Orange Box
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First Team Fortress 2 machinema: Ignis Solus
Atop the steadily growing pile of Team Fortress 2 stories today, let us add this rather hefty piece of machinima. Coming from Lit Fuse Films, the machinima is titled Ignis Solus ("Burn Alone") and features one lonely Pyro, Team Fortress 2's flamethrower wielding class. The video is set entirely in the Team Fortress 2 game engine and is a testament to just how pretty it is. If this video is any indication, we're expecting to see plenty of TF2 machinima in the future.[Via GameStooge]
Joystiq plays Team Fortress 2
Our maniacal robot overlords at Joystiq just wrote up their impressions of the Team Fortress 2 beta that PC players are currently enjoying. Sure, it's not the 360 version, but we're confident that the impressions will translate to our favorite console. Long story short: Joystiq is impressed. Rather than rehash their impressions, allow us to direct you, um, directly to them. We will, however, suffice it to say that The Orange Box is looking like a definite purchase for any self-respecting fanboy.
Team Fortress 2 video: Meet the Demoman
The fourth in Valve's series of Team Fortress 2 class videos has emerged, this time showcasing the Demoman. So far, the Demoman has received very little fanfare, with nary a bit of video footage in sight. Sure, we all like riddling things with bullets as the Heavy, or letting our turrets do it for us as the Engineer, but what about the pure, visceral joy of blowing stuff up? Yeah, the Soldier has a rocket launcher, but what about real explosive death? That's where the Demoman comes in. Rather than spoil the video for you, we'll simply direct you to watch it with your heads full of eyeballs.[Thanks, Sunny]
Orange Box unlocking 'just after' midnight Wednesday
Sure, Valve's Orange Box releases this week, and many gamers might be heading down to the local big box, sitting in traffic, listening to some sports radio (nerd option: Zelda tunes, Halo soundtrack), dreading the march though the incandescently lit store to the game section only to find ... an empty slot where the object of your desire should be, but isn't! Fortunately, if you pre-loaded or purchased Orange Box on Steam, you won't have to worry about that scenario, get the game just after midnight on Wednesday, and save some gas to boot.Valve has announced they'll be unlocking Orange Box "just after midnight Pacific time ... on October 10th," giving Steam purchasers the chance enjoy some release (late) night gaming. That means you might be stumbling into work as a raccoon-eyed, sleep deprived zombie, but hey, you were the MVP in TFC2! Totally worth it.[Via ars technica]
Shipping this week: fall colors edition
And the flood of new releases keeps on, um, flooding. This week's headlining title is easily The Orange Box from Valve and EA. Boasting what is probably the most bang for you gaming buck this year, The Orange Box contains Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes One and Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. That's five bits of gaming goodness for one delicious price. Well, it's not a delicious price, but just remember that you'd be expected to pay the same price for just one of the other games being released this week. Speaking of other titles, let's have a look at all the games being released this week. The Orange Box FIFA Soccer 08 Sega Rally Revo Looney Tunes ACME Arsenal Thrillville: Off the Rails Now, go forth and purchase. The consumer machine demands it.[Via Joystiq]
Get $5 off with an Orange Box pre-order
If you already have decided on purchasing the Orange Box this coming Tuesday you can save $5 on your purchase if you're willing to pre-order the game at Gamestop. From now through October 9th (the game's release date) Gamestop is willing to chop $5 off the game's price if you plop down a few bucks on an Orange Box pre-order. True, $5 isn't all that much of a savings, but if you're already purchasing the game then why not save a few bucks and treat yourself to a McFlurry or a few lottery tickets with your cash savings. There's no need to thank us, we're always looking out for ways to keep your wallet from becoming empty. That's just the kind of bloggers we are.[Thanks, BostonKingB]
TF2: Eurogamer examines Heavy Weapons Guy
Eurogamer continues its extended look at the various classes of Team Fortress 2 with a new video highlighting the Heavy Weapons Guy and his beloved gun Sasha. Of course, PC players have become intimately familiar with all the classes thanks to the beta that's going on as we type. Still, for 360 players this marks the first time we've had a long look at the Heavy. You'll have to head over to Eurogamer to watch the video, but we can summarize it effectively right now. The Heavy Weapons Guy shoots. A lot. He shoots with an unhealthy, unrelenting passion. Every once in a while, he punches things too. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, click the "read" link and watch the video. If not, click it anyway, because the game is gorgeous.
