PCGamer reviews the Orange Box

The first review deducts % for flaws, from the link:
- Ein paar frustrierende Stellen -6%
- Nur ein neuer Charakter -3%
- G-man bleibt Rätselhaft -3%
- Welt Menschenleer -3%
Click to expand...

I don't really care about the world being deserted, so back at 88%. I don't care about the G-Man still being mysterious, he should be, so we're at 91%, I don't care about only 1 new character, so 94%. Frustrating moments can suck, but depends on whether it's bad design or simply too damn hard. The last one I can definitely live with since HL2 wasn't exactly very hard. So that's a score of 94% or 100% :p
 
I'm not sure what they expect in terms of world. Tis a wasteland. ^^
 
I agree with you on the first point...I mean, deserted areas in a post-apocalyptic setting? You don't say?
 
tvharti said:
- a few frustrating moments
- only one new character
- G-Man still being mysterious
- deserted world
Click to expand...

So they basically hated everything that made Ep2 Ep2?

EDIT: Oh crap, missed a page
 
Samon said:
I'm not sure what they expect in terms of world. Tis a wasteland. ^^
Click to expand...

I must admit that seems like a piffling reason to deduct points. I mean let's face it what FPS doesn't take place in some sort of location semi devoid of human existence? (Stalker, Bioshock, 'insert name here of popular shooter here') fact of the matter is I'd love to have a FPS experience that takes place in a Blade Runneresque crowded City street with hundreds of highly detailed and unique looking Citizens milling around, but the plain truth of the matter is, the hardware technology necessary to handle that level of data just isn't out there for the home user at present (even Oblivion was threadbare). Mayhap when we are all running 16 multi-core motherboards we'll be playing those games, but for now and probably the next five years..it's ain't happening.
 
GTA4 makes an attempt at convincing pedestrians.
 
PvtRyan said:
GTA4 makes an attempt at convincing pedestrians.
Click to expand...

A useless example, since the game isn't even out yet.

Besides, I doubt they're going to have effective crowd AI. Probably just the 'agh guy with double M60s killing everybody from his tank run away' AI again. Might have interesting idle animations though.
 
PvtRyan said:
GTA4 makes an attempt at convincing pedestrians.
Click to expand...

Firstly GTA4 looks great, in comparison to GTA3, but it's nowhere near as detailed in terms of characters compared to Stalker, HL² or any other current FPS. Secondly it's an absolute certainty that the game will employ the same randomised visual sleight of hand all the other GTA games use to appear to render complexity. IE look behind you there's a red car, go round a corner then turn back and the car is suddenly blue...
 
If anything I would take off for the same weapons as before(I can't bring myself to considering a strider buster to be a new weapon) and looks like only 1 new enemy to fight.

I like the new enviroments in Episode 2 but would also like some new weapons and enemies as well.

I recently played through Half Life 1 and though it was showing its age, all those weapons you got still felt fresh (snarks, bee gun, I don't even know what the other ones were called but they sure would gibb a person!). I liked the new enemies toward the end. But then again I liked the Xen levels and nobody else seemed to.

I am still looking forward to Episode 2 though. I have loved every release in the Half Life universe (say for Blue Shift!)
 
alehm said:
and looks like only 1 new enemy to fight.
Click to expand...

Hunter and Antlion Worker. I don't see the point of new weapons when we have the Gravity gun and all the basics. I'd rather see new things to use for the Gravity gun, to improve its functionality; that's where HL2 fell short, I think, having only debris and such. Episode 1 was a step in the right direction there with the flares and the rollers. The 'new weapons and enemies' thing is abit of an old school cliche that never really made the game better in the first place, if you ask me.

I like new enemies, though. I suppose for a 6 hour game two is about right, and alot of effort seems to have been put into the Hunter. I hope the Worker is put to the test, seeing as though it's only going to be in one section of the game.
 
alehm said:
If anything I would take off for the same weapons as before(I can't bring myself to considering a strider buster to be a new weapon) and looks like only 1 new enemy to fight.

I like the new enviroments in Episode 2 but would also like some new weapons and enemies as well.

I recently played through Half Life 1 and though it was showing its age, all those weapons you got still felt fresh (snarks, bee gun, I don't even know what the other ones were called but they sure would gibb a person!). I liked the new enemies toward the end. But then again I liked the Xen levels and nobody else seemed to.

I am still looking forward to Episode 2 though. I have loved every release in the Half Life universe (say for Blue Shift!)
Click to expand...

Well there actually are two enemies including the hunter and the poison antlion. Also the new combine shotgunners but I'm not too sure that they are any different than the regular combine soldiers.
I personally think that new weapons aren't needed but that's just me. Even if there isn't going to be any new weapons at least you will get to use weapons like the combine sniper rifle(temporary).
 
I dont care about more enemies, if the Hunter AI is as good as they say it is, than I couldnt be happier. Outdoors, it could hunt in packs, indoors will be cramped 1 on 1 mini-boss fights. Just as long as they dont make them TOO abundant (like the big daddies).
 
I think he meant only one new character who has a large role. Magnusson is a major new character; all other new characters probably don't have that kind of impact. I don't think Valve are so lazy that they'd use rebel skins for two unique characters. It's a silly suggestion when you consider characters like Cubbage in HL2.
 
