October 10th, 2007: Orange Box Day

Brian Ambrozy 10 Oct, 2007 at 2:31pm ET Article published in Tech

It has finally arrived. The hype may not have been as strong as the Halo 3 marketing machine, but Valve’s Orange Box has been highly anticipated by gamers ’round the world. The Orange Box consists of the highly acclaimed Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode One, Half Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

The TF2 beta has been going on since September 17th, and many members of Icrontic have been enjoying themselves to the detriment of “real life” since then. As part of the Orange Box, the price is almost worth it for this game alone.

Of course, that’s not all you get – this has been called one of the best values in gaming ever assembled. Reviews are coming in all over the web, and as one would expect from Valve’s showcase title, they are pretty much glowing.

I know I can’t wait to get home and start playing Episode 2. Half Life 2 has become an emotional saga for many players, and I for one can’t wait to find out what happens to Gordon, Alyx, Barney, and friends.

Comments

10 Oct 2007 ~ 2:39pm CB I'm going to make it a point to savor the Single-player content. No rush...
10 Oct 2007 ~ 2:47pm GHoosdum Especially when there's TF2... and the Steam Community Friends features.
10 Oct 2007 ~ 2:52pm SPIKE09 HeHe Just got the BLUE box, Half life generations. No Orange box in the UK till the 19th
10 Oct 2007 ~ 3:05pm primesuspect I don't get it - can't you just download steam, buy Orange box, and start playing? Do they know you're in the UK?

Or are you just talking about the retail "box"?
10 Oct 2007 ~ 3:09pm primesuspect I've been doing a playthrough of all the Half Life games in anticipation of Ep2... I would have been finished by now if a certain game hadn't gotten in the way....

I'm on Blue Shift right now. I had forgotten how many plot gaps the "expansions" filled in - Opposing Force is almost as big as the original Half Life, and Blue Shift fleshes out the science behind Xen, the teleportation technology, and what went wrong. Plus, you get to play a whole game as Barney Calhoun!
10 Oct 2007 ~ 3:10pm GHoosdum I replayed HL2 and was trying to get through Ep1 in anticipation of Ep2, but like you said, a certain game keeps getting in the way.
10 Oct 2007 ~ 3:38pm SPIKE09

primesuspect wrote:

I don't get it - can't you just download steam, buy Orange box, and start playing? Do they know you're in the UK?

Or are you just talking about the retail "box"?

I think it is based on server IPs, I thought they were rolling it out in phases to prevent the Steam servers melting under the strain just checked and Can't even get agreement on the retail release in the UK some say 12th others 19th
10 Oct 2007 ~ 4:46pm Nomad Is there anything that comes new with TF2 as opposed to the TF2 beta?
11 Oct 2007 ~ 5:54am IndigoRed I was told by one of the game retailers here that the box is coming out in Aus on the 16th... I'll be working.
11 Oct 2007 ~ 10:17am primesuspect

Nomad wrote:

Is there anything that comes new with TF2 as opposed to the TF2 beta?

Nothing new so far... except a bunch more aggressive and idiotic players

"****ING NOOB SHUT THE **** UP I ****ED YOUR ****ING RETARD MOTHER YOU STUPID ****ING NOOB"

Ah....
11 Oct 2007 ~ 10:48am CB I think a good feature would be the ability to ignore certain player's voice chats.

Sometimes people are Asshats, and you don't want to listen to them, sometimes they don't understand the concept of the voice chat chanell, and use it for conversations, and sometimes, they are little kids, who simply cannot handle the voice chat as well as Kyle does.

I wouldn't mind the ability to ignore these people. If it was just text chat, it wouldn't bother me, but having annoying people on the voice channel just makes it too difficult to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing.

"How old are you? 12? You sound 12?"

"I'LL SUE YOU FOR DISCRIMINATION!!"

"Yeah? You gonna sue 'Prime' of 'the internet'?"
11 Oct 2007 ~ 10:57am primesuspect lol ... That kid was spectacular.... "HUGWA!"