CrossOver 6.2 supports Team Fortress 2
The latest version of CrossOver, Codeweavers' Mac and Linux application designed to get Windows games and applications working on those systems, has been released. CrossOver 6.2, now available, features a number of different updates both to increase compatibility and to make Windows applications run faster than ever.And first among these updates is the fact that it will now run Team Fortress 2 right out of Valve's new Orange Box, as seen in the video above (caution: awkward narrative and bad acting ahead-- skip to about 2:09 to see the actual product). They're also saying it features improvements when working with Outlook, and, in the strangest feature description ever, they say it really will work much faster-- when you install Leopard.CrossOver is available as a free trial on their website, and to promote the new release, you can get it for 10% off when you enter "zomg" as a special deal in the shopping cart. Has anyone tried running TF2 in Boot Camp yet? If that doesn't work so well, and you've really got to play Valve's new game, CrossOver might be the way to go.[via IMG]
TF2: an extended look at the engineer
With the release of The Orange Box fast approaching, we're itching to get all the info we can about its delicious contents. We're probably most excited for the collection's multiplayer offering, Team Fortress 2. So far, we've been enamored of the clever character class videos that Valve has released, but we haven't seen too much focus on how these various classes actually play. Enter Eurogamer, with a video of our personal favorite, the engineer. The video pretty much covers the things you'll be doing as an engineer, namely building things and dropping fools with your shotgun. Unfortunately, Eurogamer doesn't support embedded videos, so you'll have to leave the comfy confines of X3F to view it. We know it can be scary, but we also know that you can do it. Go ahead, click that "read" link. It's not nearly as scary as it seems.
The Orange Box gets a new color ... gold
It's official Orange Box fans, yesterday Valve announced that the Orange Box is 100% complete and has gone gold in time for its October 9th release.As a result of the game's gold status, it means that your Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal fun will not be delayed and that you're one step closer to getting in on all the fun it has to offer. It also means that your personal journey of obtaining all 99 achievements is knocking at the door, so clear your calendar because the Orange Box is going to require hours and hours of achievement attention. Rejoice! The Orange Box is near!
Team Fortress 2 reviewed, impresses Eurogamer
Eurogamer has gotten their grubby little hands on a copy of Team Fortress 2 and laid down the first review of the game. We'll leave the pleasure of reading the whole review to our readers, but we're pretty sure you'd like an overall summary. Well here it is folks: it's good. According to Eurogamer, Team Fortress 2 achieves the unenviable task of providing an accessible team-based shooter experience that will satisfy both newcomers and the hardcore alike. Eurogamer even notes that the need for voice communication is nearly rendered moot by intuitive map designs and classes that counterbalance each other. That's quite an accomplishment if true. Oh, one last thing before you head off to read the review, Valve will be releasing more maps in addition to the six that are shipping with the game. Sounds pretty good to us. Now, go read the review and dream of October.
Take a tour of the Team Fortress 2 maps
Alright, so we're beginning to understand the characters of Team Fortress 2, but what about their environment? In what sorts of places will we be wreaking havoc? A series of videos has been released giving a brief glimpse of each of Team Fortress 2's six maps: Hydro, Gravel Pit, Well, 2 Fort, Granary, and Dust Bowl. Unfortunately, all the videos are done in a grainy, almost black-and-white style that doesn't exactly mesh with YouTube. Hopefully we'll see some high resolution versions of these videos soon. Still, you can get an idea of the layout of each map and the game types available on them. We've embedded the rest of the videos after the break.
Team Fortress 2: Meet the Engineer
We love all of the Team Fortress 2 character videos. We're just going to abandon all journalistic integrity and say that. They are sweet. The latest video in the TF2 character series introduces the Engineer. We never would have guessed that the Engineer had a sensitive side, but he spends the entire video playing the guitar. Then again, that's the joy of being an Engineer, right? You get to set up turrets to do the killing for you, and that's exactly what you'll see in his video. We won't spoil the fun, but suffice it to say that the Engineer's facial expressions are priceless. Watch, laugh, enjoy.Oh, and if you haven't seen them already, be sure to check out the Soldier and Heavy videos.[Via Joystiq]
The Orange Box gets 99 achievements, 1000 points
Normally we're not that interested in the litany of Xbox 360 achievements uncovered by that community's strange, gaming junkies, but every once in a while something shiny grabs our attention and we become fixated on it. And so it was when we spotted the list of achievements for Valve's The Orange Box, which answered some very obvious questions that (we're frankly embarassed to admit) we actually spent too much time wondrering ourselves. Questions like: If the retail disc has five games on it, how many achievement points can they dole out? 5000? Will the achievements be divided evenly amongst the offerings? Does Gabe Newell read our fan mail? (This one is more of a followup to that last one) Will he ever respond? The list does answer two of those four questions with aplomb: The Orange Box has the standard 1000 gamerscore points available to you spread out across a whopping 99 achievements –the Half-Life titles get the lion's share of those achievements and, therefore, gamerscore points. As for the last two questions, we're guessing one of those eleven secret achievements contains a special message from Gabe just for us.
