The Orange Box...

[raindog151]

I picked it up on launch day, and have been very happy. I had already bought/beat HL2 on the XBox, but this version really beats the crap out of that one in the graphics, audio, and loading departments.

 

Portal, while the main game can be beaten in 2 - 3 hours (the ending alone makes up for it), some of the challenges after that are quite difficult.

 

I bought the package just for TF2, so YMMV, but it's a great value. Now that the crapware phase of the 360 seems to be picking up (I'm looking at you, fatal intertia and two worlds..) I'm glad that this came out.

[Biter]

Is Team Fortress 2 for live and system link only or is there a split screen mode too

[Shannon]

Live and system link only.

[Artlover]

Portal, while the main game can be beaten in 2 - 3 hours (the ending alone makes up for it), some of the challenges after that are quite difficult.

Yeah, it's a bit short to say the least.

 

Question. How the hell do you get past level 18. The one where you got the 4 gun turret things on platforms in the room with a floor of acid. I mean, I can dispatch the turrets easy enough. But how to you get the stupid platform moving. When you hit the raised switch, you've litterly got like 3 seconds of open door time to the receiver thingy. Not nearly enough time to get new portals setup to divert an energy ball in there.

 

I pretty much gave up after like 30 minutes of scratching my head on it.

[King_Salamon]

okay... last time I played a half-life game was on a PS2 demo and how does the orange box compare to that? The 360 is looking awfully sexy right now...

[Shannon]

Half life 2 is light years ahead of the original Half Life as good as that one even was..

[Atariboy]

I liked the original Half-Life the most.

 

The more I play this on the 360, the more I'm puzzled why its being praised while the Xbox port was ripped apart by everyone. I'm not seeing the huge differences, and the frame rate takes a hit sometimes too even on the 360.

[Shannon]

There really is not much diff between this and the original xbox one. With the exception of achivements. I think it was pretty much ported straight over. Although I could swear I've noticed some minor differences ("tweaks")..

[Albert]

What?!?! No Half Life 2 fans in here?

 

Hey Al! Here's your chance to play the game plus Epi 1&2 without having to deal with steam.

 

It just came out and the best part is NO STEAM!!

Well, I finally picked up the Orange Box last week and spent a fair amount of time playing Half-Life 2. It looks great on the 360 and of course doesn't suffer from that audio stuttering problem that plagued (plagues) the PC version. I prefer to play games of this nature with a mouse, but it's not bad with the 360 controller. The frame rate seemed pretty fluid to me, but I was only playing it on a regular non-HD television, so I certainly wasn't taxing the 360 in terms of resolution.

 

I got as far as making my way towards the Citadel, but hadn't yet entered. There was only one place where I repeatedly got killed, and that was in the Nova Prospekt prison where you need to defend yourself against a huge onslaught of guards. You get three turrets to help, but the guards are somewhat adept at knocking them out with grenades.

 

From my earlier experience on the PC (I got as far as driving the dune buggy along the water, but didn't finish that) it definitely seems like they changed a few things.

 

Look forward to finishing the game at some point, then working through Episodes 1 and 2. And then maybe I'll fire up Portal.

 

..Al

[Red 5]

What?!?! No Half Life 2 fans in here?

 

Hey Al! Here's your chance to play the game plus Epi 1&2 without having to deal with steam.

 

It just came out and the best part is NO STEAM!!

Well, I finally picked up the Orange Box last week and spent a fair amount of time playing Half-Life 2. It looks great on the 360 and of course doesn't suffer from that audio stuttering problem that plagued (plagues) the PC version. I prefer to play games of this nature with a mouse, but it's not bad with the 360 controller. The frame rate seemed pretty fluid to me, but I was only playing it on a regular non-HD television, so I certainly wasn't taxing the 360 in terms of resolution.

 

I got as far as making my way towards the Citadel, but hadn't yet entered. There was only one place where I repeatedly got killed, and that was in the Nova Prospekt prison where you need to defend yourself against a huge onslaught of guards. You get three turrets to help, but the guards are somewhat adept at knocking them out with grenades.

 

From my earlier experience on the PC (I got as far as driving the dune buggy along the water, but didn't finish that) it definitely seems like they changed a few things.

 

Look forward to finishing the game at some point, then working through Episodes 1 and 2. And then maybe I'll fire up Portal.

 

..Al

 

I finally dove into this myself a couple weeks ago.

I agree that either I don't remember parts or think that they tweeked things a bit for this version.

 

I'm playing it in HD and everything runs pretty damn smooth.

I am also impressed by the quick load times. I thought they would be way worse.

 

I'm really looking forward to Ep. 1 & 2 and Portal myself.

[Diabloabsher]

I'm a HUGE Half Life fan, and so was overjoyed to see the Orange Box package coming to 360 (Im also a points whore )

 

And while im no stranger to FPS games on both a mouse and keyboard, and a controller, for the most part it makes little difference, but the inherent inaccuracy of the controller means that the difficulty of some of the challenges in Portal have been artificially hiked. I can easily achieve gold on the PC version, but can barely get bronze on the console version.

 

Regardless, Orange Box is not only value for money, but that fact that HL2 alone stands up to most of the games coming out now speaks volumes for it's quality (Its what... 4 or 5 years old now? Getting something like that) I snapped it up on release without a second though despite already owning HL2 and Ep 1 on PC (My PC is not good enough for playing Ep2 on full graphics settings which is why i went for the xbox 360 version)

 

Episode 1 seems a bit filler, and people will probably be dissapointed, but Ep2 more than makes up with it, it's EPIC beyond Epic.

[Shannon]

Episode 1 seems a bit filler, and people will probably be dissapointed, but Ep2 more than makes up with it, it's EPIC beyond Epic.

Thanks for mentioning that. I found Epi 1 kinda boring and stopped at that point.. Maybe I'll pick it up later.

[Diabloabsher]

Yeah a lot of people echoed that sentiment, myself included. It just felt like more levels for HL2. It's very short, and basicly an expansion pack equivilent of more levels, the last two scenes are definately memorable and fun however.

 

Whereas Episode 2 feels like a whole new game and is a thrill ride from start to finish both action and plotwise.