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"The Freeman Returns" with The Official Orange Box Thread

Jaded Alyx said:
'Room 19' is truly where the game begins.

Serious. Took me 1 1/2 to get to room 19. Spent the next 2 hrs trying to beat room 19. That one small room after the
rocket turret
had me pulling my hair in frustration for 45 minutes.
 
Masta_Killah said:
Serious. Took me 1 1/2 to get to room 19. Spent the next 2 hrs trying to beat room 19. That one small room after the
rocket turret
had me pulling my hair in frustration for 45 minutes.


That's also the same room where you can totally break the game. I've tried putting portals in several spots around there and have managed to find a couple game killing bugs.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
That's also the same room where you can totally break the game. I've tried putting portals in several spots around there and have managed to find a couple game killing bugs.

Go on?
 
dogmaan said:


Bascially you can exit completely out of the entire level, or at least be in a continual fall until the level disappears out of view. You'll have to reset the game 'cause it won't let you load a saved file. I've had this happen twice in the area, both times placing portals in different spots.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
Bascially you can exit completely out of the entire level, or at least be in a continual fall until the level disappears out of view. You'll have to reset the game 'cause it won't let you load a saved file. I've had this happen twice in the area, both times placing portals in different spots.

have you seen any of the speedruns for portal yet?

I saw lvl18 done in 1:14, I reckon it could be done quicker
 
Judging from the leap in quality from Ep. 1 to Ep. 2, as well as the hints in Ep. 2 (
Going to ship made by Aperture Sciences, Eli's warning, G-Man's warning, etc.
) Episode 3 is going to be GOTY material.
 
Just finished Portal. I liked the last level a lot more than I liked the rest of the game. And the credits were funny. But not ROFL funny. Going to try some Advanced challenges tomorrow I think. Episode One and Two are my favorite part of the entire Orange Box package I think. That's not to disrespect TF2, Portal or HL2.
 
ToyMachine228 said:
Just finished Portal. I liked the last level a lot more than I liked the rest of the game. And the credits were funny. But not ROFL funny. Going to try some Advanced challenges tomorrow I think. Episode One and Two are my favorite part of the entire Orange Box package I think. That's not to disrespect TF2, Portal or HL2.

I feel the same.

Edit: Death_Born, HL2:Ep. 2 is already GOTY material. Ep. 3 being as such wouldn't really be that much of a change. :D
 
i dont care for the end of hl2... the super grav gun sucks.

i better get a damn gun and fast.

game is still brilliant... but its like valve cant end one of these games on a high note.

hl1 has xen, hl2 has crazy powerfull weapon thats not any fun.
 
StoOgE said:
i dont care for the end of hl2... the super grav gun sucks.

i better get a damn gun and fast.

game is still brilliant... but its like valve cant end one of these games on a high note.

hl1 has xen, hl2 has crazy powerfull weapon thats not any fun.

Have you played either of the episodes yet? I agree with what you're saying about HL2, but, well, wait till you get to the end of Ep. 2... :D
 
traveler said:
Have you played either of the episodes yet? I agree with what you're saying about HL2, but, well, wait till you get to the end of Ep. 2... :D


the train just crashed in ep1. so i still dont have a gun.
 
fistfulofmetal said:
How the hell can you not have fun using your enemies as weapons against other enemies?


it was fun for about 5 minutes. there is too much life available and its too easy to kill people.
 
StoOgE said:
the train just crashed in ep1. so i still dont have a gun.

Ep. 1 was originally designed around the idea of the player going through without a gun for a while/having to conservatively use ammunition and work with Alyx. As such, it will be that way. Quit assuming this is necessarily a negative and give it a chance.
 
traveler said:
Ep. 1 was originally designed around the idea of the player going through without a gun for a while/having to conservatively use ammunition and work with Alyx. As such, it will be that way. Quit assuming this is necessarily a negative and give it a chance.


well the puzzles/orb thingies have so far been better than the end of hl1... but city 17 stuff was the high point so far.
 
StoOgE said:
well the puzzles/orb thingies have so far been better than the end of hl1... but city 17 stuff was the high point so far.

