Steam/HL2 probs

[<[MaTT]>]

Hey, i haven't been on the forums for quite a while, but i need some help.

I'm new to the whole steam, valve, ect thing, and i'm having some problems with CSS, Ive been successful in CoD4 and me and a few mates wanted to try CSS out.

Here's what i did:

I got steam, made an account

Went to but CSS, i bought it no worries

It downloads in steam perfectly, then when i go to launch the game starts up then crashes with this error: half life 2 platform error engine failed to initialize

I googled it a bit and saw that reinstalling steam was meant to fix the problem, i did, now the game is downloading again off steam

I'm new to this whole 'steam' thing can someone tell me whats going on? i'm worried downloading it again will just result in the same error.

Also a bit of explanation about how the whole process with steam works i'm a n00b at it.

 

[Karlos]

Steam Saves the games that you have bought on there server so that if you ever need to reformat or anything like that then you can easily redownload your games and be playing again without the use of discs etc. When you reinstalled steam it had to reinstall/download CSS so that it can launch the game.

Steam has its advantages and disadvantages, I had that same problem once...I think for Day of Defeat Source and a steam reinstall fixed it right up. So you should see it working right away or you might have to research the problem a bit more, the steam website also has a lot of great technical threads about problems of that sort if you cannot find a solution.

Some more of the good on steam is that you can always buy new games at decent prices and I have often bought a game and left it to download and Im playing it the next morning. As well it has a pretty great friends community for keeping tabs on your friends and what there playing.

Some of the bad, is it can be a resource hog so dont have it running in the background at all times, and never forget your user name and password, because if you forget what they are and you cannot retrieve them then you can kiss your games that are saved on there goodbye.

Hope this helps...

 

[stalin90]

when it gets done downlaoding the game, make sure u restart steam b4 trying to play it.

steam is just a platform for game makers to sell there games, steam was made and is managed by valve, the ppl who maked hl, hl2, cs...

valve dosnt make any money of steam unless people buy valve games, valve gives the right to have this platform used for other companys games for free just to get there name out there, more ppl have steam, more ppl see and buy valve games, valve makes money.

steam imo is a awesome platform, ive only had one issue with it and it was resolved quickly. it automatically updates all your games(u can turn this off of course and have them download the updates when u choose and it installs it on its own) so when u get a game off steam ull always know it will be up to date and everything.


edit: also make sure to give no1 your password, not even valve support, they should never ask for your password but ive heard of some ppl being scamed...

 

[Poizen22]

im going thru the same prob that error affects css halife 2 and episode 1. episode 2 and tf 2 work fine odly enough, im to lazy to uninstal it and reinstal ,my 12 steam games i own.

 

[synergy]

You can back up your steamapps folder and then you won't have to re-download the games.