Orange Box peels away to show actual cover
If you happened to catch the original look for Valve's The Orange Box (which includes Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2), you'll know it was just a generic Word font on an orange background -- what we have now is much better. TeamXbox says this is the final box featuring Gordon Freeman (who apparently has time to put good product in his hair and keep the goatee trim), the symbol for Portal and Heavy Weapons Guy with Sacha.In case you missed it, the Black Box is no more, so PC gamers will get The Orange Box at $49.99 instead of the PS3 and Xbox 360 console price of $59.99. The individual components will be offered through Steam as well for PC owners to pick and choose. For console owners, there is a lot of stuff packed into The Orange Box, especially if you've missed out on the saga of Half-Life 2. We're going to also take this opportunity to guess that Episode 3 will be a PSN and XBM download. Unless Valve decides to come out with The Orangier Box, which will have six games and an updated version of the original Half-Life ... it could happen.
The Orange Box gets a much needed makeover
Ever since we laid our eyes on the Half-Life 2: Orange Box cover art we have been a little perplexed by its simplistic design. The cover art featured a mostly orange background with white text explaining the contents and that was about it. We accepted the cover though and never made a fuss. But now it looks like Valve has had a change of heart and design philosophy. TeamXbox is reporting that Valve decided to re-design the Orange Box cover and now it actually features artwork! Indeed, it shows off beautiful Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal artwork! We're glad to see Valve add more art to the cover art and spiffy up the Orange Box, because it really looks good. Check out TeamXbox's supplied Half-Life 2: Orange Box cover viewable after the break.
TF2 devs play cross-platform, but you won't
So, Shacknews posted a lengthy preview of Team Fortress 2. At first, everything was normal, no different than what we expected. Multiple classes, fun gametypes, cool maps, protestations that the Medic is fun to play: everything was copacetic. According to the review, Team Fortress 2 will not feature cross-platform play. That's all well and good, except Valve -- developer of the PC and Xbox 360 versions (EA UK is handling the PS3 version) -- "regularly play cross-platform multiplayer games." Why then, are we denied such pleasure? According to Valve's Doug Lombardi, it "introduces more problems than it is worth." He further notes that Valve would only implement cross-platform play in a title that was designed for it from the start.Ah well, looks like we'll have to be satisfied with fragging fellow 360 fanboys.[Via Joystiq]
Team Fortress will not have cross-platform play, but Valve plays it that way
Shacknews has a rather exhaustive preview of Valve's Team Fortress 2, coming to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as part of the Half-Life 2: Orange Box collection (also available via Steam, natch). One interesting note at the end of the article states that the Valve offices, who are working on the Xbox 360 and PC versions (PS3 version is being done by EA UK), "regularly play cross-platform multiplayer games." However, the studio's Doug Lombardi said that the final game will not have cross-platform because it "introduces more problems than it is worth." He continued to say that if Valve were to implement cross-platform that it would be part of the initial game design. Orange Box, which includes Half-Life 2, Episode One, Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2, is due out October 9.
Half-Life 2: The Orange Box ships in October
Talking with a Valve representative, Shacknews was able to pry a firm release from their lips for a little box set known as Half-Life 2: The Orange Box. The game will hit retailers on October 9th, so we advise circling the date on your calendar with an orange marker so you don't forget. Orange marker, because it's the orange box ... get it? And to refresh your memory, The Orange Box is a bundle that will include Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal for the low, low, next gen price of $59.99. How we see it is that October will be all about carving pumpkins, eating candy corn, and playing a whole lot of Half-Life 2. Cavities be damned!
Valve: our downloadable content will be free
When perusing our comment threads, you may see comments from Team Fortress 2 fans that will be opting for the PC version over the 360 version? Why? Lots of free content. Specifically, lots of free user-made content. While it may be some time before user-made content heads to the 360, we are happy to report that any downloadable content for the Orange Box will be free. Eurogamer reports that Valve will not charge for its DLC. According to Team Fortress 2 designer, Robin Walker, "You buy the product, you get the content," who adds, "We make more money because more people buy it, not because we try and nickel-and-dime the same customers." We imagine that someone at EA -- publisher of the Orange Box -- has just imploded. Free content is always good, especially when you consider that TF2 will ship with only 6 maps.[Via Joystiq]
