Pre-Order Valve Games Via Steam Next Week, Enter the TF2 Beta

The British Gaming Blog notes that the Orange Box (Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2) will be available for pre-order via Steam starting next week. What's more, ordering the games via Steam will give you access to an advance Beta test of Team Fortress 2. "The Orange Box contains Half Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2; you'll have to purchase the entire package to receive the Beta. Valve recommends giving the extra codes for Half Life 2 and Episode 1 (if you already own them) to someone who's been missing out. Not explained on the actual pre-purchase page is an added bonus for early adopters, Peggle Extreme; a special edition of Popcap's Peggle featuring new challenges and Orange Box related artwork." Apparently current HL2 fans will miss out on the Beta ... because we've already paid them money.

Does Valve suck for anyone else?

[jollyreaper]

This might be slightly tangential but does Valve run slowly for anyone else? They have some great games available and I'm more than happy to pay for the good ones out there but the whole Valve service seems bloated, clunky, and wasteful. I can buy games online without needing a Valve interface, albeit those will be indie games and not professional ons. I can download cracks from bittorrent and not need Valve running in the background. To run even the simplest game it has to fire up the whole Valve app and authenticate online. Very annoying, the sort of thing that makes you want to go back to pirating for convenience. It's as annoying as disc checks. Valve will also go and do updates that will freeze the whole system, not relinquishing control until whatever it wants to do is finished.

Note: this is coming from someone who pirated a shitload of games as a kid, buying the ones I really liked and junking the ones that were crap. I have more money these days and I'm happy to pay for what's good, I'm just sick of doing things legally being such a pain in my ass.

Re:Does Valve suck for anyone else?

[labalicious]

Have you tried the new version of Steam? My computer is 5 years old and runs it just fine. Try downloading the beta, it's really light weight >20mb used at a time. Just in case people don't have the link... http://steampowered.com/ [steampowered.com]

Orange Box is cheaper anyway

[Datasage]

Lets see here: Orange box $49.95, or pre-order for $44.95.

Or if you were to buy the new games separately:
EP2 = $29.95
Portal = $19.95
TF2 = $29.95

I suppose they could make a package containing only the new games, but I doubt that it would be any cheaper.