The reviews are piling up for Valve’s latest opus, The Orange Box. Metacritic right now is showing the collection of games as scoring an average score of 98, just barely edging out Halo 3 and BioShock for the top spot. Granted there are still a lot of reviews left to come in, but still, this is definitely already a competitor for Game of the Year. It’s hard to compete with three solid titles and two old favorites in one package. Even as I write this, a few of us Gaming Today writers are swapping great lines from Portal. Guess we’ll just have to see how the rest of the year pans out.

Via CVG

Now that The Orange Box has finally been unleashed, Valve has sent word that you can now download it on Steam as well. Containing Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal, To bring gamers up to date with the Half-Life 2 universe, The Orange Box also includes Half-Life 2, the best-selling and highest-rated action game series of all time, and the episodic debut Half-Life 2: Episode One-together, more than 30 hours gameplay. Purchasers of the PC version of The Orange Box who already own Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One can conveniently “gift” them to a friend from within Steam. How cool is that?

We have been talking about The Orange Box for months, but in case you have been living under a rock, here is the link to our previous posts and the official website.

Valve have just sent word that our goodies will be unleashed at midnight:

We’ll be unlocking The Orange Box products just after midnight Pacific time next week on the 10th of October. Lots of people have been having a lot of fun with the Team Fortress 2 beta, so we’re looking forward to seeing what people think of Portal and Episode Two. The Orange Box will also be available at North American game retailers later on the 10th, for both PC and XBOX 360.

For the time zone illiterate on the east coast, that means 3am. So if you want to be playing within the very hour, you’d best be pre-loading that sucker right now. Hopefully, we’ll get see the Meet the Demoman trailer soon. For now, enjoy the Orange Box TV trailer above.

With less than a week to go before the Orange Box of chocolatey goodness is unleashed upon the sweet-toothed masses, Valve have initiated the pre-loading stage to Half-Life 2: Episode 2 today. As Chris covered a couple of days ago, Portal itself started its pre-loading sequence. Straight off Steam:

The Orange Box will be available via Steam and at retail outlets beginning next Wednesday, October 10th. In preparation for launch, Valve has begun pre-loading both Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode Two to those who have pre-purchased The Orange Box. The pre-purchase campaign, available via Steam and at participating retailers, grants gamers access to the Team Fortress 2 beta and extends a 10% discount off the regular price of $49.95.

Of course, anyone (pre)ordering Orange Box now can participate in the ongoing Team Fortress 2 beta, which looks to be nine kinds of awesome.

Episode 2’s pre-load weighs in at nearly a gig. If guess if you want to play everything (new) come Wednesday (when it unlocks), you’d best start pre-loading right now. Or perhaps you are like me: old fashioned, stubborn, and still mentally living in the 90s? Savings be damned, I want to caress my newly purchased Orange Box of fun come next week. There’s just something about that tangibility. Because, I’m nostalgic like that…

Valve has announced a new wave of updates for the Team Fortress 2 beta. Right now, when you restart the Steam client, the updates will automatically be downloaded and applied. Here’s a list of some of the new changes:

• Added “Very High” texture resolution option
• Added “Minimal HUD” option to Options->Multiplayer
• Fixed headshots not always registering for crouched players
• Fixed player interpolation bug that caused jittery player animation in some cases
• Fixed rare crash when players exited water
• Fixed server crash related to Spy sappers
• Fixed overlapping UI elements in Options->Video->Advanced
• Fixed non-English language text overlapping in a few places
• Fixed players being able to use spectator points in dustbowl that were not in play
• Removed “listdeaths” command that could be abused by clients

Via Steam

If you’ve pre-ordered The Orange Box on Steam, you’ll now be able to begin pre-loading Portal, the excitingly original game based around your only weapon, which can open a portal to another location you designate. If you’ve seen trailers and videos from the game, you know of the insane possibilities the game’s seemingly simple mechanic provides. Chasing yourself through a wall, falling through a series of portals giving the illusion that you’re falling infinitely downwards; the possibilities are mind-boggling. And awesome.

For those new to Steam, pre-loading doesn’t mean you can play the game once it’s done; this is simply a way of getting the game to you as quickly as possible once it’s released. The game files will be stored on your computer until that magical release day, when you’ll download a key to unlock the files, and you’ll be on their way.

Portal and the rest of The Orange Box release next Wednesday, October 10.

If you’re unlucky enough to have played on a Team Fortress 2 server with friendly fire on, you know what a drag it can be. Getting shot by teammates to see if you’re an enemy spy (making the spy extremely overpowered), getting torched by your own pyros… it’s not a great experience. But, according to CVG, Valve never intended for friendly fire to so much as be included in the game as an option. So, it would make sense that the fact that friendly fire slipped in as an option in the beta would eventually result in seeing said “feature” removed.

Developer Robin Walker, quoted in a post on a German gaming forum (credible, I know) stated, “TF2 was never intended to be played with FF on. It was an oversight … It’ll be going away shortly,” which is what began the speculation yesterday that the feature would be yanked.

Blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun is reporting that it has received confirmation from Walker saying that he did email the German website stating that the mode was never intended to be in the game. So, is that enough confirmation for you?

Valve’s Gabe Newell has implied that Half Life 2: Episode Three could mark the end of the developer’s attempts at episodic games. Once the third episode is out, Newell says the company plans to take some time to find out what the fans prefer, using the three different episodes’ releases as examples:

“I think what we really want to do is have a couple of examples out there – Episode One, and how long it was to play and how long it took to develop, Episode Two, Portal and TF2 and then the third part of the trilogy; and then sit down with the community and say, ‘OK, so what do you want?’”

Could this mean they plan to do something completely different with the release of Episode Three as well? But basically, if the fans end up saying that Valve should go back to doing bigger projects (i.e. another, full Half-Life game), then the third episode may be the series’ last. Newell also said he would like to sit down with Telltale Games, developers for Sam and Max, to discuss their experiences with episodic games.

I’m a little torn on this. On the one hand, I’d rather not have to wait around years and years for another new game. On the other hand though, Episode One felt kind of short to me. That’s fine if you’ve got new episodes coming out every month or so (a la Sam and Max), but when it takes a little over a year? Of course, releasing Episode Two with two other full games is pretty cool, but can they really keep that up? We’ll just have to see how this all pans out.

Via CVG

Valve has announced that it has partnered with GameStop to extend their pre-order offer for The Orange Box to retail stores. Now if you pre-order The Orange Box for PC at any GameStop, you’ll get 10% off the list price as well as a key code and instructions for downloading and activating the Team Fortress 2 beta. This deal has been available for awhile through Steam, and thousands of people are already in the beta for Team Fortress 2; but now people wanting the physical retail copy can start playing the beta too. When it is released in October, The Orange Box will contain Half-Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. As an added incentive, if you already have Half-Life 2 and/or Episode One, you can gift them to a friend at no charge. Seriously, if you haven’t gotten this already, it’s the best deal ever. Team Fortress 2 alone is worth the price.

Via Press Release

“Why can’t we destroy that sentry?”
“Where’s the medic?”
“Man, defending is hard.”

Do these statements sound familiar? Have you ever uttered them before? If so, ask yourself these other simple questions:

Am I playing as a Scout?
Is there only one control point left to capture?
Is every other person on my team a Scout as well?

If the answer to all these questions is “yes,” then you need to ask yourself one final question:

What…are…you…DOING?

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