Individual Orange Box games hit retail April 9

65 Comments by Ludwig Kietzmann Mar 5th 2008 7:15PM
Filed under: PC, First Person Shooters, Puzzle

Perhaps you've been burnt by digital distribution in the past, and now refuse to even touch the likes of Steam. Perhaps you found one or more of the games in Valve's critically acclaimed Orange Box to be lacking in a peel. Perhaps you'd like us to stop with the excruciating puns you jerks and report the news already geez.

So, have at it: Valve has confirmed to Joystiq that the individually boxed Orange Box PC games are due to hit physical shelves on April 9th. The separate SKUs, which will be available worldwide, consist of first-person puzzler Portal, caricatured multiplayer romp Team Fortress 2, and a crowbar double-whammy in the form of Half-Life 2: Episode One and Two. Valve has yet to officially announce pricing details, but retailers currently list Portal at $19.99 and the other two packages at $29.99 each. Expect more details soon.

Tags: BreakingNews, Half-Life, Half-Life-2, Half-Life2, HL2, Orange-Box, OrangeBox, Portal, Steam, Team-Fortress-2, TeamFortress2, Valve

(Page 1) Reader Comments

fischju: Mar 5th 2008; 7:22PM

Why is HL2 coming out of Freeman's nose?

Tesley: Mar 6th 2008; 1:38AM

lol
True! Why is that?

ZenGaijin: Mar 5th 2008; 7:23PM

Back to the story at hand, as I own a copy of Orange box this offer is a little to late. I do greatly enjoy OrangeBox.

Jake11: Mar 5th 2008; 7:30PM

i hope these come out for the 360, i'd be all over TF2

Mal F4cti0n: Mar 5th 2008; 8:36PM

Yeah, me too.

I have Half-Life 2 for the original xbox and Portal for the laptop, but for online multiplayer I would want xbox Live and so have yet to play TF2.

You hear that VALVe, you go two 360 purchases right here!

Geist: Mar 5th 2008; 11:30PM

I'd hate to sound like a fanboy here, but I've heard so many complaints about the 360 version of TF2, that I really can't imagine why you'd want to buy that version. I mean, if you don't have a computer at all, okay, but if you can play HL2 and Portal on the PC, for your own enjoyment I would completely recommend playing it on the PC instead.

josh: Mar 6th 2008; 3:32PM

The Orange Box price recently dropped to $40 for the 360 version. At least at target, where I bought my copy 2 weeks ago, for $40.

Jake11: Mar 6th 2008; 3:38PM

i have a mac
:(

arbi2er: May 3rd 2008; 10:31AM

yea i hope it comes to ps3 as well because i already own the OB for the xbox 360. ive been playing all the games for a while and TF2 to be "clan packed awesome butter". im moving to ps3 and all i need is TF2 since ive beaten the others. im gonna miss my achievements. im close to being done. :( *sigh* ill wait to get a new 360.

Fosssil: Mar 5th 2008; 7:32PM

I suppose this is a good idea for those who already own several individual pieces of TOB (namely, Half-Life 2 and its successors). But really, those who haven't already should just drop the $50 for the whole thing -- every game in this pack is excellent and TF2 is a blast online.

Korova: Mar 5th 2008; 10:45PM

Agreed. I cant finish any game I buy, I am very midcore, but I have logged about 50 hours in TF2 already. That's $1/hr of quality fun and ownage (and some being owned too, but, hey, its all good on balance).

Robobagins: Mar 5th 2008; 11:38PM

And it's not exactly hard to find on sale either! I picked up a copy of TOB for $25 to give to a friend.

deaftly: Mar 5th 2008; 7:32PM

Those prices are the same as listed on steam, so its probably correct. Portal is the best 20 bucks ive spent in a while.

Joeshie: Mar 5th 2008; 7:37PM

Honestly, I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to just buy it on Steam. It's more convenient and you can download it to any computer you own.

Mr.ESC: Mar 5th 2008; 8:04PM

Out of topic:

When I was scrolling down I thought your avatar face (Is that Brock Samson?) was on the kool aid man body (deaftly avatar above).It looked both cool and funny,it would made a great combo.

Just saying.

Blazur: Mar 5th 2008; 8:38PM

I always opt for the box vs. Steam for three reasons:

1) You can't guarantee the longevity of Steam. If you buy the box, you not only have the manual to read at your leisure (not online), but also the installation CD's to fall back on.

2) Games that I'm really fond of I keep as a collector's item to add to my shelf.

3) Resale. It's easier to resell a complete box with CD and manual instead of just an installation key.

Mills and Boom: Mar 5th 2008; 9:00PM

Absolutely. They're cheap on Steam as it is. £25 for the whole Orange Box or £10 for each game individually.

You gotta be daft to look elsewhere really. Especially since you can backup these games.

HINT to the anti-steam people: download the game off Steam then press BACK UP TO DISC. Get it? Got it? Good.

Spoit: Mar 5th 2008; 9:22PM

@blazur
Pretty much the only thing that a retail version of valve games do is give you a box and make you wait slightly less time for it to install. Everything else is still done on steam, so if it shuts down, your boxed copy would be just an inoperative as the online copy, and reselling it would be pointless since the key is locked to your steam account.

psyborg: Mar 5th 2008; 7:39PM

Ewww whats the point in releasing/buying the episodes pack before the third one comes out? Seems so incomplete.

Neebs: Mar 5th 2008; 7:40PM

"Perhaps you've been burnt by digital distribution in the past, and now refuse to even touch the likes of Steam. Perhaps you found one or more of the games in Valve's critically acclaimed Orange Box to be lacking in a peel."