You're in Lowlife, correct? It's, personally, my favorite stage in Ep. 1 and the best stage (once again IMO) since the Anticitizen One and Follow Freeman stuff which, I agree, was the best of Half-Life 2.
 
Question about Portal...
Where do you land when you get blown out of the facility? Is it supposed to be someplace specific? And I thought that the voice we had been hearing would be a Combine. In the slug form. But I was wrong.
 
Question about portal

I think you are outside the apeture science research compound, by the front gate I guess. You've been blown through the ceiling of the research lab. As to where that might be in the world, who knows?
 
Picked it up today.


Ugh, whilst the annoying physics irked me to no end on HL2 on the PC they're positively making my blood boil with the 360 controller. The amount of times you get caught around incidental objects or how half the time the game doesn't recognise that you've hit something with your crowbar or your gun is driving me mad. Still, it remains an incredibly atmospheric game and still looks nice. TF2 is great fun if very, very laggy at times.
 
Snaku said:
snaku-bobomb.gif

Haha, great :)
 
I just finished Half Life 2, quite late to play this game (but I haven't played anything made more recently anyway), and it was mostly fun but I also felt it was a bit lacking in certain respects. I'm sure this game has been talked to death about but I may as well dump my views here.

The game was pretty slow to get into things and didn't feel like the environment it was trying to create through the dialogue actually existed in the gameplay...although that would be a hard thing to achieve.

The best parts of the game, for me, were the chaotic indoor battles with the combine troops. Something just works really well when you are shining the flashlight in a dark room, cycling between weapons with different sounds and rate of fire, sprint-strafing around the combine troops. The last sections of the game where you have to disable 3 generators, then fight off those strider machines, then take on strider, combine, and gunships all at once...well they were just brilliant. It's just a shame that kind of intense and well designed encounter was rare, as were the better indoor battles with squads of combine.


Some of the less enjoyable things that really stood out while I was playing were:

- Too many loading screens.
- Excessive use of crates and barrels throughout the game.
- Repetitive human character models.
- The flipping between "human" and "alien" enemies was a bit heavy handed at times. I didn't think much of that strange diversion into Resident Evil Land or the short inclusion of "bugs". It worked better when both types of enemy were combined together in the environments.
- Having a squad of retards follow you around was really fucking annoying - especially when they blocked escape routes or returned after I had intentionally got them killed off.
- Some times it took me longer than it should have to find the next path forward
- The buggy/hovercraft parts gave me motion sickness (which I have never had before in my life).
- Protracted transportation throughout the citadel was pretty boring and the ending was a bit "meh".

I think they could have gotten away with not using crates for health/ammo if they had just stuck to only the wall-mounted health/suit rechargers to make them a much more relieving sight, as well as engineering more battles around them. Finding extra ammo could just have been left to picking it up off death bodies or from wall mounted gun racks.

The game also gets you into thinking about using the mechanics of objects to solve puzzles or kill enemies; so when I tried to blow up the legs of striders to kill them I was disappointed to see it didn't work at all, same goes for when I tried to unplug a power source by pushing a table into the wire. I guess it is too much to demand :D

Some fundamental control/mechanics aspects that I wasn't a big fan of included: the "platforming" sections which only made me realise just how well Metroid Prime executed jumping in the first person; the lack of a weapon-zoom was strange and counter intuitive given some of the high-tech rifles you had; and the grenade toss felt wrong. Long-range enemies were better dispatched with the pistol, magnum and crossbow...I was really missing a weapon zoom for the long-range and a melee attack (not trying to switch to the crowbar during an intense fire-fight!) for the close range. It feels wrong to say this about a game that is supposed to be one of the best ever but it felt like it could have been so much more :/.

Despite that, I thought it was a good game with some great moments but also had a fair bit of "filler" and lacked enough really satisfying moments. Anyway, I should get on to playing Episode 1!
 
