Half-Life 2 The Orange Box

Half-Life 2 The Orange Box



This article is about the video game compilation. For the telecommunication and engineering hardware, see Orange box.
The Orange Box
The cover of The Orange Box
The box art depicts Half-Life's Gordon Freeman, a sign from Portal, and the heavy class from Team Fortress 2.
Developer(s) Valve Corporation
EA UK (PlayStation 3 version)[1]
Publisher(s) Valve Corporation
Distributor(s) Electronic Arts (retail)
Steam (online)
Engine Source engine
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X
Release date(s)
October 9, 2007[show]
Windows and Xbox 360

NA October 10, 2007[2][3]
EU October 19, 2007[4]
AUS October 25, 2007[5]
Windows (download)
October 9, 2007[6]
PlayStation 3 (retail)
NA December 11, 2007
EU December 11, 2007[7]
AUS December 20, 2007[8]
Genre(s) First-person shooter, puzzle, compilation
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s) BBFC: 15
ESRB: T–M
OFLC: MA15+
PEGI: 16+
Media Blu-ray Disc, download, DVD-ROM
System requirements

Minimum:
1.7 GHz processor,
512 MB RAM,
128MB Video card,
20GB available Hard drive space,
DirectX 8 level graphics card,
Windows 2000/XP/Vista,
Internet connection[9]
Input methods Keyboard and mouse, gamepad

The Orange Box is a video game compilation for Microsoft Windows, the Xbox 360, Mac OS X and the PlayStation 3. The Windows and Xbox 360 versions were produced and published by Valve Corporation and released on October 10, 2007 as both a boxed retail copy and a Windows-only download through Valve's Steam service. The PlayStation 3 version was produced by Electronic Arts and released on December 11, 2007 in North America and in Europe. Valve has also released a soundtrack containing music from the games within the compilation.

The compilation contains five games, all powered by Valve's Source engine. Two of the games included, Half-Life 2 and its first stand-alone expansion, Episode One, were previously released as separate products. Three new games are also contained within the compilation: the second stand-alone expansion, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the puzzle game Portal, and Team Fortress 2, the multiplayer game sequel to the Quake modification, Team Fortress. A separate product entitled The Black Box was planned, which would have included only the new games, but was canceled.

The Orange Box has received critical acclaim and Portal was recognized as a surprise favorite of the package. The PlayStation 3 version of The Orange Box has been noted for several technical shortcomings that were not present in the other versions, which were later fixed through various patches. It has sold over 3 million copies as of November 2008.

Overview
features five complete games compiled into one retail unit: Half-Life 2 and its two continuations, Episode One and Episode Two; Portal; and Team Fortress 2. All of these games use Valve's Source engine.

Through the Steam platform for the Windows version, the games can collect and report in-depth data such as where the player's character died, completion time, and total victories in multiplayer modes. This data is compiled to generate gameplay statistics for Episode One, Episode Two, and Team Fortress 2.

Although Half-Life 2 has the largest proportion of Achievements, there are 99 spread across all five games, exceeding the 50-achievement limit that Microsoft maintains to feature the most Achievements of any Xbox 360 product. These Achievements include killing a certain number of monsters, finding hidden weapon caches, or other tasks specific to each game.

All the games except Half-Life 2 contain in-game commentary that can be enabled, allowing the player to listen to the developers discuss the creation and purpose of particular sections and components of each game. This has been a feature of every Valve game since Half-Life 2: Lost Coast due to the commentary's popularity in that game, according to Erik Wolpaw, lead writer for Portal.

Quoted from: wikipedia