Half Life 2:The Orange Box

Zygar · Post by **Zygar** » September 25, 2007, 9:34 pm

If you preorder now you get $5 off, plus immediate access to the TF2 beta. The release of episode 2 and Portal is scheduled for Oct 10th. Plus you get the ability of being able to "give" your purchase of HL2 and episode 1 to someone else if you've already purchased them. Haven't looked into that yet, but played a little TF2, and had some fun even though there are not a lot of servers up atm. I know most people will be playing Halo 3 for the forseeable future, but wanted to give you a heads up.

Drinsic Darkwood · September 25, 2007, 10:38 pm

Bought it the other day. So far I'm having a blast playing Team Fortress 2. My Steam ID is Mandalay.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » September 26, 2007, 11:01 am

TF2 is ridiculous fun. It has destroyed any cs skill I once had.

My steam id is Sionistic

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » September 26, 2007, 11:38 am

I suspect I know the answer to this already given Gabe Newell's dislike of Games for Windows Live

but will this do cross-platform with the 360?

If I do pick this up it will likely be for the 360(cause frankly I don't feel like upgrading my PC when my 360 outperforms it anyways) but it would be nice to play against PC players as well.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » September 26, 2007, 11:43 am

TF2 is fun but it gets old pretty fast. A lot of the skill was taken out of the game too with the removal of grenades and the force-fed "teamwork". It would be more fun to play it with friends rather than a bunch of idiots that suck ass.

All I can really stand doing anymore is raping the shit out of people with the overpowered scout.. but I'm mostly bored with it... and now that CoH:OF is out I doubt i'll be TFing for awhile :}

its coming to 360 afaik. The game is so fucking dumbed down and random that it could easily be thumbfucked through by any numbnuts console FPSer

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » October 11, 2007, 4:18 pm

I was going to pick this up for the 360, but I think I'm going to wait. I don't see myself being done playing halo in the next few weeks, then right at the beginning of next month mass effect and assassins creed come out. I'll have to pick this up sometime though, it looked cool!

Niffoni · Post by **Niffoni** » October 11, 2007, 5:57 pm

I haven't played HL2 or the eps yet so i've been really excited for this.

I hear TF2 is worth the price of admission alone, and that Portal is sick fun.

Gotta choose between this and the Oblivion GOTY pack for this month's big PC gaming purchase. Harsh.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » October 11, 2007, 7:05 pm

As I stated before, TF2 is just all sorts of fun. Really polished gameplay. The voices and personalities of the players is awesome.

HL2 Ep2 is just amazing. The views are really good. The gameplay is as tight as it ever was, nothing is overused. Hunters are my favorite, they are very deadly and probably have the best intro to a bad guy ever. The story is really progressing and you really care about the characters. The ending makes me want ep3 to come out extremely badly.

Portal is lots of fun. The regular campaign is actually a bit easy. The bonus levels are mind destroyers. The announcer is very funny at points. Its pretty demanding on the computer though. Well actually so is ep2.

Getting this much fun out of a $45 is awesome. TF2 and Ep2 are worth $40 each IMO.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 14, 2007, 4:56 am

Sionistic wrote:As I stated before, TF2 is just all sorts of fun. Really polished gameplay. The voices and personalities of the players is awesome.

I popped in Orange Box for the 360 today and was highly impressed with it. You can tell Valve cares a lot about its games.

I haven't played anything yet but I listened to all 50+ "developer commentary" integrated level audio clips for Team Fortress 2. I remember listening to them when Half Life 2 originally was released as well. They put a lot of thought into the design of TF2.

All five of the games included in Orange Box are better than most of the games released these days. It's an outstanding value. I may not play any of them but I'll probably listen to the developer commentary for all of the games.

Biffin · Post by **Biffin** » October 14, 2007, 10:04 am

It's worth getting it for Team Fortress 2 alone. TF 2 has a great art style that suits the gameplay perfectly. What's really interesting is seeing people's strategies on a new platform evolve in the exact same way as they did when Team Fortress Classic first launched. Like, on the first day no one really knew what they were doing and most people picked the heavy, etc... Whereas a few days later, people are laying down turrets, etc..

On a nice bonus, the Demoman's grenades are the same grenade model as the original Quake 1 grenades... which was a great throwback to it's origins as a Quake mod.

miir · Post by **miir** » October 14, 2007, 11:30 am

Too many people play engineer.
I personally play Soldier and Medic the most.

