PS3's Orange Box confirmed for US and Europe Dec. 11

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Dec 4th 2007 1:25PM

December is looking to be a most excellent month for PlayStation 3 owners keen on shooting things from a first-person perspective, with both Unreal Tournament III (shipping December 10th) and The Orange Box stepping onto the platform, albeit a bit later than expected. An EA press release politely reminds us that the latter will be released on December 11th in both the US and Europe, with French and German versions following in 2008.

In the unlikely case that you've not been exposed to Valve's Orange Box and currently envision it as a crate full of citrus fruit, allow us to point out that it contains Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal... too. One can only hope the tech people at EA used their 11th hour to rid the port of its alleged framerate issues.

Tags: FPS, Half-Life-2, HalfLife2, OrangeBox, Portal, PS3, Team-Fortress-2, TeamFortress2, The-Orange-Box, Valve

Reader Comments (47)

One can only hope the tech people at EA used their 11th hour to rid the port of its alleged framerate issues.

Hope? Not exactly. Expect? Demand? Much more so. But I already have it for PC anyway, so...

My only beef with EA is that they've managed to release 10 installments of Tiger Woods Golf without a proper course editor.

They do what they must because they can

don't forget minor updates to Madden!

PS3 ports bring in insignificant amounts of money, so you can't expect great efforts on them. It is the same as when Xbox got comparitively sloppy ports last gen.

Except for strong Playstation titles like Madden, most multiconsole titles will sell around 8-10 times as many copies to the 360, despite the 360 not having 8-10 times the userbase. MS also lets publishers keep a higher fraction of the $60 a new game sells for.

Most PS3 development done today is done as a future investment, with the exception of several successful exclusive titles.

"It is the same as when Xbox got comparitively sloppy ports last gen."

But I thought sports games were a particular strength of the Xbox last generation. Any friend of mine that purchased an xbox** was also into Madden.

**The exception being one buddy that buys any console and the games for it.

BZZZZZZZ Wrong Jake. The Xbox versions were far, far superior to the PS2/GCN versions. All of them ran smoother, looked better, and had better online.

Just look at Splinter Cell, Burnout, Madden, NBA games, and much, much more.

Multiplatform are what I played on my Xbox. Gamecube for Nintendo. PS2 = broken...D:

Splinter Cell started from Xbox, not a port to. And Burnout was identical on PS2/Xbox except load times. Having a hard drive was a big advantage. This is something MS should have thought about this generation.

Can I put in my vote for a Wii port?

just watch out for Gabe "Kool-aid" Newell...

I would back you up in your endeavor as I think that Portal would be much too much fun on the Wii. Alas, it will probably never happen.

There's always hope though.

Exactly Nosh.
MEH to Orange Box on the PS3! Gabe doesn’t like the PS3 and he thinks you're a Tard for buying it. Well I read someone that said they will save the 60 bucks and just stay a Tard a "Torrent Tard" with a questionably acquired PC version. Well, I understand their anger sentiment regarding Kool-Aid Gabe's comments but their action I cannot support!

you can play halo 3 with a wii controller, so you could probably play the 360 portal with a wii controller

I just want Portal on Wii, as i know the others are too graphically intensive, but Portal definitely wasn't pushing any kind of graphical limits

Now the crazy physics of it might be a problem, or a may have felt so before playing Galaxy

isn't UT3 coming out on the same day

sry. crap box ill pass

That has to be one of the most cynical comments on the Orange Box I've seen. And I really don't see how UT3 is going to revolutionize anything, last time I played an UT game it was precisely the same as it had ever been.

I personally think that the Orange Box has more to offer in terms of versatility, but to each their own.

The orange box is fucking fabulous. If you really haven't played HL2 or any of the other games you truly owe it to yourself to do so. Really.

many of us agree that you're going to be missing out on a great group of games if you continue to have that PoV. But many of us also don't give a shit.

UT3 just can't hold a candle to the Orange Box, and I'm a UT fan. Hell, I loved UT2004. But after playing the UT3 demo, I decided that Epic needs to do more with the franchise than just make it prettier and add a new game mode every few years for me to buy it.

UT3 is the same as UT2004 which is the same as UT2003 and so on.

thats not what i meant

im passing on it bcuz of the fact that the quality of the port is questionable over a game that was built from the ground up for the ps3

i have HL2 on pc alredy

Well, considering I have OB on PC (where people actually KNOW how to play TF2) and EA has once again lazily shafted PS3 userbase, I'd agree. If you can get OB without supporting EA's crappy PS3 support, do it. But don't miss out altogether.

