games which utilized Open GL couldn't run properly (or not run at all) as long as I continued to use this graphics card. So it was time for my first upgrade -A graphics card with Open GL support!

After a lot of research to determine the most suitable graphics card for me with Open GL support and affordable price, I decided on a card named 'S3 Savage 4'. When I visited the shop to buy it, I asked for the 16MB model. I was pleasantly surprised when the vendor told me that he could provide me a 32MB variant at a marginally higher price because the 16MB variant was out of production. At that time I didn't even know how to replace my previous card, so I had to take my cabinet to his shop for him to do that for me and install the required drivers. I felt at the top of the world because I owned a video card supporting both Direct 3D and Open GL, which meant I could run any game. I immediately tested Prince of Persia 3D, which worked flawlessly. I was also able to play games based on the Quake 3 engine (which was a pure Open GL engine). So, my joy-ride was back on track!

But as they say, nothing lasts forever. My next hurdle came in the form of a game called 'Spider-Man: The Movie'. The game even refused to start on my PC. Then I came to know that this game required the graphics card to support a feature called 'Hardware Transform & Lighting'. This time I really didn't want to invest in an upgrade just for one game. But by now, I had realized that it was only a matter of time before all modern games require this feature. I had also noticed that game load times had become excruciatingly slow (modern games used to take more than 90 seconds to load a saved game). This was apparently due to insufficient system RAM (which was still 64 MB). So, my next upgrade was on the cards - a graphics card with Hardware Transform & Lighting support, along with more RAM.

I settled for the graphics card NVidia GeForce 2 MX 400 (which supported HW T&L, and had 64MB of dedicated video memory) along with an additional 128 MB RAM stick (which raised my total system RAM to 192 MB). So I was set to go on, but I didn't know for how long. I was well aware of the fact that by this time, PC hardware had begun advancing exponentially rather than linearly. So I knew that I would need an upgrade sooner that I'd like.

As expected, the need for the next upgrade came up within just 8 months of my previous upgrade. This time, a game called 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' required a hardware feature called 'Vertex and Pixel shaders', which my current graphics card didn't support. But this time, there were several issues which made upgrading very difficult. Firstly, the size of games had already gone well past a GB, which meant my 20GB hard disk wouldn't suffice anymore. Next, my 733MHz processor was causing a bottleneck, and I realized that I couldn't upgrade the processor without upgrading the motherboard too (because my motherboard only supported Pentium 3 processors). Also, 192 MB system RAM had become insufficient. But the widely available memory at that time was DDR RAM, whereas mine was SD RAM. This meant that I had to change the motherboard too, and buy one with DDR RAM support (along with DDR RAM sticks). Hence, I had to make 5 major upgrades - graphics card, hard disk, processor, motherboard and RAM. Obviously, this would be too expensive for my comfort. So a more viable option was to sell my entire PC and buy a new one. I went one step ahead, and decided to sell EVERYTHING (which included my monitor, speakers, voltage stabilizer, keyboard and mouse, although I retained my printer and modem). I finally sold my beloved PC (which I had bought for ₹60,000) along with upgrades (which had cost around ₹25,000) in August 2004 for a supposedly 'best price' of ₹9000. But it had served me commendably for almost 5 years.

Why gamers hate Call of Duty but critics love it

Please note:-  This isn't really a review. Its just a post describing my disappointment.

I was an early fan of the Call of Duty series. I really enjoyed the first few games, namely Call of Duty + United Offensive expansion, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty 4: World at War (couldn't play call of Duty 3 because it isn't available for PC). These games provided pure adrenaline rush, due to their ability of making the gamer feel like he was actually fighting a war.  I didn't play any games in the series after that, because I knew that they were clearly milking the franchise with their 'copy-paste' strategy. Anyway, after a gap 5 years, I picked up this year's 'Ghosts' for the PC because I wanted to give my once-beloved franchise another go. BIG mistake.

The major flaw I noticed, common to both multi-player and single-player, was how 'weak' most guns sounded. Even on my powerful 5.1 PC sound system, most guns 'clicked' rather than 'thudded'. This is ridiculous, especially since this is a war-themed game (where weapon sounds contribute a lot towards immersion). With respect to the multi-player alone, I found the supposedly 'new' games modes quite disappointing. Professional reviews are going on and on about how 'innovative' the multi-player is, but all these new modes are just rehashed versions of tried-and-tested formulas. Also, the addition of playable female mercenaries in multi-player serves no practical purpose, except maybe providing eye candy for a certain class of male gamers (obviously I don't belong to that category). There was a certain amount of hype about this game implementing destroyable environments in multi-player (like in Battlefield games), but it turned out to be just that - a hype. Some environments are indeed destroyable, but they always get destroyed in the same way irrespective of different player actions. For example, the rubble of a destroyed structure will ALWAYS fall in the same direction, even if you have hit it from different angles during each game. This means, the developers hardcoded this behavior just to give players the illusion of environments being destroyable. Although the multi-player is pretty decent, its nothing to write home about. There are much better multi-player games out there for sure.

