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Details on Half-Life 2 - Orange and Black Editions

Posted by Zonk on Wed Jan 17, 2007 02:58 PM
from the colors-are-easy-to-understand dept.
PC Games (Games) PlayStation (Games) XBox (Games)
A post at Game|Life lays out details on the upcoming Half-Life 2 releases. Instead of an unwieldy name (Half-Life 2 : Episode Two and a bunch of other stuff) they've given the PC and console releases color-coded names. The PC release, containing Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 will be available as Half-Life 2: Orange. Half-Life 2: Black will be the 360/PS3 release, and will contain all of the above plus Episode One and the original campaign. Both boxes are expected in 'late summer' of this year.
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  • Corrections (Score:5, Informative)

    by Thansal (999464) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @03:06PM (#17651278)
    FTFOA
    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.


    • Re:Corrections (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dr. Eggman (932300) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @03:28PM (#17651630)
      Also

      Both boxes are expected in 'late summer' of this year.

      Should read "Both boxes are expected to be delayed in 'late summer' of this year."
      • shhhhh

        no picking on the Valve fanboys...

        Wait, I am a valve fanboy, crap! Time to go cry in the corner some more.

        In all honesty, I think we already hit the delay, and now we are just waiting for the final release. We will probably hear more precise rumours as the date goes by, then we will hear the giant WHOOOSH as they go flying by, and eventualy we will have out precious HL2:EP2, TF2, and Portal (time to wipe up the drool again), at the very, very end of summer.

        I can't wait!

        (now all I have to figgure out

        • Re:Corrections (Score:4, Funny)

          by eln (21727) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @03:48PM (#17652054) Homepage
          We already had the delay? I admire your optimism. But remember: this package contains TF2, which has been DNF-esque in its delays. Packaging a product with TF2 is like throwing it into a black hole from which no release date can escape. Valve is packaging HL2:Ep2 with TF2 because they don't think they'll be able to finish it within the next 10 years, so they package it with their favorite missed-deadlines whipping boy.

          This product will be available just as soon as they get the email server integrated into it.
          • Sorry, but fanboy geek poweres let me follow these thing very closely.

            TF2, as it was to be was fully scraped a long time ago.

            TF2 as it is today is a relatively recent rebirth. a few searches on any of the video websites should give you a bit of gameplay footage.

            EP2 was slated for 4th quarter release ('06), however whith Portal and TF2 getting packed in it got delayed (that and the fact that all Valve games get delayed, it is the nature of life). so we actualy DID hit the delay already, and we are now look
            • Seriously, they better offer portal on Steam as I have no interest in Episode 2 or TF2. But, ye Gods, I just wanna do the thing where you put one in the floor and one in the ceiling and just fall, cause that looks fun ;)
              • I admit I am curious what the packs on steam are going to be like. I know I am not going to buy a boxed copy, but instead I will preorder from steam (you tend to be able to get a few bucks off for preordering through steam). Admitdely I doubt you will be able to buy portal by itself (atleast not for a while).

                And if you want to play with the mechanics behind portal, go download the game it is based on Narbacular Drop [nuclearmon...ftware.com]
                • already downloaded it and played it to death ;) Great concept, I can't wait to play it with the spit and polish that valve puts on their stuff

        • Re:Corrections (Score:4, Funny)

          by Ford Prefect (8777) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @04:40PM (#17653104) Homepage
          In all honesty, I think we already hit the delay, and now we are just waiting for the final release. We will probably hear more precise rumours as the date goes by, then we will hear the giant WHOOOSH as they go flying by, and eventualy we will have out precious HL2:EP2, TF2, and Portal (time to wipe up the drool again), at the very, very end of summer.

          Yep, it's quite easy to decipher Valve's release date announcements - so long as you have the right glossary [valvesoftware.com]...
      • Only if the source code hasn't been stolen.
        • .....

          People who make puns like that should be shot.

          And if you didn't realize that you were making a pun then you should be shot anyway.

          as a valve fanboy, I call BS on the theft actualy causing any delays. Also, when ever I tihnk abotu that entire thing, I always laugh at the peopel that tried to download the 15GB torrents of the "HL2 Code" that ended up being hardcore gay porn, the person who put that up is a genious.
          • I always laugh at the peopel that tried to download the 15GB torrents of the "HL2 Code" that ended up being hardcore gay porn, the person who put that up is a genious.

            So you're admitting that you downloaded the 15GB torrent? No wonder you're bitter that it was a hoax. :P
            • Bitter, who said I was bitter? Reread my post, I thought it was GREAT!

              And no, I didn't actualy download any of the torrents (real or fake), I am to much of a fanboy to want to pirate their stuff (kinda pathetic aint it?). I only know about the fake torrents because I spend to much time on HL community websites.

