The Orange Box for Pre-Order on Steam $45

Post by **Mozgus** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 2:32 pm

As I said before, this is pretty much the only game I am hyped for. I just pre-ordered. For those who don't know, The Orange Box is described here:

http://orange.half-life2.com/

It also gives you a neat little PopCap game I am having fun with called Peggle Extreme. It seems skinned and themed in Half Life 2 backgrounds and sound clips. It takes the BRUTAL AWESOMENESS of Pachinko, and makes it all puzzle based. Neat little distraction, 'til Orange Box launches.
Edit: Its a 10 level demo, not a full game. Still great.

Also, the online playable beta for Team Fortress 2 begins this monday, for those who pre-ordered. I'm ready! I'm ready!

Post by **Intangir** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 4:33 pm

Damn, I was hoping for a TF2 demo or something so I could just sit back and alternate from Quake Wars and TF2 all night. So their big Tuesday announcement that we "had to drop everything for" was that we can get into a beta of TF2 next week (and then only if you preorder)? Blah.

I still haven't played Episode 1 so I'm tempted to get the Orange box... But then I never got into HL2 to begin with so I'm not certain if I should bother. On the other hand I did play a ton of TFC back in the day. From what little gameplay I've seen on TF2, it looks like a lot of fun so I'll probably be picking that up if nothing else.

Looking forward to the engineer video this week(?).

Edit: More like today.

Post by **Mozgus** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:47 pm

Intangir wrote:Damn, I was hoping for a TF2 demo or something so I could just sit back and alternate from Quake Wars and TF2 all night. So their big Tuesday announcement that we "had to drop everything for" was that we can get into a beta of TF2 next week (and then only if you preorder)? Blah.

I still haven't played Episode 1 so I'm tempted to get the Orange box... But then I never got into HL2 to begin with so I'm not certain if I should bother. On the other hand I did play a ton of TFC back in the day. From what little gameplay I've seen on TF2, it looks like a lot of fun so I'll probably be picking that up if nothing else.

Looking forward to the engineer video this week(?).

Edit: More like today.

Hell yes engineer! How is he playing that guitar with those thick gloves? lol

I played TFC for many years as well so thats why I'm so hyped. Yeah I guess the beta was that big announcement they talked about last friday or whenever. Oh well. Good news. I just hope this beta is not that buggy. The game comes out so soon that it has to be extremely close to done.

Post by **fastbilly1** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:01 pm

I dunno, the changes to TF2 seem a good bit over the top. I mean demoman is the only one with grenades? NO CONC! Sorry, thats the scout talking in me. I will be buying it, but not for a couple weeks atleast. I do want to play it but several things are taking up my free time right now and Fortress Forever drops really soon.

Post by **Mozgus** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:20 pm

fastbilly1 wrote:I dunno, the changes to TF2 seem a good bit over the top. I mean demoman is the only one with grenades? NO CONC! Sorry, thats the scout talking in me. I will be buying it, but not for a couple weeks atleast. I do want to play it but several things are taking up my free time right now and Fortress Forever drops really soon.

The more you read about the changes they make and why, the more you realize they are for the better. There's a lot of interviews out there where TF2 members describe bad situations and experiences in TFC, which I've been in all too many times, and how they're fixing them.

Post by **fastbilly1** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:07 am

I have read them and taking concs away still hurts. Dont get me wrong I am all for forward progress, but I also believe if it aint broke dont fix it. TFC never really had the problem of over powered in 4v4 games (unless both teams just camped), and to this day I still play it - it is actually installed on three of my now five computers (the other two are trash boxes). So when they make major changes - Health hose that causes invincibility - it makes me quite scared at what they are doing to my good friend from college. Now if they fixed dustbowl, that would be a feat.

And when I say I use to play TFC alot, I mean that some weeks I averaged less than 6 hours a day. Most however hovered around 8 or 9. When you have several T3 lines to yourself whatelse do you do?

Post by **JJJ** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 12:55 pm

Thats a good price on Steam. I recently played through Half Life 2 on my new PC though and wasn't extraordinarily impressed... So I'm not sure I need more of the same. At the same time, Portal looks *really* cool. And TF2 I can see getting in to as well. But its a matter of 'do I have time for these games' too.

Halo 3 is coming out shortly, I've pre-ordered that. And after playing the Quake Wars PC demo, I'm pretty much sold on that as well. Thats really alot of gaming already. I'll probably wait and see on the Orange Box.

Post by **Mozgus** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 2:17 pm

JJJ wrote:Thats a good price on Steam. I recently played through Half Life 2 on my new PC though and wasn't extraordinarily impressed... So I'm not sure I need more of the same. At the same time, Portal looks *really* cool. And TF2 I can see getting in to as well. But its a matter of 'do I have time for these games' too.

Halo 3 is coming out shortly, I've pre-ordered that. And after playing the Quake Wars PC demo, I'm pretty much sold on that as well. Thats really alot of gaming already. I'll probably wait and see on the Orange Box.

Wow. You like Halo and Quake Wars. I'm afraid I can't talk to you.

Especially regarding Quake Wars. I hated the demo, and saw absolutely no one else praising it on any other sites. What can you possibly like about it?

Post by **Intangir** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 4:36 pm

I played the Quake Wars demo for a good few hours on Tuesday night and... didn't really like it. Finally figuring out how to unlock that framerate cap mitigated the experience a little bit, but even then I was hoping for something more close-quartered like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. I hear Valley is supposed to be their biggest map and not all the others are necessarily that open so maybe the other maps fare better. Still, it didn't capture me in the few hours that I was logged in.

In other news, I saw Fortress Forever was released today. I was waiting in line to grab it (stupid FilePlanet) until I canceled after I saw a gameplay video and saw everyone spamming grenades everywhere like in TFC. That might've been entertaining for a few weeks when I was younger, but I think I've graduated from that nowadays.

On the other hand, I saw nostalgia-inducing pictures from the Hunted map and now I'm starting to reconsider...

Post by **Mozgus** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:46 pm

Intangir wrote:In other news, I saw Fortress Forever was released today. I was waiting in line to grab it (stupid FilePlanet) until I canceled after I saw a gameplay video and saw everyone spamming grenades everywhere like in TFC. That might've been entertaining for a few weeks when I was younger, but I think I've graduated from that nowadays.

Yes. I watched videos and it just reinforced my opinion that TF2 is making the right turn. I'm still downloading it anyways though, to tide my over til monday.