Coming to the campaign, the less said about it, the better. I really missed quick-saves, but can't really complain about that because no multi-platform game ever has a quick-save feature anymore, except action-rpg hybrids like Mass Effect, Deus Ex etc.(consoles are to blame for this, but this matter is beyond the scope of this post). That apart, the campaign seemed like an interactive movie rather than a game. It is so scripted, to the extent that I can't open a door or pull a lever in my sight, until the game tells me to do that. There are games which create very immersive experiences in spite of being heavily scripted (like the Half-Life games), but in this game, the ridiculous amount of scripting actually ensures that there is no immersion at all. The artificial intelligence of both friends are foes is mediocre at best. My team-mates seem to take a LOT of hits before dying, and they also hardly inflict any significant damage to the enemies. And the enemies are so dumb and lifeless. I wonder why almost every professional review says that the Ghosts campaign is 'lengthy and memorable'. Nothing could be far from the truth. There are no more than a couple of memorable stuff in the entire single-player game, and a 5-6 hour campaign isn't what I would call 'lengthy'. My time to beat the game on 'normal' was 5 hours 6 minutes, which seems to be on par with the average playtime mentioned on www.howlongtobeat.com. The entire campaign is far too easy and monotonous. The basic formula for beating the campaign is this - Pop out of cover to shoot, get back to cover to regenerate health, rinse and repeat until all enemies are dead. The addition of the dog Riley, which the developers claimed to be groundbreaking, is nothing more than a gimmick which works occasionally but often falls flat. Lastly, war-themed games are supposed to be as realistic as possible even if the story takes a back-seat. But in this game, the gameplay is anything but realistic, and even the story seems so generic and dull.

After beating Crysis 3, I thought there could be no game which was more boring than that. But COD Ghosts is slightly more boring than Crysis 3 as well. At least Crysis 3 had gorgeous visuals to compensate for 10% of the boring gameplay, but COD Ghosts's visuals are nothing extraordinary. Extremely disappointing. Also, the huge difference between average critic scores and average user scores (68/100 vs 19/100 on metacritic as of now) does make gamers suspect that Activision actually pays critics to write favorable reviews. I just can't seem to understand how games like these manage to sell millions, or if the sales figures too are fabricated just to maintain the franchise's reputation. If it does sell millions, then I suppose a good chunk of those sales are due to 12-year old kids for whom their parents buy the games. It has reached a point where, even if Activision packs frozen dog turd in a plastic bag and markets it as 'Call of Duty - Riley Edition', people would still buy millions of those. I'm disappointed that I spent my hard earned money to buy this crap at full price (especially since Activision are too greedy and price their games 15-20% more than the standard price), but I'm PETRIFIED to think about the million ways in which such games could seriously harm the gaming industry. If people keep buying millions of copies of highly watered-down games like these, then almost every developer would start making similar games. I mean....why would they even consider making innovative games, when it is possible to sell millions by just releasing the same game with a fresh coat of paint every year?

If someone were to reverse-engineer the Call of Duty games from past few years and obtain their source codes, I'm sure that a majority of the code would be the same across all these games (with maybe some minor modifications). The only way this insanity would end, is if people stop buying such games. But I don't see this happening any time in the near future.

A custom Half-Life background for my blog!

So, I managed to create a half-decent background for my blog, which of course features images from my favorite video game series. Due to the overall image size restriction of 300kb, I couldn't really achieve the results I wanted to. Several good images are lost behind the central blog area, and the same set of images are repeated on either size. I hope this 300kb restriction is lifted soon, or at least made more liberal (like 1 MB). Until then, I won't be able to come up with anything better than this.

Is 'PC game piracy' overrated? You bet!

Alright, I'm sure you gamers would have heard game companies say that they delay or don't release games for the PC due to 'rampant PC piracy'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Through this post, I'd like to shed some light on what actually happens behind the scene in such scenarios. Hopefully, this will also prevent ignorant console gamers from taunting PC gamers in the future, by saying that the PC only get delayed console ports or not at all because PC gamers are pirates.

