"The Freeman Returns" with The Official Orange Box Thread

Just finished episode 2 today.

Holy cats. What a game. Haven't played Bioshock yet, but Episode 2 is my single player fps of the year by far. So amazing.

Can't wait to replay it with commentary. :D

I want episode 3 now. :/
 
dralla said:
Where's the garden gnome in EP2? I think I may have just passed it :[

If you're going for achievements don't forget to squish all the bugs in the first chapter. I loaded up the second chapter about a week ago thinking all the antlion grubs were there.... waste of an hour.

Anyway is there still that command console trick for the black hole grenades that people used in Episode 1? I just remembered about that, kind of disappointed they didn't become a real weapon for EP2.

Also, exactly how long do you have to keep falling through a loop in portal to hit 30,000 ft.? I've been watching this like a screen saver for ten minutes already.
 
Mooreberg said:
If you're going for achievements don't forget to squish all the bugs in the first chapter. I loaded up the second chapter about a week ago thinking all the antlion grubs were there.... waste of an hour.

Anyway is there still that command console trick for the black hole grenades that people used in Episode 1? I just remembered about that, kind of disappointed they didn't become a real weapon for EP2.

Also, exactly how long do you have to keep falling through a loop in portal to hit 30,000 ft.? I've been watching this like a screen saver for ten minutes already.
It depends how high the ceiling is. I did it in the beginning of Test Chamber 18, and got it in a few minutes.
 
Ok, I got the game a couple of hours ago. My impressions:

*Portal: OMFG! It lives up to the hype. To bad the game starts to get challenging in the last 3 or 4 sections. Alas, the game is incredible!

*I won't be playing Team Fortress 2 until the last week of November. The reason is I currently don't have a Gold membership and I'm really busy with school: 2 more weeks of classes, then finals... and on November 26 I'll be out of school for 5 weeks! I want to focus on school and then drawn myself into Team Fortress bliss.

*I already played Half Life 2 and I just played the first minutes of Episode 1. Too early to even comment about it.

I'm of to bed, tomorrow I'll keep on playing Ep 1.






Portal F'n ROCKS!
 
I got a question. For the 'running people over with the car' achievement in Ep 2, will you be able to squish enemies after
you've entered the missile silo
, or are the car sections gone already? I've only got 15 so far and it'd kinda suck if I had to redo this one
 
Darunia said:
I got a question. For the 'running people over with the car' achievement in Ep 2, will you be able to squish enemies after
you've entered the missile silo
, or are the car sections gone already? I've only got 15 so far and it'd kinda suck if I had to redo this one

There's more car, but the enemies you'll be fighting aren't as easy to run over as zombies..
 
Man. Just went back to Half Life 2 after a brief hiatus and played up to AntiCitizen One. Just wanted to say this game is still fucking phenomenal and the atmosphere is unparalleled.
 
Is anyone having problems playing TF2 lately? I have a great connection and recently I get dropped from almost every game or everygame seems to have tons of lag
 
DAMN YOU COMBINE! DAMN YOU TO HELL!

ELI :(


btw that barn fight is going to kill me if I go for the achievement. It was a save/load fest already with enough destroyed buildings. The combination hunter/strider is a royal, royal pain in the ass

pj325is said:
There's more car, but the enemies you'll be fighting aren't as easy to run over as zombies..

but it's possible! Got the rest of my needed kills in no time :p

daamn this episode. Replay guaranteed.
 
Darunia said:
btw that barn fight is going to kill me if I go for the achievement. It was a save/load fest already with enough destroyed buildings. The combination hunter/strider is a royal, royal pain in the ass
The destructions of the houses are scripted events, it's always the same strider destroying it in the same order. Knowing that you should have no problems getting the achievement. Also, use the logs lying around to kill the hunters. That makes it pretty easier.
 
Metalmurphy said:
The destructions of the houses are scripted events, it's always the same strider destroying it in the same order. Knowing that you should have no problems getting the achievement. Also, use the logs lying around to kill the hunters. That makes it pretty easier.


Thanks, those are indeed good tips. Did you kill all the hunters or just went straight for the Strider? The former seems like a good thing since their flechettes destroy the bombs very quickly, but killing the hunters gives the Striders more time...
 
Darunia said:
Thanks, those are indeed good tips. Did you kill all the hunters or just went straight for the Strider? The former seems like a good thing since their flechettes destroy the bombs very quickly, but killing the hunters gives the Striders more time...

Most of the times (probably all of the times) a Strider that is going to destroy a house runs to it, so they're usually ahead of the hunters. But I wouldn't rely on that much, just go to the spawn point and get rid of the hunters as they appear get in the car and go to the house. Of course you'll have to memorize the the order of which house that is going to be blown up.

