Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #226 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2007-10-19
• Platform: Windows XP

Customer Reviews

Orange Box of Doom!!
OK. I admit that the title is a little over the top, but I hope you can appreciate my frustration.

I bought "Orange Box" for the PC, at Tesco for £15. Now I read on the back that you would have to go online to certify the game, and whilst the machine I use isn't online, it wouldn't be an issue.

I installed the "Steam" software, and expected to install the game from the DVDs supplied. I entered my license number and waited for the installation to begin from the DVDs. Instead I'm told that the games will be downloaded from the internet, and this will take 2 days.

Aside from the fact that I don't want or need this machine to be online, I can't even install the games directly off the disks supplied.

I checked on the internet and found quite a few people with the same problem. The reply from everyone was the same: Not how to install off the disks, but you should get faster broadband.

Why? When I have the media already?

Whilst a few people seem to have positive things to say about "Steam", and whilst I do appreciate the need for security and copy protection, this seems an incredibly heavy-handed approach and has successfully alienated a lot of people. I will endevour to return this, but hold no hopes as it has been registered.

Steam destroys my game play!
I don't want to repeat what has already been written about the numerous problems caused by the Steam engine, but I will certainly be joining those who have decided never to buy a Steam enabled game again.

Above and beyond all of the restrictions and setup problems others have highlighted, I now believe that it is the Steam engine, not my graphics card, processor or operating system which has left my Orange Box games virtually unplayable! When Steam is running my mouse pointer constantly turns to the busy indicator, about every two seconds for perhaps four seconds. Looking at the system resources shows 54% of the processor is being used up and this plummets to 2% when Steam is closed.

Given the following spec...

AMD Turion 64 x2 TL-60 2.00 GHz processor
3 Gig RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7150M

... you would expect Half Life 2: Episode 2 to run smoothly wouldn't you? Yet it actually runs so badly at times it is like watching 10 fps video! The graphics look fantastic... I just don't have the time to wait whilst I watch them being 'drawn' ... horizontal lines making their way down the screen like an old TV with (excuse the pun) a dodgy valve!

Given the amount of processor time that valve appears to be taking up, if this is not the cause of my problems, it certainly ain't helping!

I have tried absolutely everything to resolve this problem, all the driver updates, turn this on and that off and every other piece of advice offered by and to the numberous others on the various forums who are also suffering this type of problem...

My advice is don't waste your money on the Orange Box like I did ... or any other Steam enabled game for that matter!

Bargin
Half Life 2 is a brilliant game that still looks stunning today and Portal is pure brilliance. After completeing the game I'm still replaying it. It also comes with a commentry mode which is interesting to learn facts about the games devlopment. If your already a fan of Half Life having ep 1 an 2 and the lost coast level in this pack makes it a bargin even if these are reletively short.

Team Fortress two really isn't my thing and I find the interface for getting onto a game confusing hence the four stars. Otherwise all the other games are five.

Steam is very simple to use and frankly after reading all the bad comments about it I have to wonder why. I have experinced no difficultly with it (simply install, create an account then download the games you require (I brought the orange box through steam directly)). Plus there's always the option to play offline if it's not a multiplayer game. It's a nice touch however that you can talk to your friends either through text or voice (via the 'steam network') regradless of what game they are playing meaning I don't have to switch back to msn to know if someones talking to me.

The Orange box also comes with a orange box themed version of Peggle, which is more like a demo then a full game, but is a really enjoyable puzzle game.