In reality, the piracy rates are almost identical for PC and consoles. When you say this to a console gamer, his first taunt would be "Just check out any torrent sites, and you'll find more torrents and more seeds/peers for PC games than console games". This does appear true initially. But the reality paints a different picture altogether. Console games (at least the previous gen ones) always need to be on a disc. So, people who pirate console games just burn it on multiple discs (sometimes hundreds) to distribute amongst friends or sell them at one tenth the price of the legitimate copy. But in case of PC, almost everything is digital. Hence PC pirates just download individually, whereas every console game downloaded illegally is very much likely to end up on several discs. Obviously, its impossible to track this, hence the general perception is that PC games are pirated more than console games (which is not true at all). In fact, since the past couple of years, the console versions of multiplatform games become available on torrents several days before official release, and certainly much before the PC version too. And just consider the the case of Grand Theft Auto V, which was pirated left and right in spite of being a console exclusive (as of now).

Now coming to the second most common reason given by console gamers - "consoles need to be modified in order to run pirated games whereas no hardware changes are required for PC, hence console gamers wouldn't risk modifying the hardware just to play pirated games". This 'reason' just shows how ignorant some console gamers can be. Let me tell you, the easiest way to pirate console games (which several people I know have done) is to own TWO consoles - one normal and the other modded. The combined cost of two consoles is still lesser than that of a mid-high range gaming PC. So they simply use the normal one to play legitimate games online, and use the modded one to play single player games offline (without any risk of a ban).

The third common reason is the comparison of sales numbers between PC and console versions of the same game. Time and again, console gamers and even game companies point out that games sell very few number of copies on the PC compared to consoles, which they again attribute towards piracy. On the surface, this seems to be true because most sales figures do mention this. But the most glaring fact which these people forget to consider (or deliberately avoid), is that sales figures often only account for retail sales and not digital downloads. As of now, digital downloads are almost non-existent on consoles but it makes up the majority of PC game sales over the world. In fact, except in a few third world countries, PC gamers almost always prefer digital downloads over retail boxed copies. Hence, its totally absurd to say that console games sell a lot more than PC games by comparing sales numbers. This statement would be valid only when digital sales too are included in sales figures, or when digital sales become the norm on consoles as well.

Now, the actual reasons why game companies delay PC releases of multi-platform games, or don't release it at all. In case of consoles, a part of the revenue from every sale goes to Sony or Microsoft but it doesn't work that way on the PC (although Microsoft tried to push for this with Windows 8). Also, if games come out simultaneously for both consoles and PC, most people would obviously prefer PC (better graphics, mod support, choice of keyboard/mouse or controller etc.). Due to this, the console manufacturers strike a deal with game publishers (which may involve monetary or any other benefit to the publisher) to keep their game console-exclusive for a certain period or forever. Another reason is, it is much more difficult to develop games for a heterogeneous platform like the PC (since every PC has different hardware combinations, different vendors etc.) compared to consoles (because all XBox/Playstation consoles in the world have identical hardware). So the developers are either incompetent to do this, or too lazy for this extra work. Obviously, game companies can never mention these genuine reasons in public, so they take the easy way out by using 'piracy' as an excuse and making out PC gamers to be the biggest crooks of the gaming industry. And most console gamers ignorantly believe these statements, because its working in their favor anyway.

Finally, my first PC!

You might want to read my previous post before this one, because this is a direct follow-up to that post (although the focus is different).

I was really disappointed and heartbroken about being unable to play Half-life anymore. And I knew it wouldn't be right for me to ask my cousin to buy another CD of the same game. To tackle this issue, I began pestering, or rather requesting my parents to buy a PC for me. I told them that a PC would be immensely helpful for my education (although my primary goal at that point was to just play and beat Half-Life). Being educated themselves, my parents didn't need much convincing with respect to the usefulness of a PC. So I was fortunate enough to get a spanking new PC on October 20th 1999. Yeah, I still remember the date!

My PC was rather 'special' compared to those of my cousins and friends, in several ways. The specifications of my cousins' PC was something like a 333Mhz processor, 14-inch monitor, 3GB hard disk and 32 MB RAM, which was more or less similar to the specifications of my friends' PCs too. In contrast, my PC had a 733 Mhz Pentium 3 processor,  64 MB RAM, 20 GB hard disk and a 15-inch monitor (other components like keyboard, mouse, speakers etc. were almost similar). This was considered a high end PC at that time. Now for the 'goodies'. My PC also had a dedicated graphics card (which was unusual in 1999) with 8MB memory, a color printer (the others didn't have a printer) and a 56kbps modem for dial-up internet connection (the actual internet connection was set up after a few days).