Sartori · Post by **Sartori** » October 14, 2007, 8:38 pm

For anyone that hasn't seen the few Valve class intro vids yet, they are brilliant:

Soldier intro vid
Engineer intro vid
Demoman intro vid

prancin aboot with your heads full of eyeballs!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 14, 2007, 8:56 pm

Sartori wrote:For anyone that hasn't seen the few Valve class intro vids yet, they are brilliant:

Soldier intro vid
Engineer intro vid
Demoman intro vid

prancin aboot with your heads full of eyeballs!

Those are great!

It was an excellent design choice to go with the stylized look over the ultra realistic on for TF2. Be sure to check out the developer commentaries that are abundant all over Orange Box.

miir · Post by **miir** » October 15, 2007, 12:53 pm

I've been playing the shit out of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for the past few months.... I haven't touched it since I picked up TF2. It is (by far) the absolute most FUN I've had playing a computer game in years. It's intense and hillarious at the same time.

The learning curve is forgiving and even a newie FPS player can jump in and start having fun immediately.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » October 15, 2007, 1:07 pm

I picked this up last night after losing almost every match of Halo 3 I played this weekend (lots of crown&coke + losing @ Halo3 all weekend = broken controller, fyi) and it's fun so far!

I played the first hour or two of half life 2, and then played portal (I am wondering how long it will take to escape this damn research facility, it's been a long while! I like portal quite a bit, gets you thinking and is fun at the same time.

I haven't tried TF2, but I will when I am done with portal too. Definitely worth the money though!

Post by **Sylvus** » October 19, 2007, 4:34 pm

Can you get this online through Steam (or whatever that's called)?

miir · Post by **miir** » October 19, 2007, 4:36 pm

Sylvus wrote:Can you get this online through Steam (or whatever that's called)?

What a silly question... Of course you can!

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » October 19, 2007, 5:11 pm

The only thing that reallyi nterested me out of this whole package was Portal so I picked it up invididually off Steam yesterday.

My Xbox gets back from MS next week apparently. I think I'll be skipping Orange Box altogether to go straight to CoD4.

Gonzoie - Luclin · Post by **Gonzoie - Luclin** » October 20, 2007, 6:53 am

Animalor wrote:The only thing that reallyi nterested me out of this whole package was Portal so I picked it up invididually off Steam yesterday.

My Xbox gets back from MS next week apparently. I think I'll be skipping Orange Box altogether to go straight to CoD4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxYfMRtun5w

Best credit song ever.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » October 20, 2007, 4:45 pm

Yeah the song in the end credits for portal is hilarious, I played through it a second time again last night just to hear it.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » October 27, 2007, 11:48 am

Portal owns. I haven't really had a chance to play much of the rest yet though.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » October 27, 2007, 12:34 pm

Picked it up for the PC last night. I never actually played HL2, so I have been playing that campaign and some TF2 online. TF2 rocks!

noel · Post by **noel** » October 27, 2007, 3:54 pm

I think HL2:EP2 is easily the best in the HL series. I played the first one and thought it looked good, but was just ok. EP1 the devs fell in love with the gravity gun, and there was way too much of that. EP2 is a great balance. I thought the last boss fight was a bit on the tedious side, but still fun.

[Show]: Anyone think it was anything other than Lamar (that one doctor's pet headcrab) as the additional 8lbs. of weight on the rocket when it launched? I actually suspect that the nerdy doctor guy is working for the Combine.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » October 27, 2007, 4:23 pm

slowly working my way through ep2 in between other games.. you can tell they really got creative with it and realized they cant just do the same crap with a slightly different storyline. theyre doing something right for me.. because i'm still interested even though my opinion on the storyline for the entire HL series is that its absolute crap, but I still play all of them in full

the turrets versus the antlions was fun and i wish they'd done more with it.. i love that gaming style where you set up your defenses and try to hold off hordes of shit

noel · Post by **noel** » October 27, 2007, 4:41 pm

I couldn't agree with you more. That was really cool/fun. An interesting side note about that portion of the game for the 'Firefly' fans:

[Show]: One of the two resistance guys who's there with you is voiced by the actor that played Jane in 'Firefly'.

dibit_eq · Post by **dibit_eq** » October 30, 2007, 5:11 pm

[Show]: When you're clearing the missile silo of combine, there is a point where you see Lamar jump into the missiles control capsule. So yeah, the 8lbs. is definitely Dr. Kleiners pet.

Sartori · Post by **Sartori** » January 3, 2008, 8:21 am

This is really mean, obnoxious, and an example of what not to do in TF2...I thought it was funny tho

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticl ... #TF2Grief2

First video, of course.