Kyle asked me, with complete sincerity and a stern expression: "Dad, do you think that kid was retarded? I feel bad for him"
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:01am GHoosdum I love when you told him, "My son is eight and he's being more mature about this than you."

And then when Keebs finally got totally fed up: "Seriously, shut the **** up."
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:07am Ryder Priceless
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:07am primesuspect I said "If I was your dad, I would tell you to cut the chatter. My kid is on this server and I tell him to cut the chatter and he listens.... So: CUT THE ****ING CHATTER"

lol

it's okay, last night we played on a server where you could hear ALL voice comms (both teams, which sucks btw)... And the other team had this dude that was stoned out of his wits... He just kept going on and on and on, babbling about mundane stuff "omg the soldier's helmets are cool.. they look funny when they run. the scouts look like they're on meth. dude, i just shot that guy in the face why didn't he die. oh hey dude, what's up... just runnin' by my engineer on my team. TEAM MATE what's UP man! wow that train goes fast. dude, what's with the heavy gun...." just NON stop. It was pretty funny. The other team was like SHUT THE **** UP and people were quitting left and right cause he would NOT shut up. I'd take the kid over that any day
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:13am Nomad I think I'm going to buy hawt box this weekend. so I can play with you guys.
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:13am maxclark Team Fortress seems like a cool game...i may have to invest in it and play with all you folks who play it....
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:36am CB

primesuspect wrote:

it's okay, last night we played on a server where you could hear ALL voice comms (both teams, which sucks btw)...

I agree. We ran into one of those before, and I think I figured out what was going on: Those other guys knew that the chat was all inclusive, and they were purposefully being quiet, and listening to us, without our knowing. We didn't figure it out until someone new joined their team, and started talking.

When I asked Prime to pick a new server, so we could all follow him (He makes for a good centrally located server picker), the other guys heard it, and started calling us 'wusses' because we were blaming our loses on their server settings (that's when I realized that they'd been doing it on purpose).

Personally, I think it defeats the entire point of the voice chat when the other team can hear it... Although, now that I think about it, it might be nice if you could choose to transmit to the team or to the whole game, like you can with text chat...
11 Oct 2007 ~ 11:49am Thrax Ventrilo, boys. I have a server.
11 Oct 2007 ~ 12:04pm Cyclonite I'd hop on voice chat if we could connect to Ventrilo.
11 Oct 2007 ~ 12:05pm CB Sure, but it's nice to be able to talk to non-IC people too, even when most of the team is IC...
11 Oct 2007 ~ 12:50pm Winfrey The only problem with voice chat that the other side can hear is that one team could have an "annoying a-hole" who just spams the voice chat and bugs the hell out of the other team.

It would be easier than typing how much you just owned the guy you just killed though.
16 Oct 2007 ~ 6:51pm SPIKE09 Damn you to heck just ordered the Orange Box through Valve/steam my soul may be lost to eternal damnation now :bigggrin::bigggrin::bigggrin: better be worth it guys:bigggrin:
31 Oct 2007 ~ 10:24am CB I want to know why the Portal achievements are not public, like the TF2 ones are. I want to see what my friends have done in the game.
31 Oct 2007 ~ 10:56am GHoosdum I thought they were...
http://steamcommunity.com/id/cbdroege/stats/Portal
31 Oct 2007 ~ 11:15am CB Whaa!? Why could I not find that myself? Nevermind... don't answer that...
31 Oct 2007 ~ 11:17am Ryder

CB Droege wrote:

Whaa!? Why could I not find that myself? Nevermind... don't answer that...
11 Nov 2015 ~ 7:26pm primesuspect
Memories!
12 Nov 2015 ~ 12:18am UPSLynx
HUGWA!
12 Nov 2015 ~ 12:36am Winfrey
"Did that kid just say HUGWA!?!" "DA FUCK IS A HUGWA?!?"
13 Nov 2015 ~ 4:18pm GHoosdum
There are some things that will be burned into my brain forever. Hugwa Kid is my Triple-Dent Gum commercial.