Got Orange Box yesterday. Easily worth $50, even though I already own Half-Life 2 and Ep. 1. Ep. 2 is amazing, it's got gorgeous graphics that nevertheless run extremely smoothly, even on my aging machine. I've to everything at high, 2xAA/4xAF, HDR lighting, bloom, motion blur, and color correction on, 1024x768 and a solid 40 FPS on a Radeon X1600 Pro. The level design is just as good as the previous Half-Life games, and there are some actual new enemies this time, as opposed to the Zombine from Ep. 1. I've already met a new kind of Antlion, plus the grubs, and I'm barely into the second chapter. It already feels much more solid than Ep. 1, which was quite sold, and I already know it's going to be worth multiple playthroughs.

Portal is everything I hoped it would be and more. The way it makes you rethink 3D space is truly impressive, and I love the quirky humor that pervades throughout the game, communicated by the creepy voiceovers. The promised me cake at the end, but so far, everything they've said has turned out to either be a lie or a truth calculated to make me think it's a lie, so I'm not optimistic. Portal makes you realize that most games don't really make use of 3D space in a very meaningful way. With your standard FPS, you really just move through a series of 2D planes represented as 3D space. The extra dimension is mostly just eye-candy and doesn't really effect gameplay. Portal changes all that, and I really hope it has influence on other games. Valve has stated that if Portal does well enough, they will consider putting the portal gun into EP. 3. If so, I can't wait.

TF2 is also fun, from what I have played. It's pretty crazy, but generally just a competent, class-based online shooter. The cartoony graphics are nice, but other than that it doesn't really stand out too much.

Edit: I think most of you have already seen this, but if you haven't, it's one of my favorite recent strips.

Orange Box=Epic Win.

Agreed, though performance on my MB Pro with gimped X1600 mobility is somewhat more disappointing. It's either color correction and HDR at blurry 1024x768, or no nice effects at 1440x400. Also had to turn shadows to medium, because their new shadow-mapped flashlight is a killer.

Anyway, Episode 2 is pure awesome. I have some minor quibbles, including the fact that having Alyx around seemed a lot more awkward than in Episode 1 (possibly due to different script writers), and so didn't seem so much like a real person to me, but it was mostly amazing and I look forward to playing it on hard.

The genius of Portal cannot be overstated, as you will no doubt agree once you reach the end.

As for Team Fortress 2, I've been playing this for the past two weeks, and it is one of the best multiplayer FPS's in years. It's not just competent - it's fantastic. Most fun I've had in a multiplayer game in a long time. I feel my $45 was worth it just for this.

Yeah, I have the full X1600 Pro desktop version, and it runs quite smooth, much more so than other recent titles like Bioshock and Company of Heroes. I love the shadowmapped flashlight. At times it's quite subtle, but always there.



While I agree with you a little bit about Alyx, I found that in the part where she is wounded and you have to rescue her by getting the Antlion Guard essence, I actually missed her. Having the cool Vort companion made up for it, but I realized that playing Half-Life with an AI buddy around about 60% of the time is actually a very enjoyable experience.




I'm almost there. So far, it has simply gotten more and more awesome. I've just found out about how Aperture and Black Mesa were competing for grant money. I love how Aperture claims that their system for removing ice from fuel lines is not only cheaper than the Black Mesa solution, but is also functionally alive.I have also, of course, drawn the connection between the Portals in Portal and the Portal Storms in Half-Life.




Maybe I just need to let it grow on me. The more I play it the more I enjoy it, but I'm often a Medic because no one else wants to be, and I'm kind of missing out on the other classes. What's you Steam name and ID? I'll say hi if I ever see you online.

I have to say, I never found Team Fortress 1 really appealing, but the introductory videos for TF2 are hilarious (from what I've seen so far). If I get Orange Box, I want to try playing as an Engineer (I'm a bit of a camper, you see...).

OK, I beat Portal. It was amazing. I think I understand the connection to the Half-life universe a lot better now. The song at the end was wonderful.

My friend has it on his iPod.

It's still pretty unclear though. All we know is that they are a competitor to Black Mesa, and were working on portal technology. And that they accidentally teleported a ship and its dock to the arctic. Valve has only said that the portal gun may or may not be in Episode 3, depending on how Portal is received. That may or may not be the implications of whatever is on the ship. The context in which the game Portal takes place is also fairly unclear, though it's easy to speculate endlessly and attempt to draw conclusions.

I'll soon play through the game again with developer commentary on. That might clear up a few things.

Just got back from playing portal/TF2 at my friend's house. They're both freakin' amazing.

*wants*

Just looked at portal. Oh wow. I'm going to buy it just for that and of course team fortress looks awesome as well. i can't wait to see what they come up with for level editors.

Since it's all Source, I think it will still be good ol' Hammer. Still, Hammer updates are always welcome!

*looks at his two year old 12" iBook and sighs*

I really, really need to get a gaming rig.