Kaldaur · Post by **Kaldaur** » January 3, 2008, 8:23 pm

That is terrible. But I still laughed at the bit where he stood in front of the snipers. That is a dick move, especially on a tk map.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » January 8, 2008, 2:54 pm

People like that are the ones that wreck multiplayer gaming for everyone. I really wish that when someone had a documented case of it like this that microsoft/whoever would block them from ever playing the game again with no second chances.. Xbox live needs to stop just banning gamertags when someone is a complete prick and ban their IP/s credit card, name, everything.. make sure there is no damn way they can ever play again.

Sartori · Post by **Sartori** » January 8, 2008, 9:56 pm

Funkmasterr wrote:People like that are the ones that wreck multiplayer gaming for everyone. I really wish that when someone had a documented case of it like this that microsoft/whoever would block them from ever playing the game again with no second chances.. Xbox live needs to stop just banning gamertags when someone is a complete prick and ban their IP/s credit card, name, everything.. make sure there is no damn way they can ever play again.

I have yet to experience anything like this in TF2, but it has happened a few times in BF1942 and BF2 games I've been in. I hardly think they ruined my "multiplayer gaming" experience. I don't like it happening to me, and if I got annoyed with it I'd hop to a different server. I'm not the kind of person to sit around and deal with bullshit when I have plenty of ways of not dealing with it. Honestly, the chance it might happen in a TF2 game you're playing is pretty slim. I'd imagine a server with active admins wouldn't let that kind of shit fly for very long either.

I think griefing is gay, but I laughed at the vid anyways. It's not so common that you can't just leave the server, and join a different one. That's why I thought it was funny that all of those fuckers actually stood there and answered the trivia questions. Why should Valve/Epic/id/etc. devote resources to policing griefers? They got their $60 (for the most part) so why should they give a shit? It's left in the hands of the admins or yourself to deal with it, which should be plenty IMO. Unless you're an emotional retard...

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 8, 2008, 10:24 pm

I really don't know what was happening for most of that video... But I found the trivia section funny.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » January 8, 2008, 11:26 pm

That video looked staged to me. Very well done. I laughed a lot.

I recently started playing about a week ago. It's very entertaining.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » January 9, 2008, 1:31 pm

Sartori wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote:People like that are the ones that wreck multiplayer gaming for everyone. I really wish that when someone had a documented case of it like this that microsoft/whoever would block them from ever playing the game again with no second chances.. Xbox live needs to stop just banning gamertags when someone is a complete prick and ban their IP/s credit card, name, everything.. make sure there is no damn way they can ever play again.
I have yet to experience anything like this in TF2, but it has happened a few times in BF1942 and BF2 games I've been in. I hardly think they ruined my "multiplayer gaming" experience. I don't like it happening to me, and if I got annoyed with it I'd hop to a different server. I'm not the kind of person to sit around and deal with bullshit when I have plenty of ways of not dealing with it. Honestly, the chance it might happen in a TF2 game you're playing is pretty slim. I'd imagine a server with active admins wouldn't let that kind of shit fly for very long either.

I think griefing is gay, but I laughed at the vid anyways. It's not so common that you can't just leave the server, and join a different one. That's why I thought it was funny that all of those fuckers actually stood there and answered the trivia questions. Why should Valve/Epic/id/etc. devote resources to policing griefers? They got their $60 (for the most part) so why should they give a shit? It's left in the hands of the admins or yourself to deal with it, which should be plenty IMO. Unless you're an emotional retard...

Not sure what FPS's you are playing, but I play them all - and in every single one of them people find a way to be cheap, grief, camp, whatever and it takes the fun out of the game for a big portion of people. I'm not interested in any arguments in their defense, but there are some nights playing games like Call of Doody 4 or Halo 3 online that match after match after match you have to deal with this bullshit, to the point where I will just stop playing the game all together.. And I hear the same gripes from the people I play with too.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » January 9, 2008, 1:41 pm

Leave and go to another server. If it is a "Ranked" server, you can also submit complaints to have them removed. In BF2, this can also result in lost xp/rank to those involved. I have not run into something like this since just after BF2 was released where people were placing land mines on the carrier decks to take out people trying to fly.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » January 9, 2008, 1:59 pm

I don't play on the PC... There are not multiple servers to go to on the xbox, just the next game where the same shit happen 75% of the time.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » January 9, 2008, 2:06 pm

Funkmasterr wrote:I don't play on the PC... There are not multiple servers to go to on the xbox, just the next game where the same shit happen 75% of the time.

Then take it to the Consoles forum!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 9, 2008, 2:17 pm

Another example of why PC FPS > Console FPS.