Here's the deal. Can someone accept me into their personal TF2 apprenticeship? I've tried to play the game individually and it's been so chaotic I have no idea what's happening. I have no friends that play video games anymore, and if my current friends find out I still play games it would be nothing but virginity and vaseline jokes. It just seems like the game is spam what weapon you're carrying in the direction where the other team is, while your teammates take the flag and/or capture a control point. Please for the love of all that's holy, someone make this game fun for me. The concept seems fun, but I just don't get it. BTW I'm talking about the PC version/


Note: I have nothing against vaseline.
 
poovine said:
Here's the deal. Can someone accept me into their personal TF2 apprenticeship? I've tried to play the game individually and it's been so chaotic I have no idea what's happening. I have no friends that play video games anymore, and if my current friends find out I still play games it would be nothing but virginity and vaseline jokes. It just seems like the game is spam what weapon you're carrying in the direction where the other team is, while your teammates take the flag and/or capture a control point. Please for the love of all that's holy, someone make this game fun for me. The concept seems fun, but I just don't get it. BTW I'm talking about the PC version/


Note: I have nothing against vaseline.
There's a thread for this. Join us in the TF2 PC thread in the Online Forum.
 
Yeah, was just going through "Follow Freeman" last night and wow... literally the best sequence of battles in the whole game. I had forgotten just how good that chapter is.

The Strider and gunship fights with the RPG, and then Combine onslaught... loving it!

This game is also gorgeous, despite looking dated.
 
chespace said:
Yeah, was just going through "Follow Freeman" last night and wow... literally the best sequence of battles in the whole game. I had forgotten just how good that chapter is.

The Strider and gunship fights with the RPG, and then Combine onslaught... loving it!

This game is also gorgeous, despite looking dated.

Yup, easily the best HL2 encounters outside of Ep. 2. Speaking of which, have you checked that out yet?
 
traveler said:
You're in Lowlife, correct? It's, personally, my favorite stage in Ep. 1 and the best stage (once again IMO) since the Anticitizen One and Follow Freeman stuff which, I agree, was the best of Half-Life 2.

The best part of Ep1 IMO is the starting bits. Once it goes to headcrabs and zombines it goes down a notch up until the (very good) ending. Lowlife is pretty good though, certianly I through it was a more enjoyable "scary" segment than Ravenholm was (which I like, just not as much as other people seem to).
 
poovine said:
Here's the deal. Can someone accept me into their personal TF2 apprenticeship? I've tried to play the game individually and it's been so chaotic I have no idea what's happening. I have no friends that play video games anymore, and if my current friends find out I still play games it would be nothing but virginity and vaseline jokes. It just seems like the game is spam what weapon you're carrying in the direction where the other team is, while your teammates take the flag and/or capture a control point. Please for the love of all that's holy, someone make this game fun for me. The concept seems fun, but I just don't get it. BTW I'm talking about the PC version/


Note: I have nothing against vaseline.


Go to the online forum and check out the pc or 360 thread. PC has 3 dedicated servers played by gaffers and the 360 is having a match tonite at 7:30 pst.

Also, if you're having problems with the concept of the game, play as a medic, follow a heavy, keep healing him, and unleash your uber when the time comes. If you have a 360, add me, Zen Warrior24 and I'll give you some pointers.
 
MrSardonic said:
- Too many loading screens.
They could have made it like Metroid, but I doubt the engine would allow it.
MrSardonic said:
- Some times it took me longer than it should have to find the next path forward
Does "puzzle" mean anything to you?
MrSardonic said:
- The buggy/hovercraft parts gave me motion sickness (which I have never had before in my life).
There are tons of games that give people motion sickness. I just think that the vehicles had too much sensitivity.
MrSardonic said:
- Protracted transportation throughout the citadel was pretty boring and the ending was a bit "meh".
Actually, it gives you hints about Episode 1/2 (you see the un-suited Combine and Hunters)
MrSardonic said:
I think they could have gotten away with not using crates for health/ammo if they had just stuck to only the wall-mounted health/suit rechargers to make them a much more relieving sight, as well as engineering more battles around them. Finding extra ammo could just have been left to picking it up off death bodies or from wall mounted gun racks.
What about Ravenholm and sewers, etc? They needed portable health packs...though putting them there doesn't make much sense either:lol
 
Alright, so I still don't like Antlions much, but I'll agree with the majority that Episode 2 is all sorts of awesome, and I'm not even done yet. I'm about midway thru chapter 6, and totally in with this game now.