    • Instead of an unwieldy name (Half-Life 2 : Episode Two and a bunch of other stuff) they've given the PC and console releases color-coded names

      More like: instead of a descriptive name, they've given the releases code names which are very easy to confuse. This article summary is exhibit A.
      In fact, this may be the most confusing naming convention of all time: the sequel to Half Life is called Half Life 2 (good so far), then the episodic sequel to THAT game is called Half Life 2: Episode 1 (starting to get confusing), then the episodic sequel to THAT episodic sequel is Half Life 2: Black (?!?). Or, on the alternate route, the sequel to Half Life t

  • You need to work on your reading, Zonk. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Canthros (5769) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @03:13PM (#17651422)
    The PC release, containing Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 will be available as Half-Life 2: Orange. Half-Life 2: Black will be the 360/PS3 release, and will contain all of the above plus Episode One and the original campaign.
    That's the exact opposite of what the article says. The Black box is a PC-only edition containing Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box is multiplatform and will contain the aforementioned, and Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 1. This is stated at Game|Life, and at IGN, which Game|Life is sourcing. Thanks for the heads-up, though. I don't read either, so I wouldn't have noted it myself.

    Late summer's kinda vague as release dates go, and a ways off for something that was supposed to have shipped last year. I hope the package details are a sign that they're on-target with the stated time frame. I don't want to wait any longer.
    • Late summer's kinda vague as release dates go, and a ways off for something that was supposed to have shipped last year.

      You must be new here, this is a Valve product.

  • Team Fortress 2 is actually shipping somewhat soon.
  • And of course the Steam EULA will force you to bend over and be raped by Valve Software. You don't even have the right to run the game you pay for.

    I wonder how long before their source engine games are subjected to the same bait and switch tactics that they used with HL:Counterstrike, where they now inflict advertisements on the players, supposedly to pay for the Steam servers that they forced everyone to "upgrade" to.

    When you buy a Valve game, what you're paying for, with real money, is the right to *reque

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by josteos (455905)
      I've never had problems with Valve hammering my Steam games. The Steam forums are good reading... lots of people posting about how Valve banned their acct and how they were gunna sue, but then a Valve guy shows up and explains that buying the game with a credit card then doing a chargeback doesn't sit well with Valve. Or trying with 19 different credit cards (with diff names) doesn't sound like they are legitimate customers, and BTW Valve forwarded their info to the police. Good stuff!

      Not too long ago s

    • And of course the Steam EULA will force you to bend over and be raped by Valve Software. You don't even have the right to run the game you pay for.

      Right, and this is why I'll buy the 360 version. I'll get to play on my HDTV, with no slowdowns, multiplayer without cheaters, and will have EP1/EP2/Portal as a bonus.

      I unfortunately bought the PC version (stupid collector's edition -- what a waste that was), yet finished HL2 on Xbox 1. It's an awesome game, but I refuse to support Steam. I look forward to playin

      • Right, and this is why I'll buy the 360 version. I'll get to play on my HDTV, with no slowdowns, multiplayer without cheaters, and will have EP1/EP2/Portal as a bonus.
        ... And no mods [wikipedia.org].

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bigbigbison (104532)
      Steam may be highly problematic, but at least with it I can at least play the games I have bought. I've ran into copy protections on at least 3 other games that prevented me from even installing the games legally. I tried them on 3 different drives on two machines and you know how I finally ended up getting the games to work? bittorrent. It seems that the cracking community has no problems with eliminating the copy protection, only the people who actually pay for the games.
      I'll take Steam over that kind

    • And of course the Steam EULA will force you to bend over and be raped by Valve Software. You don't even have the right to run the game you pay for.

      Hello troll. We were waiting for someone to make this kind of post - it happens with EVERY SODDING ARTICLE RELATING TO VALVE. But your comments made me finally realise that having Steam installed on my MacBook Pro is tantamount to allowing Valve employees to molest my dog, urinate in my tea and make lewd gestures at my grandmother.

      Advertising in games? All we kno

      • But your comments made me finally realise that having Steam installed on my MacBook Pro is tantamount to allowing Valve employees to molest my dog, urinate in my tea and make lewd gestures at my grandmother.

        Actually, it's worse than that: it's tantamount to allowing Valve employees make lewd gestures at your dog, molest your tea, and urinate on your grandmother.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by spyrochaete (707033)
      I didn't trust Steam one iota when HL2 came out, so I enjoyed the pirated version for a few months. A friend ended up giving me his boxed copy of HL2 so, with nothing to lose, I tried Steam. I haven't had a single problem with it yet, and have purchased many great games at low prices (Episode One, $18; Psychonauts, $20; Uplink, $10) since.

      Yesterday marked the end of my first customer service issue with Steam. I purchased Outrun 2006 which froze my machine every time I started a race. Because Steam ac
    • See I don't really have a problem with the Source program, I've got Doom3 which I can't play because I lost the installation ID so I can either spend anouther £20 for a game I've already spent £40 on or I could just not play it. I've actually misplaced my HL2 disk in a recent house move but can still play all the Half life games without worrying about where I put some of my game dvd's. I'm sure I'm a bit more accident prone than your average person but there are a lot of legacy games (five years

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kelbear (870538)
        For all the FUD about advertising and Valve arbitrarily taking my access to games I paid for, and the grandmother rape stuff...

