Pricing Info and Release Date

[Red_Rabbit]

Half-Life 2 Orange Box Contents
What's inside the box?
by Hilary Goldstein
January 16, 2007 - Since being revealed last year, fans have been eager to get a hold of Valve's Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which includes the games Portal and Team Fortress 2. When gamers race to the store in late summer for Episode Two, they'll be faced with two choices. Both Black Box and Orange Box editions will be made available, each with slightly different content.

The Black Box is only available on PC and includes Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. It retails for $39.99.

The Orange Box is available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and includes Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two, Portal and Team Fortress. It retails for a modest $59.99.

In other words, The Black Box edition is for PC gamers who already have Half-Life 2 and it's first Episode. The Orange Box is meant for everyone else, so that they can experience the full breadth of the Half-Life 2 saga.

Here is a link to the article, but its just whats posted above.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/755/755915p1.html

[-Dirby-]

yeah, why are they releasing EP:2 for pc on the shelves? I was under the impression Valve wanted to stop selling games in stores...
oh well.

[darksoldier]

unr_etired

lol but yea, they are going to do both. the number of boxes that they put in the store will be very minimal, due to the fact that so many people buy their games off of steam

[aXeman]

Late summer...boooo

[DarthGreg]

40 bucks for TF2 and a SP expansion?

[GhOsT]

And Portal!

I think that's a fair price for the package.

[Bad Luck]

it takes them a year to make 3 hours of gameplay...son of a bitch.

[Jimyd]

Gotta remember for non-elite people it takes like 5-6 hours.

:p

While the rest of us just speedrun to all the cutscenes.

[design]

Team Fortress 2 on console, sigh

[Rimuladas]

late summer? @#$%
$40 for TF2?

All i want is TF2, i could give a rats ass about the others.

[NT.]

Team Fortress 2 on console, sigh

We'd be playing TF2 right now if it weren't for the lame console ports. It's a traveshamockery.

[GhOsT]

We'd be playing TF2 right now if it weren't for the lame console ports. It's a traveshamockery.
So where's your source for that information?

[Stayne]

Increasing the Fortress popularity is good any way it can happen, IMO. The community needs new blood, new excitement, and new attention. Maybe pushing it into the contemporary consoles will help to do that.

It will be interesting to see how consolers do basic things like rocket jump, however. I can only image how tough air control and such will be on a console. I'm curious what kinds of "autoaim" and "scripts" the console versions will have. Either way, if a fan base can be grown, it will help feed the community.

[dys]

^
IF most of those things are possible. We've seen it happen before where games are 'dumbed down' once they go console. I was actually disappointed to hear it will be consoled due to that reason.

[Stayne]

Can you give an example?

I can easily imagine how the console version would be dumbed down (larger hit boxes, aim assist, etc) but I'm not sure how that will effect the PC version. Unless they remove the features they've shown in the pre-release avi such as rocket-jumping, I dunno what they could do. You may well be very right, though.

[Masterdog]

ppl who play it on console won't be near as competitive as those on the pc

[dys]

Can you give an example?

I can easily imagine how the console version would be dumbed down (larger hit boxes, aim assist, etc) but I'm not sure how that will effect the PC version. Unless they remove the features they've shown in the pre-release avi such as rocket-jumping, I dunno what they could do. You may well be very right, though.

Deus Ex 2. The first game allowed a lot of finer points to be tweaked and a wide variety of skillsets were offered. When the second game came out, (also for console) all those features were taken away, the user-specific skills were dumbed down and it didn't require a whole lot of individual skill or strategy.

I'm sure rocket jumping wouldn't be too hard with a PS3 controller or whatever, but I can't imagine having very sharp control in the air or while bhopping, if that's even possible in TF2.

I can't imagine that they'd have two versions of the game, one for PC and one for console, if they plan on going online and combining both worlds, however admittedly i've never played an online xbox game to know what those situations are really like. I hope i'm wrong though!

[northern lights]

Deus Ex 2. The first game allowed a lot of finer points to be tweaked and a wide variety of skillsets were offered. When the second game came out, (also for console) all those features were taken away, the user-specific skills were dumbed down and it didn't require a whole lot of individual skill or strategy.

I'm sure rocket jumping wouldn't be too hard with a PS3 controller or whatever, but I can't imagine having very sharp control in the air or while bhopping, if that's even possible in TF2.

I can't imagine that they'd have two versions of the game, one for PC and one for console, if they plan on going online and combining both worlds, however admittedly i've never played an online xbox game to know what those situations are really like. I hope i'm wrong though!

I'm actually amazed at the control my brother has over Halo2 using a controller. I think its only more difficult cause we are so use to a mouse/keyboard. The only advantage mouse has over controller is precision aiming within a milisecond range.. as opposed to controllers which take a second to drag across the screen. None the less though someone with good controller skills could emulate almost any action on a mouse/keyboard.

[NT.]

So where's your source for that information?

No source, just common sense. If you've got to develop a game for three different platforms it's going to take more time than just one. Hell, the PC version could already be finished, but now they have to finish the console ports for a simultaneous release.

[Toastie]

I'm actually amazed at the control my brother has over Halo2 using a controller. I think its only more difficult cause we are so use to a mouse/keyboard. The only advantage mouse has over controller is precision aiming within a milisecond range.. as opposed to controllers which take a second to drag across the screen. None the less though someone with good controller skills could emulate almost any action on a mouse/keyboard.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=asY_I8y6C0M&mode=related&search= not really related to your post but meh

[GhOsT]

No source, just common sense. If you've got to develop a game for three different platforms it's going to take more time than just one. Hell, the PC version could already be finished, but now they have to finish the console ports for a simultaneous release.
I'm sorry, not all of us have intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Valve like you do.

[GhOsT]

Deus Ex 2. The first game allowed a lot of finer points to be tweaked and a wide variety of skillsets were offered. When the second game came out, (also for console) all those features were taken away, the user-specific skills were dumbed down and it didn't require a whole lot of individual skill or strategy.

I'm sure rocket jumping wouldn't be too hard with a PS3 controller or whatever, but I can't imagine having very sharp control in the air or while bhopping, if that's even possible in TF2.

I can't imagine that they'd have two versions of the game, one for PC and one for console, if they plan on going online and combining both worlds, however admittedly i've never played an online xbox game to know what those situations are really like. I hope i'm wrong though!
Who said they were ever going to allow the Xbox360/PS3/PC versions to ever play against each other?

[unix_yoda]

40 bucks for TF2 and a SP expansion?

That's what I'm saying....

[Sid6.7]

did i read that right. . . will i need ep1 to play ep2?

[GhOsT]

No, they are separate. All you need to play ep2 is ep2.

[kno[x]]

ppl who play it on console won't be near as competitive as those on the pc

hellohalo2

[Redneck]

As beautiful and skillful games like GoW are on the 360, I could never in a million years imagine playing TFC on a console.

[GhOsT]

I would need at least a mouse in order to play TF on a console. Though can't you hook up a keyboard and a mouse to the 360 now?

[alexisonfire]

I would need at least a mouse in order to play TF on a console. Though can't you hook up a keyboard and a mouse to the 360 now?

http://www.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2006/11/XFPS%20360%2Bkeyboard%2Bmouse.jpg

http://www.totalconsole.com/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=367

$79 ?.... whatever

[Redneck]

I got one from lik-sang for the old Xbox to play halo. Got it for 20 bucks.