Customer Rating:  
Summary: Orange Box of Doom!!
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Steam destroys my game play!
Comment: 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!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bargin
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best, the only, Orange Box.
Comment: This game is amazing. Having played the Half-life 2 demo and lost coast over and over due to its amazing graphics and fun gameplay, I bought this. The first level was just fun, had an amazing atmosphere and was just awesome. Then next level was the reunion. With comedy and more, this short level was the most excitement you could get from a nutshell. Next was what was probably my least favourite level but had some good atmosphere and graphical quality to it.
But suddenly at the end of it... you get a vehicle! Great level!
Then later on another vehicle level.
And then fights in city 17 and the awesome ending.
The Half-life 2 episodes are also very good but short. In the first episode you get a very good thrill. Which I won't spoil for you.
In the second episode you get the best vehicle yet! Also there is a great cliffhanger which ties in with another one which is that you'll get a helicopter which you get to see.
Then portal is just amazing. Shoot portals. Go through portals. Good game. Good ending music. It's fun fun fun.
Also Team Fortress 2 is a very good comedic online fps with so many classes that you surely won't get bored.
Also the physics engine on all of these games is unbelievably realistic.
Thanks for reading my review!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Steaming back for refund!!!
Comment: What the hell *is* this 'Steam' rubbish anyway?
Here's our experience.
1. Buy game.
2. Install it.
3. Try to play it. Oops... it won't let us, until we sign up an account with them. So we go through all the usual annoyances as it tells us various user names are already taken, tells us our choice of password are no good, etc, etc, etc.
FINALLY it creates the account. Goody! Now, where were we...? Oh yes!
3. Try to play it. Oops - now when we try to run the game it opens up some sort of customised web browser thingie which tells us all sorts of stuff we aren't interested in.
One thing DOES interest us, and not in a good way. It offers us the opportunity to purchase the game. Hang on. If I haven't ALREADY purchased it, then what WAS this package Amazon sent me? What was that round, CD-looking thing I put into my PC?
After 20 minutes of messing about, it really stopped being funny. We've bought a game, installed it, been made to jump through all sorts of stupid hoops, and still cannot do ANYTHING to get it to actually play.
Conclusion: Steaming Mad. It may be a brilliant game, but enough is enough. It's going back, and we'll never buy anything from this braindead company again.
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