        My experience thus far has been nothing but positive. I look at the news window and see a release. I decide I want it, I buy it, and then I play it.

        Potential future issues are still there, but irrelevant to me. I'm done with the games. If Valve died somehow so that I couldn't use steam to play my games, it'd be trivial for them to release a tiny patch to allow us to keep playing and

  • I looked through my classic game collection (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Realistic_Dragon (655151) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @03:37PM (#17651836) Homepage
    Last night I fired up Red Alert after looking through a big collection of classic games from long gone companies.

    The on line game mode no longer works. Westwood on line no longer is it seems.

    If a once-great gaming giant can cut off service... why does anyone think that Valve won't in the future? Except that then instead of not being able to play on line you won't be able to play at all.

    It's hard to tell people that they should say no to Steam now when they won't feel the effects for another 10-15 years. Heck, even then it won't feel like a disaster... but it's pretty sad to lose a part of the past when there is no good *technical* reason, just a business one.
    • Volition stopped their PAX online service some time ago, which is too bad because I always found Freespace to be the best space shooter sim around. The made the Freespace 2 code available, but not the server :(
    • You may want to look into XWIS. It's a strong community-run server.

      http://xwis.net/

      To quote:

      XWIS is a community server created by Olaf van der Spek for several Westwood Studios games.

      XWIS supports these games:

      * Tiberian Dawn & Covert Operations
      * Red Alert, Counterstrike & Aftermath
      * Tiberian Sun & Firestorm
      * Red Alert 2 & Yuri's Revenge
      * Renegade
      * Dune 2000
      * Emperor: Battle for Dune

      • In a post-bnetd* [wikipedia.org] world, is that even legal?

        (*incidentally, this is why Blizzard, in addition to Valve, is on my shit list)

    • To expand on another poster's comment, check out the following page [strike-team.net] for step by step instructions for playing online with Red Alert. It discusses RA from the First Decade collection, but the original should work just the same.
    • As the above posters have all said. There are work arounds for just about anythign you want.

      That includes steam.

      first up, once you have installed a Steam game you can tell it to make a backup, from wich you can install and play. If you do not want steam to update yourgames you can either tell steam to run in offline mode, or just tell it to not update games.

      There are also cracks out there that will let you install and play w/o connecting to Steam, so once Valve goes belly up (or stops supportign their old

  • Question (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2007, @03:38PM (#17651860)
    If I play Half-Life and Second-Life at the same time, will I get a life?
  • What if you're color blind?!?

  • "If you are a PC owner who's already purchased both HL2 and Episode One, you can buy Half-Life 2 Black Box which contains Portal, HL2 Ep 2, and Team Fortress 2 for $40."
    All I want to do is play Team Fortress 2. Am I being forced to pay $29.95 + $ 20 + $40 = $89.95 USD to do so? Call me naive but I was expecting to be able to get Ep2, TF2 and Portal for $20-$30.
    • "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."

      This also doesn't state ANYTHING about buying the pieces seperately. These are obviously bundle packs. Individual pricing apparently has not been announced. Whether this is because there will be no individual sales (unlikely, I think) or because they are trying to hype Black and Orange (both known as 'the new pink' ... odd!) we don't
  • A PS2 release would be nice. Oh well, I wouldn't spend money on it anyway.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'd be surprised if they won't make such a pack as well. They pack everything together in special deals, it's only a few clicks you know, I bet they even wrote an idiot-proof interface for marketing, so they can go all crazy without bothering anyone else.

      And by the way, episode one was short, but quite good. Then again, they have no competition to compare them with. All other PC games I've bought recently weren't worth the DVD-case they came in. Valve seem the only one right now that can deliver a game th
    • That _is_ a shame... because episode 1 was a lot of fun.

      Short is in the eye of the beholder. I guess I tend to play a little slower as it seemed like a fine length to me.

      You sound like you really do want to play the game... so I wouldn't let some other people's feelings on the length get in the way of that. If you enjoyed HL2 then EP1 will be worth the price to _you_.

      Friedmud
      • I personally have problems with Ep1 being as short as it was because, here in the UK, it was £19.99 (nearly $40 US) At the increased price, Ep2 had better be longer, especially as not everyone will want to play TF2 (TF classic was MP only, I assume TF2 will be as well).
        I don't mind the game being short, as long as the price reflects the fact that it's much shorter. Otherwise it just seems, at least to me, a money grabbing exercise.
        • Ye gods that sucks!

          EP1 is no where near $40 (though I would say that it is still a better deal then some other games I shelled out that kinda cash for...). Can you buy the game via the Steam Store for the US amount ($20)? Hell, at that price I would have a friend buy a box stateside and just send me the CD Key.
          • I personally did buy it from Steam, for $19.99 US + tax, which just highlights how much we Brits get screwed over price-wise.
            However, downloading an entire game requires a decent connection speed, and not everyone has that here.

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