Question.

If I bootcamp/vmware/parallel my Macbook 2ghz with 1GB RAM, will I be able to play Portal at an acceptable frame rate?

Bootcamp, yes, Prallels or vmware, not so sure. Portal is not as strenuous as HL2 Ep. 2 or TF2, but more so than HL2 ep. 1. Half-Life 2, I'm not so sure about, since the Source engine was not as well optimized at that point. You should have no problems with the physics due to your dual-core processor, but the integrated graphics will kill your FPS at all but the lowest settings. I'd recommend running at a low resolution with all effects on low and then slowly turning things up to see if the framerate is still good.

Somebody find a way to get this to me in China and I will give you cake.

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm checking out Steam right now, and hoping I'll be able to download everything I need.

I've been playing the end song on loop for days. It's Valve's best attempt at humour ever. Trouble is, there are probably a few spoilers in it, so I probably ruined the ending for myself.

This is a good YTMND, albeit with yet more spoilers. The full song can be downloaded from there.

Don't you know that the cake is a lie?

Awesome, I really wanted to find the ending song somewhere. Anyway, you won't understand much from the spoilers until you beat the game, or at least get to the last chamber, so it's not so bad.

Wait, I just read your opening post again.

The portal gun in episode 3?

Imagine, being cornered by combine, firing behind them, and then firing another portal at the floor where you're standing.

Or, alternatively, trapping a Combine soldier in an infinite loop.

They'd need to redo the AI to react to portals... or how about an AI enemy that uses portals? Extremely hard to code, I know, but if they could, that would be an intense fight if you both had portals.

In other news, the more I play TF2 the more I like it. It's gone from being a competent online shooter to my favorite non-mod online game, all in less than 5 hours of playing over the course of a few days.

Having never played Half-Life 2 on PC, it is safe to say that I now know why no one goes to ravenholm.

I haven't tried TF2, but i'll make sure to after I finish all of the other single-player games.

Once I get an intel mac with windows, I am SO getting portal! Just found out you can get it for computer. *celebrates*

Remember, the Aperture Science Companion Cube does not speak. If it does, please disregard it's advice.

Best. Quotable. Game. Evarz.

Just got it, I love Portal, but I'm going to finish replaying HL2 first, to get ready to do Episode 1 and 2.

During my brief tryout of Portal, I couldn't help thinking, "If Valve think it's business strategy has a hole as far as the Wii is concerned, I definitely know how they could plug it…"

Indeed. I love it. "Please note, we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death"

Here's Wikiquote's page on it. Contains spoilers!

Portal is awesome. So much potential for custom maps.

Team fortress is a game i really needed. It's so fun. Currently i'm a supporter with my best work being pyro, medic, and spy. My team forced an entire other team to leave due to the power of dual medic, dual heavy, and mass soldiers. Pyro for when we need anti spy and finally spy for when we need anti turret. I'm not a bad scout either, but i find they're too easily nullified by turrets.

After reading Wikiquote's Portal page, I have to agree with you. This game sounds like fun.

Is that what's being referred to here? I understood panels 1 & 2, but wasn't sure of that reference...

The Weighted Companion Cube is an artifact found in puzzle 17 of Portal.

http://portal.acm.org/portal.cfm

Coincidence? I think so.

Coincidence? I don't think not, I know not.

Unfortunately, I can't make this webpage work. Any ideas?

http://www.aperturescience.com/

Click on the first green box.

If you still can't get it to work, here's a hint: Ever used Linux? How about the terminal in OSX? What about those old DOS-based versions of Windows? Remember those? Good times. What kind of OS were they using in 1982?

I got that, but I don't know what to type in. According to Wikipedia the website is opened using a username and password found in the game. I only played the game once at a LAN party and did not see that info.

Hint 1:

You don't need the name and password from the game, remember that the site launched before the game was released. People figured out what game it was for pretty quickly, if you catch my meaning.

If you didn't get it from that, here's a more explicit one:

You can login in two ways: you can use any name and the password "portal" to log in as a normal user, or you can log in as an admin using a name and pw found in the game.

If you still want more:

You can find the admin login in Testchamber 17 (that's the one with the Weighted Companion Cube.)

And finally, if you're incredibly impatient or extremely oblivious:

username: cjohnson
Pass: tier3

So you log in, but then what? If you type anything it says that it's not found.

*sigh*

Try typing "LS" or "DIR"... Then take the name of any .EXE file that's listed, and type the part before the .EXE (I know, it's stupid) to run it as a command.

You get different results in the admin login from other logins, by the way.

You do for LS, but not for any other command, as far as I can tell.

Edit: @Cosmic Nuisance: and you seriously didn't type "HELP"? That's always my first reaction

Yeah, it gives you a pretty funny reaction if you type 'help'.

Well, there's that, but I meant that if you type it while logged in it gives you a list of commands. It essentially does the same thing as "lib".