Counting down for Orange box

my circuit city is out of stock, apparently every one in Dayton, next closest is Cincinnati. I've got myself setup for circuity city to email me when they have it again so hopefully I can get this $37.99 deal.

Oni said:

Orange box is fail. I want the black box. I already HAVE HL2 and HL2:E1. I don't want to buy them again, even if I can give them to a friend. I don't have any friends that don't already have the damn game.

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Well, let's look at the breakdown based on the price on steam:

HL2 $30
HL2:EP1 $20
HJL2EP2 $30
TF2 $30
Portal $20

So orange box is $50 but the same deal ala carte is $130. Even if you take off what you already have, you still have a price of $70 (or $20 worth of fail). Or you could buy just TF2 and Portal from steam and pay what you would for the orange box (and get no expansions).

OK, so you buy the orange box and get the expansions for free. You also get HL2 in the deal. Now that brings me to three points:

First: Did you think that you ever had a chance to get the parts that you wanted for the what steam wants minus the price of what you already have? Apparently $80 worth of stuff for $20?

Second: Steam is not the first outfit to bundle and reduce a price. Amazon.com has been doing that for years. Sure, you do not have to buy the same book twice but you can give someone a gift for a bit less.

Third: Do the expansions even work without the base game? Normally, that would be a huge “NO”. With steam, it is kind of hard to tell because as you say, most people already have HL2. However, can you buy just EP2 without having HL2? Perhaps they decided to make the orange box into the only deal because there might be someone out there somewhere who does not have the base package and they need HL2 to make it work

There are no expansion in the world of the Valve. Every game is standalone. Every game is based on the source engine and comes with a fully functional source engine. You can buy just Half Life 2 EP1/EP2. No need for Half Life 2. In fact you'll notice that in each new game released there are new features added to the source engine. So the engine that powered Episode 1 is more advanced than the Source engine that just powered Half Life 2. EP1 brought full HDR. EP2 has brought more advanced physics stuff, plus motion blur and a few others.

If you buy today Half Life 2, you get it as it was in 2004.

This is why the mod community is so big for the source engine. If you own any source game you get access to the SDK. So if it wasn't against the EULA, you could pay $10/$15 for Half Life 2: Deathmatch, and then get the textures/sounds from a friend that owns Half Life 2 and you could compile Half Life 2 yourself. This is also why you can load a Counter Strike Source, or DOD map in Half Life 2 if you wanted. You'd be missing some textures but the map would load, and triggers and everything would load.

Oni said:

I'd rather just get the games I want at a discount

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You are, in fact, getting the games at a discount with the Orange Box. If you paid for the games you want it would cost $80. They are giving you a $30 discount and throwing in $50 worth of free games (not any use to you, but still). It's hard to be disappointed with that deal, especially when you take into account how good the three new games actually are.

well I got the orange box and I'm really not impressed yet with TF2, maybe it will grow on me. Maybe I came into this expecting it to feel like TFC, which was one of my favorite MP FPS ever. I know I havent played TFC in 6+ years, so maybe thats the problem, maybe I remember it being way better then it actually was. But ya I'm not impressed with the feel of this game or the cartoony graphics everyone has been raving about.

On the other hand, I hadnt bothered playing any HL2 single player until now, last I played was HF1, I think it was called Black Mesa. Well HL2 single player rox, I assume I should go HL2, episode 1, episode 2 to follow the story?

So this portal that everyone has been raving about, its just making holes in walls in some sort of puzzle game? its not really doing it for me.

Petebert said:

well I got the orange box and I'm really not impressed yet with TF2, maybe it will grow on me. Maybe I came into this expecting it to feel like TFC, which was one of my favorite MP FPS ever. I know I havent played TFC in 6+ years, so maybe thats the problem, maybe I remember it being way better then it actually was. But ya I'm not impressed with the feel of this game or the cartoony graphics everyone has been raving about.

On the other hand, I hadnt bothered playing any HL2 single player until now, last I played was HF1, I think it was called Black Mesa. Well HL2 single player rox, I assume I should go HL2, episode 1, episode 2 to follow the story?

So this portal that everyone has been raving about, its just making holes in walls in some sort of puzzle game? its not really doing it for me.

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Yeah, a lot of poeple that enjoy TFC aren't liking TF2, maybe try FF? TF2 was design as a successor to the original QWTF, i think it does quite well with the graphical style and gameply. Its a game that doesn't take itself terribly seriously, but still allows people to have fun and play serious if they wanted to.

Ep1 and Ep2 do follow the story of HL2, quite well I think. I finished EP1 the other day and going to start on Ep2 soon, really good 'expansions' I don't see why every likes portal either, its a fun game really but I do get bored with the whole puzzle thing. Its a wicked concept (so was the original) and I hope the mod community goes to town with it

I just broke down and bought the Orange Box. I guess I'll have to find somebody to pawn my extra copies of HL2 and Episode 1 off on (I think I have one friend who doesn't have them yet).

Honestly, the thing that pushed me over the edge was Portal. I have not heard a single bad review of the game. At all. Quite the contrary, most people cannot say enough good things about it! Even Yahtzee at The Escapist couldn't say anything bad about it, and that's impressive in-and-of itself.

So I'm just waiting for it to finish d/ling right now. I'm excited! I wish it would go faster than 200 KB/s, though

Oni said:

I just broke down and bought the Orange Box. I guess I'll have to find somebody to pawn my extra copies of HL2 and Episode 1 off on (I think I have one friend who doesn't have them yet).

Honestly, the thing that pushed me over the edge was Portal. I have not heard a single bad review of the game. At all. Quite the contrary, most people cannot say enough good things about it! Even Yahtzee at The Escapist couldn't say anything bad about it, and that's impressive in-and-of itself.

So I'm just waiting for it to finish d/ling right now. I'm excited! I wish it would go faster than 200 KB/s, though

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Yep yep. I was in your boat. I wanted to pick it up in store because my DVD drive is way faster than downloading. I was upset that I had to download it, and trust me, I stopped EP2 and TF2 from downloading so portal would go faster..I probably watched 70% of it downloading. It took me 4 hours to download in all, then I started EP2 and TF2 downloading again while I played portal.

Go out and do something! Stop staring at the percentage of download!

Holy BALLS! Portal is bloody BRILLIANT! I haven't played a game with such awesome dark humor before ever!

"Remember that time when I was going to murder you in the fire, and you were all like, 'no way!'? Yeah, good times"