Sartori · Post by **Sartori** » January 10, 2008, 2:09 am

Aslanna wrote:Another example of why PC FPS > Console FPS.

I can't even count the ways. Cheers!

Sartori · Post by **Sartori** » January 10, 2008, 2:18 am

Funkmasterr wrote: Not sure what FPS's you are playing, but I play them all - and in every single one of them people find a way to be cheap, grief, camp, whatever and it takes the fun out of the game for a big portion of people. I'm not interested in any arguments in their defense, but there are some nights playing games like Call of Doody 4 or Halo 3 online that match after match after match you have to deal with this bullshit, to the point where I will just stop playing the game all together.. And I hear the same gripes from the people I play with too.

Bad luck. You play them all, but you only play on console? Yeah ok. Let's just say that of the FPS'es I've played online none of them are called Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 (though I hear it's fun). Ignoring that, I've played various FPS'es online since Quake came out (and before that with Doom 2 on multi-node BBSes). I think I have plenty of experience with this genre, thank you. I do not play XBox live, and prefer not to until consoles > PC's in my eyes. Most likely not the case for awhile yet.

miir · Post by **miir** » January 10, 2008, 10:04 am

I guess all the immature griefers stick to playing shooters on their XBoxes....
It's nice not being tied into a pay-to-play service like XBox/Windows Live to play online games on the PC.

I thought that TF2 video was hillarious.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » January 10, 2008, 12:10 pm

Sartori wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote: Not sure what FPS's you are playing, but I play them all - and in every single one of them people find a way to be cheap, grief, camp, whatever and it takes the fun out of the game for a big portion of people. I'm not interested in any arguments in their defense, but there are some nights playing games like Call of Doody 4 or Halo 3 online that match after match after match you have to deal with this bullshit, to the point where I will just stop playing the game all together.. And I hear the same gripes from the people I play with too.
Bad luck. You play them all, but you only play on console? Yeah ok. Let's just say that of the FPS'es I've played online none of them are called Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 (though I hear it's fun). Ignoring that, I've played various FPS'es online since Quake came out (and before that with Doom 2 on multi-node BBSes). I think I have plenty of experience with this genre, thank you. I do not play XBox live, and prefer not to until consoles > PC's in my eyes. Most likely not the case for awhile yet.

For the record, I have played FPS's on the PC in the past, I just don't anymore because 1- I like the console more, and 2- I don't want to spend the money to constantly upgrade my pc anymore. One of my favorite shooters of all times was Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

I guess I don't understand why people are so against paying for a reliable online service. I'd rather pay the 50 dollars a year knowing that when there is an issue it will be fixed, and that I will be able to talk to someone for support if I need it - as opposed to using a free service and not feeling as comfortable about those things.

miir · Post by **miir** » January 10, 2008, 12:30 pm

I've never had any issues connecting to multiplayer games in BF/BF2, COD, Quake Wars, TF2, FEAR or any of the countless other online shooters I have played in the past few years.

I'd rather pay the 50 dollars a year knowing that when there is an issue it will be fixed, and that I will be able to talk to someone for support if I need it

That's horseshit.
Online matchmaking for Shadowrun was FUCKED for almost 2 months. Consistently waiting 3-7 minutes to get into a game is not something worth paying for. Getting stuck playing with annoying/griefing players and having little-to-no recourse is not exactly a good feature of the service.
So was I supposed to keep paying a monthly fee (to play one game onoine) while waiting for them to fix the problems?

In all of the free online shooters I play, if there is annoying or griefing players they can either get voted out, get booted by an admin or you can switch servers.

Until Windows Live supports more than 3-4 games for online play, no PC user in their right mind is going to pay for the service.

I can't even think of a compelling reason why a (non-microsoft) developer would willingly design their client/server archetecture around Windows Live. Unless MS is offering incentives ($$$) there's no way any credible (FPS/RTS) developer is going to force their players to pay to play their games online.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » January 10, 2008, 12:43 pm

miir wrote:I've never had any issues connecting to multiplayer games in BF/BF2, COD, Quake Wars, TF2, FEAR or any of the countless other online shooters I have played in the past few years.

I'd rather pay the 50 dollars a year knowing that when there is an issue it will be fixed, and that I will be able to talk to someone for support if I need it
That's horseshit.
Online matchmaking for Shadowrun was FUCKED for almost 2 months. Consistently waiting 3-7 minutes to get into a game is not something worth paying for. Getting stuck playing with annoying/griefing players and having little-to-no recourse is not exactly a good feature of the service.
So was I supposed to keep paying a monthly fee (to play one game onoine) while waiting for them to fix the problems?

