And then manually applying them. If the game was old enough you might need to apply multiple patches, something you'd have to figure out. I definitely had mixed

And then manually applying them. If the game was old enough you might need to apply multiple patches, something you'd have to figure out. I definitely had mixed feelings about Steam at first, and my internet connection at the time was such I'd hoard some larger patches and didn't like the idea of re-downloading them on reinstall but there is no doubt now that where Valve was going with this was the future.