The Orange Box | 
| From: Electronic Arts
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $29.98
You Save: $10.01 (25%)
New (23) Used (2) from $29.98
Rating:  200 reviews
Sales Rank: 93
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows Xp, Windows 2000
Genre: Shooter Action Games
ESRB: Mature
Media: DVD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 1.1
MPN: 09852
UPC: 014633098525
EAN: 0014633098525
ASIN: B000PS2XES
Release Date: October 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Characters - Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial muscles, human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence | | • | Physics - From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy | | • | Graphics - Source's shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story and Monster's, Inc., creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game. | | • | AI - Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand |
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Product Description
With part 3 of the Half-Life saga in the horizon, this collection brings you from the start so you're ready to take on the third episode of this exciting trilogy. Half Life earns its popularity and reputation at being the first First Person Shooter game to use aq lifelike, realtime plot that pits you in the action as well as behind the trigger. Created by Valve Software, each episode employs advanced technologies for better, more realistic play. In Half-Life, you assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a recently graduated theoretical physicist who must fight his way out of an underground research facility whose teleportation experimentations have gone awry. The second part of the trilogy of episodic expansions for Half-Life 2, Episode Two picks up where Episode One left off?with Gordon and Alyx traveling out of City 17 and into a vast new environment.
The player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people people he cares about are counting on him. Intense, real-time gameplay of Half-Life 2 is made possible only by Source, Valve's new proprietary engine technology
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| Customer Reviews: Read 195 more reviews...
 THIS IS THE REVIEW Valve DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE October 11, 2007
NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in Orbit)
211 out of 296 found this review helpful
HL2 was one of THE BEST games ever created - and I am not an easy customer (feel free to browse through my other reviews, including the one on HL2, you will see what I mean).
Nevertheless, the whole STEAM disaster taught me the lesson TO NEVER, EVER again get suckered by a game whose publisher:
(a) considers me a criminal - although has pocketed my $50,
(b) wants me to ask for permission EVERY BLOODY time I want to play even a single player game,
(c) installs an auto-updating, commercial-reporting and in-contact-with-the-mothership utility that retains backdoor access to my computer,
(d) lets greed dissolve any shred of shame and envision a world where gamers will be charged by the hour to play games they have already bought, and
(e) does not concede to the proven fact every "security system" eventually gets cracked and every "OnLine activation requirement" eventually gets bypassed. So, utilizing an overly inconvenient security scheme only serves in penalizing the people who actually paid good money for their product - and manage to shoot their sales in the foot at the same time.
It may seem unbelievable, yet it is True: "STEAM-secured" HL2 barely sold HALF the units that unprotected HL1 did! (Source: The Washington Post - link provided in comments).
You would think some bright MBA (who could not tell the difference between a FPS game and an RPG) was sent home with no bonus? Guess again. Here come the Episodes!
After underselling HL2, VALVE then tried to catch up with short Episodes sold as...expansions. Well, a couple of hours of gameplay and some polished surfaces an expansion do not make. So, when Episode1 sales missed their projections by far, the geniuses accountants jettisoned the BLACK BOX release (which were to contain just the NEW games) and came up with this...ORANGE BOX idea.
This release contains, of course, Episode2 and - in order to sweeten the deal - the original HL2, Episode1 as well as a short maze game and a multiplayer platform (all based on the HL2 engine). I do remember Episode1 being so short that, even back then, I was sure it was only PART of the expansion under developement: these parts were eventually to be sold as separate...Episodes 1 & 2 (& maybe 3).
Now, let's see how good a deal the ORANGE BOX actually is. This is what it contains: HL2 (an excellent 2004 game not really showing its age), Episode1 (a very short expansion), Episode2 (the rest of the expansion, also short), PORTAL (a 2-hour FP maze runner) and the multiplayer game TEAM FORTRESS 2.
So, are the accountants actually doing us a favor when pricing all these games for 50$? Not unless this is your first experience with HL2.
If you do NOT own either HL2 or Episode1, then, yes, this is a GOOD DEAL. If, however, you already own HL2 and Episode1, I would suggest waiting for the individually sold components. When was the last time we paid 50$ for another short expansion?
Now, since I do have to connect to a server in order to play a multiplayer game, it makes no difference to me whether that be STEAM or any other server. Validate away my genuine copy to your hearts content!
However, I REFUSE to ask permission every time I wish to play a Single Player or LAN game FOR A TITLE I HAVE ALREADY PAID AND BOUGHT!
I REFUSE to ever again submit to the whims of STEAM - only to fall victim to busy, unstable and fickle servers!
VALVE has to learn eventually that respect is a two-way street. The intrusiveness and inconvenience of STEAM created a huge debt with its original HL2 customers - and, since the market correction of the affect of STEAM failed to sink in, the ORANGE BOX will now inevitably pay that debt - with interest.
Episode2 may be a fine expansion and TEAM FORTRESS the new CS. Nevertheless, they are still STEAMed up by accountants posing as game designers. They fooled my once...
I am NOT going through that again!
PS:
WESTWOOD was once a mighty company riding the cutting edge of creativity (the COMMAND & CONQUER series was their innovative idea, starting with the classic DUNE that introduced the RTS genre). In 1997 they released an online RTS game named COMMAND & CONQUER: SOLE SURVIVOR. In 2003 (just 6 years later) WESTWOOD was bought by EA GAMES which (true to its mega-corporation mentality) pulled the plug on the existing servers. Whoever had bought SOLE SURVIVOR now had a piece of worthless reflective plastic.