Also there's a around 2 second time frame where the strider stands still as he gets ready to blow up the houses. It's more then enough time to hit blow him up. (Well, unless you're playing on a console, might be a bit more difficult with a gamepad.

Ah and another tip, remove several of the bombs from the teleporters between the attack intervals. That way you have several lying around and don't have to wait for one to spawn if you accidentally miss.
 
Rented it last week mainly for Portal. It sat unplayed the whole week until today, its due date, I started and beat portal. Loved it. One of the best games I've played this year. Probably 3rd in my list.


The cake is a lie.
 
ant1532 said:
Rented it last week mainly for Portal. It sat unplayed the whole week until today, its due date, I started and beat portal. Loved it. One of the best games I've played this year. Probably 3rd in my list.


The cake is a lie.

Best credits ever.
 
Metalmurphy said:
Most of the times (probably all of the times) a Strider that is going to destroy a house runs to it, so they're usually ahead of the hunters. But I wouldn't rely on that much, just go to the spawn point and get rid of the hunters as they appear get in the car and go to the house. Of course you'll have to memorize the the order of which house that is going to be blown up.

Also there's a around 2 second time frame where the strider stands still as he gets ready to blow up the houses. It's more then enough time to hit blow him up. (Well, unless you're playing on a console, might be a bit more difficult with a gamepad.

Ah and another tip, remove several of the bombs from the teleporters between the attack intervals. That way you have several lying around and don't have to wait for one to spawn if you accidentally miss.

How long will the Magnussons stick around after being removed from the generator?
 
traveler said:
How long will the Magnussons stick around after being removed from the generator?

I didn't notice any disappearing, but I didn't waste any time either. Ram, launch, fire. Repeat.
 
traveler said:
How long will the Magnussons stick around after being removed from the generator?

Forever. The Hunters are the ones that shoot them off the Striders. If there are no Hunters the Magnussons will just stay there until you blow them up.

*edit* Oops, I totally misunderstood your question :lol But the answer is still forever :p
 
Metalmurphy said:
Forever. The Hunters are the ones that shoot them off the Striders.

Yeah, I knew that. I just thought that if I left them around they'd explode or despawn after a while. Guess not.
 
Captain Glanton said:
I just finished Episode 1. It did get a lot better once I got above ground. There are worse ways to spend, um, 3:45. :lol

Lowlife was the best mission in the game! Such an amazingly claustrophobic atmosphere, not to mention incredibly tense gameplay.
 
traveler said:
Lowlife was the best mission in the game! Such an amazingly claustrophobic atmosphere, not to mention incredibly tense gameplay.


In the interest of avoiding another catfight with the fans, let's just say that I didn't care for the Citadel or parking garage parts.
 
The citadel parts were aaawesome. From the ride on
the pod 'train'
(I got Brazil flashbacks during those scenes for some reason) to the fights with the Combine inside. The cool thing is that the final levels are basically a sandbox for you and your
souped up grav gun, but it doesn't overstay its welcome, so it doesn't get boring. You bounce a few energy balls around, throw enemies in other groups, make short of those annoying manhacks, ... They clearly wanted you to have fun and not put you at risk of losing your life, hence the numerous powerful recharge stations. Just as you've explored all the devestating possibilities of your grav gun, the game ends without ever having overused one of its gameplay components.
Yeah, HL2 is a pretty awesome game. Even after completing the episodes I still think HL² in its entirity is the most impressive.
 
Darunia said:
The citadel parts were aaawesome. From the ride on
the pod 'train'
(I got Brazil flashbacks during those scenes for some reason) to the fights with the Combine inside. The cool thing is that the final levels are basically a sandbox for you and your
souped up grav gun, but it doesn't overstay its welcome, so it doesn't get boring. You bounce a few energy balls around, throw enemies in other groups, make short of those annoying manhacks, ... They clearly wanted you to have fun and not put you at risk of losing your life, hence the numerous powerful recharge stations. Just as you've explored all the devestating possibilities of your grav gun, the game ends without ever having overused one of its gameplay components.
Yeah, HL2 is a pretty awesome game. Even after completing the episodes I still think HL² in its entirity is the most impressive.

The ending sequence was brilliant.
You were a fucking god, not only is your grav gun overpowered you get a massive armor and health boost.
It was awesome.
 
Portal...

So good.

one of those rare games that leave such an indellible mark on you that you're discussing it ad nasuem for days. My wife and I were laughing all the way through the game.

Simply brilliant.
 
Question about the story, EP2 spoilers:

After Mossman takes Eli from the Citadel she drops him off at White Forrest and goes to the Borealis site. You're told to "rescue" her and bring her back to White Forrest. The way the game words it makes it seem like she's being held captive but they never really say by who. Am I wrong in assuming she's not at the Borealis site under her own free will or is it just unclear as to what the whole situation with her is?