Too bad they'll be forced to register it to Steam on bringing it home. Such a waste of time.

Mr.ESC: Mar 5th 2008; 7:46PM

Well my xbox 360 version of TOB is scratched beyond recognition due overuse. I guess I will drop 20 for the Pc version of TF2.I just hope my PC can run it.

Then again I could buy the package on steam and get Garry's mod or the complete TOB and get that level editor for Portal and peggle.

capt_carl: Mar 5th 2008; 8:09PM

No reason why you shouldn't be able too. Those games can scale back really nicely. If you have a PC that's five years old with a decent amount of memory and a good 3D card you'll be fine.

Mr.ESC: Mar 5th 2008; 9:59PM

I have that but it seems I need to update the version of my graphics controller and I don't know how because there isn't an automatic upgrade option and I can't see the version of my current version anywhere so I could at least search the upgrade on google.

That's the only thing that stops me from playing my beloved PC games.

MasterInsan0: Mar 6th 2008; 2:34AM

Assuming you're talking $USD, I think Team Fortress 2 will be $30.

D_Average: Mar 5th 2008; 7:46PM

Portal would be perfect for the Wii......

Fox318: Mar 5th 2008; 7:51PM

It's already perfect on the PC.

Mr.ESC: Mar 5th 2008; 7:58PM

It's already perfect.

Fixed.

D_Average: Mar 5th 2008; 11:53PM

Sorry fellas, I must respectfully disagree. I'd rather use a remote instead of playing with a mouse all night...

SeriousKriss: Mar 6th 2008; 5:16AM

You can use the wiimote on PC, so why I'm not sure why you'd want a gimped Wii version...

Kaemon: Mar 5th 2008; 7:52PM

Dang :< Come on microsoft, I would pay 1600 ms points for a portal download.... screw your size limit. Let it be a few GB...

Mr.ESC: Mar 5th 2008; 8:01PM

Why won't you die err sorry I mean why won't you buy the xbox 360 version of TOB already?

We are getting the new TF2 maps one of these days.

Kaemon: Mar 5th 2008; 8:30PM

Because.... $60 is alot different from $20... and I could care less about TF2.

COD4 is good enough for me.

Mr.ESC: Mar 5th 2008; 10:01PM

"Because.... $60 is alot different from $20... and I could care less about TF2.

COD4 is good enough for me".

ZOMG,Blasphemy!

Burn the witch!

No seriously TF2 multiplayer mode beats COD4 by miles, Do yourself a favor and play it and unless you have already play HL2 and all its episodes you are missing a great game.

josh: Mar 6th 2008; 3:35PM

The Orange Box is $40 at Target. I bought it just the other day. It wasn't a sale price, either.

ill trooper: Mar 5th 2008; 7:53PM

I like the puns. The only thing I don't like to read is the obligatory sentence (is it in the Joystiq style guide?) saying 'Sorry for the puns' following any puns you guys write.

Let the phreaky pun flag fly and stand by it!

idiot: Mar 5th 2008; 7:54PM

i saw what you did there

Nik: Mar 5th 2008; 8:02PM

Does this mean The Orange Box is going to do a vanishing act? Should I be picking it up while I still can?

Geist: Mar 5th 2008; 11:36PM

You don't have it? YES. BUY IT NOW. NOW. Why are you not buying it yet?

KL: Mar 5th 2008; 8:06PM

Orange box is the best $50 you could ever spend if you like FPS pc games. I'd pay $50 for TF2 alone (and I'm a pretty cheap dude!) :D

ScottyGEE32: Mar 5th 2008; 8:13PM

Separate packs coming to 360?
I'd buy portal on its own as thats all im interested in (even though I wish my laptop could handle it ;_; would make it so much kooler)

Dave Silva: Mar 5th 2008; 8:20PM

Jesus, what a ripoff. $30 for what will essentially be a few CDs or a DVD in a slimline case with a piece of paper that has your registration code?

Hell, when I bought Orange Box I was expecting a MANUAL. All I got was a piece of paper and two discs.

Remember when games used to include real manuals? I do.

CB: Mar 5th 2008; 8:40PM

Games usually have in-game tutorials or pop-up tips now though.

Jeff: Mar 5th 2008; 10:04PM

No. You're absolutely right.

Valve clearly doesn't care about the physical distribution of their games, and seems to only allow it begrudgingly. EA, then, doesn't bother to pack any type of extras into the cases-- or to even make them look at all presentable.

CDN Crockett: Mar 5th 2008; 9:05PM

This is great news!!!

FrankTheCrank: Mar 5th 2008; 9:14PM

Boy, am I glad I got that Black Friday deal at Best Buy last year. I got the Orange Box and Bioshock each for $25. DVD's too.

KL: Mar 6th 2008; 6:39AM

yea so did i!!! what a great deal; that actually caused me to get a new pc for the 1st time in 4 yrs :D no regrets!

Orionsaint: Mar 5th 2008; 9:36PM

The Orange Box for the PC is selling for $29 in my area and The Orange Box for 360 is $39. Somehow this doesn't seem like a smart value to me.

Jeff: Mar 5th 2008; 9:36PM

I still wish there had been a TF2/Portal pack. Half-life still doesn't do it for me.

Eh: Mar 5th 2008; 10:25PM

Out of principle I will never buy orange box unless there was a discounted version without HL2, why should we pay twice for a game we bought years ago? Screw that.