Seeing
Aperture Science
pop up is awesome.
 
Completed Episode 1, I don't get the hate. I absolutely loved it.

Some really amazing encounters.
I enjoyed going back to the citadel, I thought that part was very well done. As was the underground fights in the dark against the zombies (as a survival horror fan that made me :D ) and fighting in the Hospital was great too. Then there's the amazing battles with a Combine Gunship on top of the Hospital I think and the Strider battle at the Train Station :o

That said, I'm early on Episode 2, and I'm loving that too.
Just got done after the Hunter battle at the Radio Tower.
How far am I?
 
Lakitu said:
That said, I'm early on Episode 2, and I'm loving that too.
Just got done after the Hunter battle at the Radio Tower.
How far am I?
About half-way. BTW my favorite parts all follow where you are. Prepare for absolute awesome-ness!
 
ShutEye said:
I think you are outside the apeture science research compound, by the front gate I guess. You've been blown through the ceiling of the research lab. As to where that might be in the world, who knows?

Best evidence supports the theory that it's in uhh... Indiana? Or was it Ohio. It was somewhere in the midnorth of the US.
 
traveler said:
Yup, easily the best HL2 encounters outside of Ep. 2. Speaking of which, have you checked that out yet?

Haven't checked out Ep2 yet. Can't wait!

Also, in Follow Freeman (I'm playing on Hard), the Combine AI are finally starting to show a little intelligence. I'm not sure if it's the level designs or what that allows them to do it.
 
Episode 1 has been alright so far. Some good bits, some overly long interruptions for "story", a bit too much "zombies in the sewers". Then Vista crashed. I'm also going to go back and play Follow Freeman on Hard because that was a quality moment. Can anyone suggest a good way to deal with the squad of retards that you are burdened with?

Also, has anyone played the Minerva "mod" that was recommended over Steam? - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/MINERVA. If so, what is is like?

Death_Born said:
Does "puzzle" mean anything to you?

I'm not talking about "puzzles", I'm talking about just wondering around for 5 - 10 minutes without being able to find the door hidden behind a wall or the hole hidden in the shadows. Happened only 3 or 4 times but it was pretty annoying even if it was influenced by my own "stupidity". The actual "puzzles" were a decent addition and good pause from the action. But those that avoided "platforming" were better.

Death_Born said:
There are tons of games that give people motion sickness. I just think that the vehicles had too much sensitivity.

I have never had motion sickness before so it was pretty surprising. I think, as you said, the vehicles were just too sensitive and those parts went on for long enough to trigger motion sickness.

Death_Born said:
What about Ravenholm and sewers, etc?

Well they were the weakest parts of the game so I wouldn't really mind if they had been cut down :D
 
MrSardonic said:
Can anyone suggest a good way to deal with the squad of retards that you are burdened with?
Yes: thow mines at them with your Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, and/or simply direct them into dangerous areas so they die faster.
 
The Lamonster said:
Yes: thow mines at them with your Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, and/or simply direct them into dangerous areas so they die faster.

I didn't think they were that bad. If they block the door, you can always press the use key to make them get out of the way. And you can crouch-jump over them.
 
I've encountered an audio sync problem while playing Half-Life 2. I don't know if it's a glitch, or if it's something worse yet. For some odd reason, the gun firing effect isn't in sync with the game. I.e.: I'll fire the SMG, and the sound won't come out through my speakers until a second or two later. Now, on the other hand, all of the voices are completely in sync, so I don't suspect my receiver is causing the problem. As of now, it's only happened in Half-Life 2. Team Fortress 2 is completely fine, Portal is fine, and I'm going to see if it happens in either Episode 1/2 within the next hour. During my first playthrough of Half-Life 2 on this console I never encountered this problem, and it didn't even happen during the first quarter of the game on my current playthrough. The first time I noticed it happening is when I got out of Ravenholm, near the first train(s). Anyone have an idea as to what could be causing this annoyance?

Edit: I have the Xbox 360 version, by the way.
 
You guys do realize you can use the 'c' key to tell your squad to move somewhere, right? And it's really not that hard to hit '1' to switch to the crowbar.
 
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