And as for the Borealis itself, it was used by Aperture Science [Black Mesa's "competition"] illegally to research portal technology? And as of now it's a mystery to what it actually contains, but Eli mentions it was responsible for the Black Mesa incident / Portals?

and how do you kill the Hunters with their own projectiles? Can never get them to stick to the gravity gun even when they're stuck in objects
 
lockii said:
The ending sequence was brilliant.
You were a fucking god, not only is your grav gun overpowered you get a massive armor and health boost.
It was awesome.

Yeah the contrast was awesome. I was all like 'what say you now, puny combine soldiers?'

btw this sucks. After this binge of HL2 and the two episodes, there is no more new content. After finishing HL2 it was so great to watch the beginning of Ep1, without having to ask yourself how the story would continue for a year. Now I have to play the waiting game like the rest of you and the waiting game sucks :( The only thing I can do now is play the game with commentary.

In the craving for more HL I began playing the original again and I'm thinking about playing those expansions too.

Are there people here who have that Raising the Bar book? Is it worth it?
 
dralla said:
Question about the story, EP2 spoilers:

After Mossman takes Eli from the Citadel she drops him off at White Forrest and goes to the Borealis site. You're told to "rescue" her and bring her back to White Forrest. The way the game words it makes it seem like she's being held captive but they never really say by who. Am I wrong in assuming she's not at the Borealis site under her own free will or is it just unclear as to what the whole situation with her is?

And as for the Borealis itself, it was used by Aperture Science [Black Mesa's "competition"] illegally to research portal technology? And as of now it's a mystery to what it actually contains, but Eli mentions it was responsible for the Black Mesa incident / Portals?

and how do you kill the Hunters with their own projectiles? Can never get them to stick to the gravity gun even when they're stuck in objects
In her last message they were being attacked by the combine so her situation is unknown at the moment.

I don't think Aperture Science was doing illegal research but since they weren't funded they cut out alot on safety to save money which led to the incident.

As for the Hunters, just grab some objects with the gravity gun and let the Hunters shoot you. The projectiles get stuck in the object then just throw them back at the Hunters. You'll know you got one with the projectiles if they disintegrate the same way as the AR2 alternative fire.
 
Serously, someone needs to make a Team Fortress 2 Thread. It is SO addictive. I completly forgotten portal and never actually played any of the Half-Life's yet
 
I like Portal just as much as the next guy but I think GAF is going overboard with their love of it. This whole "OMFG GOTY!" is just kind of silly, especially when 90% of the game is a tutorial.
 
yea, I think Portal is the worst part of the OB. I had to force myself to finish it to see the "awesome ending" I heard about.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
I like Portal just as much as the next guy but I think GAF is going overboard with their love of it. This whole "OMFG GOTY!" is just kind of silly, especially when 90% of the game is a tutorial.



....so?
 
Finally got around to playing the Half-Life 2 episodes (since I beat HL2 on the Xbox last year). Almost done with Episode 1, which is pretty great.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
I like Portal just as much as the next guy but I think GAF is going overboard with their love of it. This whole "OMFG GOTY!" is just kind of silly, especially when 90% of the game is a tutorial.

I feel....similarly. It's still an awesome game, though.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
I like Portal just as much as the next guy but I think GAF is going overboard with their love of it. This whole "OMFG GOTY!" is just kind of silly, especially when 90% of the game is a tutorial.
I fail to see how 90% of it is a tutorial, considering you spend most of your time in the non-tutorial sections.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
I like Portal just as much as the next guy but I think GAF is going overboard with their love of it. This whole "OMFG GOTY!" is just kind of silly, especially when 90% of the game is a tutorial.

I agree. I really liked the last room, but I think it gets a little overrated. Is it cool? Yeah it is. It's always cool to see new takes on things, and Portal is DEFINITELY a new take...first-person puzzle game? That's fun and challenging? Yeah that's pretty sweet. But it's not OMG WTF BBQ GOTY good. Overall, I think it's the weakest part of the Orange Box. But that's not an insult to it whatsoever. They're all great games and it's one of the best videogame values out there.
 
fuuuck

how can that 300 ft jump achievement be so hard, I don't get it. I'm in the room where it's supposed to be easy to get (turret ambush), but even after staying in the air for god knows how long, I still don't get it. wtf am I doing wrong, I truly am at a loss here
 
well it doesn't help when you have the goddamn AUDIO COMMENTARY TURNED ON

christ. ok, restarted that chapter and got it in like a minute. I don't even want to know how much time I wasted in that room
 
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