Masterinsano, have you never touched the new editor? That alone allows glorious customizations. Example? The map I am currently working on is an elaborate catwalk system over a bottomless chasm. I call it Hell's Maw. The trick? Each catwalk has a collapsable section. This can be triggered by firing on the supports or hitting switches. After a set time, they right themselves. Kills confirmed from catwalk collapses go to however set the trigger. And all this is REALLY easy to set up. And the best part, unlike other editors, Ued4 compiles it into a single file. So it's basically harkening back to the glory days of .wads.

Yeah I'll pass on that crap box as well. I really have no interest in Half Life or its "sequels". And before anyone says that I am missing out, it just isn't my type of game.

Now pass me the Unreal Tournament 3 please?

.Wads!!!! Nostalgia ftw.

I don't see how they COULD ship this with the supposed problems it had. They must have fixed it.

Many games have technical problems. But if it is still "unplayable," thats very different and I would think they'd delay the release further if that were still the case.

1up's preview was the only site that threw around words like "unplayable". Many others mentioned occasional hiccups but nothing game-breaking.

Not that I have ANY faith in EA properly porting a game to the PS3...

According to Kotaku's preview the game is playable but the frame rate issues range from minor to annoying. Nothing game-stopping but frustrating to say the least.

I assume that EA will continue working on prepping the source engine on the PS3 so this could be easy to fix with a patch

I wonder if the framerate issues will be enough to drastically drop the review score for the ps3 version, or will reviewers look at it like they did with Mass Effect and say the content outweighs the technical issues. yummy food for thought.

yeah, I'd be interested in that too. although I already own the OrangeBox for my 360 and I don't intend to buy the game twice--which is fine because Uncharted occupies my PS3 playtime.

I'm sure they'll bitch and moan.
I gotta say that while Mass Effect is very cool, the choppiness is almost unforgivable at times. And what the hell is up with the save system? I hope they implement a quick-save feature with an update.

I was glad to hear that the ps3 version of OB will have a quick save feature. Kind of found it funny that one of the complaints I read about with the framerate issues, also brought up the frame rate drop when the game quick saves. I can't recall one PC game I had that didnt take a framerate drop when I quick saved. Silly complaint if you ask me.

plyx...you can save ANYWHERE, except in an elevator or during a cutscene. seriously, I save every 5 minutes, and every 25 saves I move to a new file. old habits. I beat my first playthrough with about 160 saves. on newgame+ now :)

@gonk:"I save every 5 minutes"
That's exactly what I hate about the save system.

Eh, I would imagine framerate issues being majorly annoying in theory, but once you get immersed in the game you'll probably just deal with it without really noticing/caring.

At first Oblivion really annoyed me with its framerate drops, but once I got into it, I forgot all about it.

I'd hate to imagine owning only a PS3 and not playing portal because of minor issues.

The Power of Cell.

Hey Fernando. Good to hear from you again.

-1 - Not Funny

Now if it really was a problem with the Cell architecture, then it would be funny. The problem is that its a sloppy port of a great set of games. The EA group working on this should be ashamed of themselves. The system demands for Portal, HL2EP2, and Team Fortress are minimal.

Hasn't EA said that they didnt use the spe's of the cell and strictly ran the game using the gpu? I could swear I read that somewhere.

Good for them. PS3 needs as many hits as it take.

Meh

IGN said the game runs just fine with some occasional hicups.

A bit late to the party no?

Meh, fanboy stuff aside it's good to see this on the PS3. If only it had keyboard/mouse support too. I'm typing this from my powerbook as I'm waiting for the spawn timer to hit 0 on TF2.

Haha. I love this game.

I hope everyone waits for the reveiws to see if it works or not.

Id stay away from this one. If you really want to play this play it on PC or 360. By the way I'm selling my PS3 just to get a 360 to play this and BIOSHOCK.

What a fair, unbiased opinion!

lol

From what I understand, the frame rate issues are mostly in Half-Life 2, not Portal or TF2. But I still wouldn't buy it. Even if I didn't already buy it on PC.

I loved HL2 (played on XBOX) and prordered the OB as it got announced for PS3. Now, after months of waiting, delays and waiting again EA screwed it, I cancelled the preorder.
FU EA! Never gonna get an EA game again.

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PS3's Orange Box confirmed for US and Europe Dec. 11

Reader Comments (47)

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