The Orange Box
For some stupid reason I’ve dedicated myself to Valve games and enjoyed playing Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One, since then I knew there would be three episodes and I would have to buy these games down the line to enjoy the complete story. Fair enough, the next chapter has been delayed for quite some time now and is set to be released next week on October 10th.
I was extremely pissed off when Valve cancelled the release of The Black Box that would of included Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The games I don’t already own and would gladly purchase. However now there is only The Orange Box that includes these three games and the two I already own. Every game site seems to tout it as a great deal, and price wise it’s really good. I’m sure if you’re out there and never played those games you’ll have your money’s worth of playtime. Valve has an other clever idea for their marketing, since you don’t need these games twice you should/could give them to a friend that hasn’t played these games 2 years ago. Upon release I’ll be able to send a code to a friend so he can get these two games. The thing is if he really likes it, he’ll probably end up buying The Orange Box and get stock with two copies of those games too. I would of like better respect from Valve and at some point I wanted to vote with my dollar, make them understand how wrong it is. I just wonder what will happen when they reach the end cycle for Episode Three… will they create a new bundle to rip off their loyal contributors? I believe they had the right method at first with The Black Box, but were corrupted by evil and let money get to their heads.
I’ll finish off with my appreciation of the purchase of the game via Steam, since you need the thing running anyway to play their boxed games why not get it online. It was a few clicks and hop they got money through PayPal. The games are associated with my Steam account and through a nice pre-order discount I saved a total of 16$ compared to what my local Canadian retailer would of charged me. I consider this my first digital purchase and I think it might grow on me…
Expect a review soon, if you never played those games before look-out for massive give aways in the coming weeks, not from me – but from all the ones buying this bundle across the globe. Half-Life 2 made a kind of revolution in my gaming life with a solid story line and cinematic value action adventure.