I'm not thinking about weapons, enemies because, whatever they do, I'm sure it turns out to be an excellent experience. I completely trust Valve. Don't worry, be happy, their games are excellent.
 
Well I still don't see how you can consider one new character as a con since it's great to even get one. It's an episode after all and that means that there isn't that much time in the game for multiple new characters to develop.
I mean we get 3 new characters and we won't really get the chance to know 1 or 2 of them very well because we will only get one or two scripted sequences with them.

I think that ep2 has enough length for Magnusson to fully develop as a great half life character. Of course this applies to main characters but side ones like Odessa aren't meant to be fully developed. They are just to provide one little scene in which they help you with an objective.
 
94 is bullshit. It should have got a 100 ****ing percent. I don't care if I haven't played it to know, but god damnit it's5 games for the price of 1. What's not to go ****ing crazy over? O_O
 
Just got the mag today! On TF2 beta ! NICE SHIT MAN ****ING CRAZY DAY! AND I GOT INTO THE CRYSIS BETA!
 
another one: "PC Games" Germany

Episode 2: 87%

+ Atmospheric new areas
+ Thrilling Story
+ Great Graphics and physics effects
+ Believable Characters with lifelike facial expressions
- no new weapons
- Forest offering almost no free space
- Few innovations in comparison to predecessors


Portal: 89%

+ Portal cannon is a real Innovation in the genre
+ Great plot twist at the end
+ Imaginative villain with lots of charisma
- most puzzles are undemanding
- not very colorful levels (sorry, don't have a better translation for that)
 
So I guess that pretty much confirms that we won't be getting any new weapons other than gravity gun ammo and seeing the sniper rifle.
 
I'm not sure how you can tag that as a negative thing though when you consider the idea that adding more weapons to your game is just...superficial? And Half-life has never been about massive free space, so that one doesn't matter too much annd I've always considered the gameplay very innovative in the 'scenario' sense so, can't say I'm too fussed about those.

I hope, though, that there's more Gravity Gun equipment introduced than just the Strider Buster. Bringing more variation and level of use to that is what I want to see more of.

The undemanding puzzles in Portal is abit of a bummer, but I'll see for myself. Hopefully they will ramp up the difficulty in future releases.
 
I guess free space doesnt matter too much, though it would be nice to approach things from different angles each time you play, and have the tiny weapon caches hidden around.
 
Ya like I said before I don't care about new weapons but hope that there is a lot of new gravity gun ammo. From what we seen so far it looks wide enough better than what we had in ep1.
 
Yeah, I thought the whole Rollermine/Flare gig in EP1 was fairly dandy, but I don't think the Strider Buster on its own is really enough - the Gravity Gun is ripe for the picking in terms of what you can bring to its use.
 
Logs in the forest, according to the newest videos. Hunter susceptibility to projectiles also seems to emphasize that Valve hasn't forgotten about the gravity gun by a long shot.
 
I don't mean projectiles in that sense. I very much doubt Valve would forget about the Gravity gun - it's clearly taking centre stage. I mean more things like the hacked rollermines, Strider Busters and even flares. I find these more interesting than standard weapons, so it'd be good to see more.
 
I wonder what ep3 will have to offer. Hopefully not a weapon weapon, like samon said.
 
I wonder what new enemies we will be seeing in ep3 or if we will get any at all but I think we should. Since this is going to be the last episode for the combine story arc I think we should get to see more of the Combine's forces before they leave Earth.
 
Haha, we'll definitely get new enemies in Episode 3. I get the feeling that White Forest battle is the last the City 17 Overwatch has to offer before they hand over control to the forces coming through that portal.
 
Then that would mean that we have failed the Combine. Now after all of the hard work we put into evolution, we aren't a worthy species to be apart of the Universal Union. ;(
 
I think the basic idea is that failed when we defeated Breen in HL2...
 
If you listen closely to Breen's speeches, the Combine's trust in humanity began to falter once Freeman reached Nova Prospekt, declined even further during the street war, and we can only assume that it was utterly destroyed once Freeman headshot'd the Citadel.

I just hope we get an answer to Breen's fate. Even a quick "he's ded lol" from a character would suffice, if they don't want to bring him back.
 
I think we will find out about Breen's fate in ep2 but I'm not sure whether he's dead or alive.
 
Well, the Combine were basically force-evolving everyone and assimilating us into their ranks, right, so we can assume that now things have gone down the toilet they are simply going to call quits on that and wipe the Earth clean. Apoc is right on the timeline of 'trust'. I like how removing Breen gives way to the events in the episodes.
 
Still in ep3 we are going to be seeing some combine overwatch soldiers at least we see some in the Mossman transmission.
 
Some guy at facepunch has scanned the article onto his computer and posted monster size pics of them.

There are some spoilers in here.


Scans are bad. But at least I grabbed them first.
-Samon
 
Ah, so that's how they'll
wound Alyx.

The first look at Episode 3! It looks vaguely familiar...

And the Portal antagonist has something behind her legs, probably the reason she can survive some nasty falls.

Not to mention that Portal graffiti we heard about some time ago.
 
There was a similar bit near the end of Anticitizen One, when Alyx gets kidnapped; you can't do anything but watch.
 
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