In all of the free online shooters I play, if there is annoying or griefing players they can either get voted out, get booted by an admin or you can switch servers.

Until Windows Live supports more than 3-4 games for online play, no PC user in their right mind is going to pay for the service.

I can't even think of a compelling reason why a (non-microsoft) developer would willingly design their client/server archetecture around Windows Live. Unless MS is offering incentives ($$$) there's no way any credible (FPS/RTS) developer is going to force their players to pay to play their games online.

I agreed with you on this like 20 posts ago sir, but once it's to that point, I see no reason why not. I never had trouble finding games for Shadowrun that I recall.. I could be forgetting though. I like having the one service to do everything, for all the features that I mentioned, you and others spouted off 3 or 4 different programs that perform those tasks. I don't want 3-4 different programs plus my game to run, I want 1. And so do a ton of other people, it's that simple really.

miir · Post by **miir** » January 10, 2008, 1:34 pm

I never had trouble finding games for Shadowrun that I recall.. I could be forgetting though.

Finding games was not an issue.... connecting to the games was.
It was so bad that I could click connect, go have a smoke, come back inside and if I was lucky I might be connected to the game by then.

you and others spouted off 3 or 4 different programs that perform those tasks. I don't want 3-4 different programs plus my game to run, I want 1.

The thing is, you don't need 3-4 different programs for a game to run... you need the game, nothing else.
If you want a social networking program to track what your friends are playing, you can use something like xfire or steam. It seems like the most important function for you is the IM type functionality that comes with Live, which makes sense for a console as it's not an open platform.... you have no choice but to use Live. PC users have loads of choice and not one of them is propietary nor do they charge a monthly fee.

If it's between paying a monthly fee for Live which only supports a couple of games or agreeing with your friends to use a specific free service that supports any game.... I think the choice is obvious.

Sartori · Post by **Sartori** » January 10, 2008, 11:15 pm

Funkmasterr wrote:For the record, I have played FPS's on the PC in the past, I just don't anymore because 1- I like the console more, and 2- I don't want to spend the money to constantly upgrade my pc anymore. One of my favorite shooters of all times was Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

I guess I don't understand why people are so against paying for a reliable online service. I'd rather pay the 50 dollars a year knowing that when there is an issue it will be fixed, and that I will be able to talk to someone for support if I need it - as opposed to using a free service and not feeling as comfortable about those things.

I don't see where I said you haven't played FPS's on the PC. I also have no problem with you preferring console. To each their own. I do agree with Miir about the online service thing though. In-game browsers are usually plenty to find a game by themselves for me (except maybe UT3 - holy shit that thing sucks). Sure upgrading PC's isn't cheap especially if most of what you do with it is play games, troll forums, or download pr0n. For some there are quite a few other things that make upgrading worth the investment besides DX10 and ragdoll physics.

We agree to disagree!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » February 4, 2008, 1:49 am

Fucking Portal.

I was playing 360 games with a friend Saturday and It was getting late but we decided to mess around in Portal, alternating playing each level, since we hadn't seen it.

I was pretty tired when we started, but the game while fun and different, wasn't too difficult and it looked like there was only 19 levels. So we kept going and got to the 19th level as I wanted to hear the credits song...

[Show]: and then the game went on, and on, and on. Didn't get to sleep until 6:30am.

Great problem solving game

[Show]: although I wish I had known that what seems like half the game takes place after level 19!

Not having a clue what the game is about before you begin is the most satisfying way to play Portal.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » February 4, 2008, 12:54 pm

Portal was fun, I tried to do some of the advanced challenges after I beat it and couldn't beat them for the life of me.

Spang · Post by **Spang** » February 4, 2008, 5:52 pm

I couldn't get past the first nontraining level. There's a box on an elevated ledge that I couldn't get to. I thought I found a way, but was always just short of getting on it.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » February 4, 2008, 8:24 pm

Spang wrote:I couldn't get past the first nontraining level. There's a box on an elevated ledge that I couldn't get to. I thought I found a way, but was always just short of getting on it.

Most likely is was one of the momentum "fling" tests. There's a place to put a portal high up on a wall and also a ledge where you can place another portal below you. Jump off the ledge into the portal and it will give you enough momentum to "fling" yourself over to the box ledge.

BTW, as with all Valve games in the Orange box, I listened to the creator commentary audio/walkthrough after completing the game. It's worth it IMO. It gives a lot of insight on game design and they also relay some of the tricks beta testers used to get through levels that weren't expected. Some of them they left in the game while others were fixed.