Now, what makes you think this cannot happen to VALVE?
(and what will the value of all these STEAMed games be then?)
 Worst Amazon purchase I've ever made. January 2, 2008
Yossarian (Durham, NC USA)
152 out of 330 found this review helpful
I've been shopping on Amazon since the late 1990s. I've been playing video games since the early 1980s. Between the two, I've probably bought over 100 different video games through Amazon for a dozen different game systems and computers. The Orange Box is, without a doubt, the WORST game purchase I have ever made here. Not only do I feel completely cheated, not only do I feel as if I am in fact owed several hundred dollars in frustration fees, I actually think my overall interest in video games has been damaged by this monstrous piece of marketing vomit masquerading as a playful gamer utopia. That is how ridiculous this piece of Trojan Horsed garbage is.
The culprit is a smarmy little ferret of a program called "Steam". I don't know who came up with this, but I hope they get hit by a bus and buried in a fire ant den. Simply put, "Steam" is an Orwellian nanny program that requires you to basically convert your computer into an Internet-enabled marketing survey to even access the games you "own" (but that Steam controls). Once upon a golden time, when you bought a game you could put the CD in your computer and simply play it, perhaps with an activation key. But with Steam, you have to set up an entire account larded with nefarious third party vendors just to have a fighting chance of even downloading the games that are supposedly just included in the Orange Box. Fantastic.
And guess what - there is no mention of Steam anywhere in The Orange Box. NONE. The entire instruction manual for the Orange Box consists of a single two-sided set of control instructions for the actual games. I guess they just forgot to print the "Oh, By the Way, You Need Officially Licensed Steam Spyware To Install or Play Any Of These Games, Suckers" liner.
I have never been more disgusted and embarrassed by a purchase before, and I've been to Amsterdam. I strongly encourage everyone to give deep and abiding thought to whether they really want to pay $40+ a pop for the privilege of having customized spyware run roughshod over their computer. I guess this "5 game* --- *if you manage to navigate 15 layers of watchdog control" game "deal" really is too good to be true.
Great game ruined by DRM. October 12, 2007
Tim Peters (massachusetts, US)
55 out of 100 found this review helpful
I am in college right now, and am often very busy. I do most of my gaming when I return to my mom's house for winter break and summer break. My mom's house has no internet connection. This game cannot be played without an internet connection, due to draconian DRM policies.
Remember: When you buy a game with DRM, you're not buying a game, you're buying...well, nothing at all really.
WARNING: Massively Region Locked October 25, 2007
SN (East Oakland)
48 out of 79 found this review helpful
Orange Box is region locked like no other game before. If you buy this game in one country and bring your laptop to another country, there's a good chance Steam won't let you play it. This isn't mentioned anywhere on the box or in the license agreement, it's just a nasty surprise you get. So if you buy this game in the USA and take a trip to Japan with your laptop chances are you won't be able to play the game because Steam will detect you're using a Japanese IP address.
Right now Valve is locking this game down by country but next they may lock it down by state or even city. Sorry, you bought the game in Los Angeles, you can't play it in San Diego.
Negative five stars for a defective product. Valve stole my money.
 Overall game package....Better than I'd hoped ... maybe even a 'Game of the Year' contender in this group October 15, 2007
R. Nicholson
44 out of 85 found this review helpful
Some comments on the 3 new components of this 5 game package.
Episode 2...a worthy sequel to Episode 1...
In fact, qualities good enough (IMO) to think that it might have contended for single player, Game of the Year*, (however, its shorter overall length would probably preclude this honor.)
This game was all that I'd hoped for; it has some great battles, an extended car driving component, an interesting new weapon (towards the end), a compelling story line, a hint of humor and a touching, emotional ending.
In addition, it has smooth flowing graphics, well sync'd voice and lip movement and a few interesting puzzles. Also, the way the other characters (i.e. Alyx, Dr. Vance etc.) watch you and turn their bodies to adjust to your position (Freeman) is remarkable; very realistic.
My only small complaint would be that the first quarter of the game was a little drawn out and repetitious; however this is only a minor concern in an otherwise incredible PC game.
Easily 5 Stars...more if I could.
*****
Portal...quirky and different but fun!
A rather unique, single player puzzle game that involves going in and out of doors; doors you make with (what else), your portal gun. However, this task is not quite as easy as it sounds; to accomplish your goals you must use strategies of lateral thinking, timing and momentum to get through all 19 different levels. Of course the challenges become more complicated as you progress and to win the game (and escape), you must defeat the increasingly neurotic test-facility robotess in the finale. Great fun!
This spacial concepts took a little time to get use to, but once the basics were mastered this was an interesting and fun exercise in abstract thinking and puzzle solving. 4 Stars.
*****
Team Fortress 2...non-stop action
An excellent addition to the original TF. The gameplay could best be described as multiplayer chaos, with everyone running around like mad trying to survive. It is, however, great fun. 5 Stars.
Conclusion:
Great value for the money; 1 new game, 2 new sequels, plus a couple of old games thrown in (games that, for anyone who likes this genre, has already played long ago). Overall package...5+ Stars.
*other nominees for single player 'Game of the Year' might be 'Bioshock' and "Call of Duty 4', with 'Timeshift' and 'STALKER-Chernobyl' close runner ups and 'Crysis' in a more distant grouping.
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