The PC made my parents poorer by ₹65,000 but it instantly made me a hero among my friends (due to it being high-end)! As expected, I purchased the original boxed copy of Half-Life within a few days (because playing it was my main objective). It cost me a whopping ₹2000, but the exhilarating game experience was well worth it. Took me around a month to beat it. I did play other games as well. At that point, even though my primary usage of the PC was for gaming, I was careful enough not to let it adversely affect my studies. As expected, I was fascinated by the internet but unlike most adolescents my age, I didn't use it as an an easy gateway to porn (which was a rage among my peers). Instead, I made use of the internet for game-related information and also my school-related work. I'll describe my initial gaming experiences in a different post.

My PC didn't remain 'special' for too long, due to rapid advancements in hardware. After several minor and major upgrades, I had to finally sell my beloved first PC in August 2004, when it became impossible to upgrade beyond a certain point and the PC couldn't run the latest games. But it did serve me well for almost 6 years, with no major repairs.

The game which got me hooked to gaming!

Its only fair that my initial gaming-related post is the one describing my humble beginning as a gamer. I first had access to a home PC in 1998. Wasn't my own, though. As a 12 year old, I was fascinated by home PCs at my cousins' residence (my cousins were kind enough to let me use it as much as I wanted) and a few of my friends' houses. During that time, DOS-based games were most popular and also more easily available, compared to Windows games. Also, since internet was either unavailable or too slow (dial-up), we could only obtain games through friends or by direct purchase. The first few PC games I played include The Lost Vikings, Prince of Persia, Hocus Pocus, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D (which were all DOS games) and Road Rash (the sole Windows game).

Then I happened to come across a terrifying and exciting game being played by my cousin on his PC. There was something really different and captivating about this game, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, which was lacking in all the previous games I played. To say that this game totally mesmerized me, would be an understatement. This real gem was none other than Half-Life, which was responsible for catapulting Valve (the developer) to super stardom and also making me treat gaming as a passion rather than a pastime. I could initially play only the game demo (titled Half-life Uplink) because my cousin's friend had borrowed his Half-life CD at that point. The demo had a cliff-hanger ending (although I later realized that the entire demo was totally unrelated to the main game) which made me want to play the full game.

Of course, I could only play it on my cousin's PC, since we didn't have a PC at our house. I kept pestering him to get his CD back from his friend, which he did after a month. That's when the REAL fun started, and I lost myself in a world of alternate reality. The actual game surpassed the demo in every way (I won't go into the details, because I'm planning to post a full Half-Life review soon). I stopped playing all other games, and only played this one whenever I visited their house (maybe once or twice in a week). Then something really unfortunate happened, which shattered my heart. My cousin's hard disk crashed, and along with it, the game as well (including its save files). I didn't mind starting the game from the beginning again (after all, I had only completed around 25%), but for some reason, the game just refused to install from the CD. I still remember that when the installation reached 97%, it used to display 'Engine.dll error' and abort the installation. At that point, me and my cousins were computer novices. This, combined with the fact that we had no internet access, meant that we couldn't troubleshoot this error, so we had to just give up. This happened sometime during mid-1990. It was a really gut wrenching feeling, and I felt my fantasy world had come crashing down. Little did I realize that this disappointment would actually act as a catalyst in transforming me into an ardent, hardcore gamer for a lifetime.

Of course, I did manage to beat this game eventually (as of today, I have beaten it innumerable times and it still remains my all time favorite game), but that will part of my next post. I want to end this post now, before I make it too long. Hope you enjoyed reading it. Lost more to come. All kinds of comments, appreciation or constructive criticism are most welcome. Signing off!

Oh yeah! Here's the box-image of the very first version of the game, which my cousin owned!

My very first post!

Alright people! Since this is my first blog post ever (not just on this blog), I won't really start off with anything related to gaming. I know that I entered the blogging scene too late, but I'm really excited about this. Spent a good chunk of last night (around 3 hours, to be precise) designing the blog as per my satisfaction. So now I'm all set! Lets just hope 2014 turns out to be a great year for PC gamers, because 2013 was rather lackluster.An honest confession I need to make here. The blog will be slightly biased towards the Half-Life series because its my favorite. series. But be assured that nothing would be unreasonable or false.