Anyway to Bypass Steam?

I recently purchased the Orange Box from Steam (it was the deal a couple weeks ago), and finally finished dling HL:2, only took about 4 days... But now even if I choose to start steam offline, it won't let me access HL:2. This doesn't make any sense since it's a single player game.

I can play CSS, which is a multiplayer game offline, and various other games, but not HL:2. Are there any cracks or patches I can use so I can play this while not connected to the internet?

 

Not that I found, anything from valve and some of the third party stuff will always start steam first even if you go directly to the game exe. Be watching this one to see if someone has the magic bullet.

 

Get Steam-Buster Revolution. It's a Steam emulator that doesn't require an internet connection or any updating. Just tell it to look for the games installed in your steamapps folder and they should work just fine.

Obviously you won't be able to play online, but I used it for months last year when I didn't have an internet connection.

 

I make batch files... old school way.

I played Portal and other games of the Orange Box that way... since I do not always have internet access.

 

about steam buster,
i installed it and it says
"cant find any games..."

do i need to get those gcf files somewhere?

 

That is very weird. I usually use Steam offline and I can play any game, including HL2. Can you play any of the episodes offline? How about Portal? I am guessing something wrong went on the installation, maybe reinstalling would solve your problems.

Please let us know if you find what happened.

 

The GCF files should be in (with default directory) C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps.

 

I can play CSS offline, I haven't finished dling any of the episodes (I'm on a 20k/s dl speed). All I did was dl HL2 and it autoinstalled, I'm not redling it to try and fix this.

Also, are there any legit sites to get Steam-Buster Revolution from, I don't really feel like trying to torrent anything on this connection.

 

I'm starting to think this might be more hl2 related... I just crashed twice in 5 minutes while playing it...nothing was over 60C, so it wasn't a hardware problem.

 

Im pretty sure you can run steam in offline mode and it will let you run any game. I dont have steam right now, but I have it on my desktop back home and when I didnt have internet connection I remember doing that and being able to play hl2 and all the other games I have on steam.

 

As long as you start up the game once with an internet connection so it can validate it from then on if you start up steam with no internet connection and it goes into offline mode you can play all your games. I have played many of my games with no internet connection its not big deal. Just make sure you start the game at least once with steam in online mode and your set!