The Orange Box

If you are like most gamers, you remember the first time you just walking along minding your own business and suddenly you are hoisted off the ground. Panicked you look around with wild terror realizing that a barnacle has you. You swing your crowbar wildly and it connects with a sickeningly squishy thud. there were many similarly satisfying moments in Half-Life. As good as Half-Life was, I didn't expect the sequel to be as good. Suffice to say I was amazed at how much better it was. There were so many moments when my jaw hit the floor in utter amazement, and it still stands to be one of the top 3 gaming experiences on my PC. Episode 1 was a very well made and welcomed extension to the Half-Life storyline, and I can't complain about the cheap price. Once I saw how much gameplay I got from the measly 17 dollars I had to pay, I started to come around to the idea of episodic content. When I saw some of the footage for Episode 2, I was like an 8 year old boy staring at that thing that they desperately want for Christmas even though it's only March. You can imagine my amazement when I found out that Team Fortress 2 and Portal would be included in this package. Wait are you telling me that I not only get a slightly longer game than Episode 1, but also a wonderful multiplayer experience as well as an intriguing puzzle game as well all for 20 dollars? I was just waiting for the sign-up sheet. Valve announced that it would have two packages the black box that included just the 3 new games and the orange box, more for the people who had yet to play Half-Life 2 or Episode 1. I thought wow that is an awful lot of content for 50 dollars, but seeing as how I have both Half-Life 2 and Episode 1, I was still sticking to the black box. Then it happened. No, flying green monkeys did not take over the planet. Valve announced that it was dropping the black box. Wait...so the millions of gamers that already have Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 and have played through both half a dozen times have to rebuy them again to play episode 2? I thought that's insane. So since I am the sucker I am it looks like I will be paying valve for the two games I already own twice. However, while I think that it's a great value, I would have much rather had to pay just for the episodic content I didn't already have. And one more point, isn't that the whole point behind episodic content you get a little for a little. It's supposed to help developers get content out the door at reasonable timeframes as well as put a lid on gripes of 50 dollars is too much to pay for a game, ok so you get 1/3 of a game for 20 dollars, most people can live with 20 dollars at a time. However now it's throw the whole package together and charge normal game price. I will be shelling out 50 bucks when the orange box comes out, but I am not too happy about it. I hope that this is not indicative of future trends as I don't know what I am going to do with two copies of two games let alone three copies of two games and two copies of three games. I hope that in the future Valve sticks to the episodic content model originally specified for the the original reasons.

Kris