The Orange Box includes all the content of The Black Box for PC, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One. Innovative games featured in The Orange Box include Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the second installment in Valve’s episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17, as well as the pioneering type of single-player action game Portal, which rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment, and Team Fortress 2 — an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games with a daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.

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When talking about the idea of videogames as art, it’s become increasingly popular to lament that the medium doesn’t yet have its “Citizen Kane.” Seemingly everyone, from industry luminary Ian Bogost to film director Guillermo del Toro, has sounded off about how games either need, don’t need, or will soon receive the masterpiece that will force the medium to “grow up” and be accepted as an art form by the mainstream. …

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Yesterday players of Team Fortress 2 on the 360 might have noticed a new update needed to be downloaded. While this was not the highly anticipated update which added all of the new class weapons, maps, and gametypes that have been thus far released only on the PC version, it did add some cool stuff.
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When the hero’s mistakes end the world instead of saving it. …

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PC gamers like open world action games just like their console counterparts and that’s pretty clear in Steam’s latest weekly sales report. The list shows the Radical Entertainment-Activision game Prototype zoom to the top of Steam’s sales list (based on revenue for the past seven days and ending on Sunday morning).

The rest of the list includes Railworks, the new train simulation title from RailSimulator.com, in the number 9 position. Also Tripwire Interactive’s co-op shooter Killing Floor continues to make a killing; it’s at number 3 on the list and has so far remained in the top five since it’s release in mid-May.

1. Prototype – Activision

2. Left 4 Dead – Valve

3. Killing Floor – Tripwire Interactive

4. Team Fortress 2 – Valve

5. Counter-Strike Source – Valve

6. The Orange Box – Valve

7. Call of Duty 4 – Activision

8. Penubra Collector Pack – Frictional Games

9. Railworks – Railsimulator.com

10. Plants Vs. Zombies – PopCap
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CVG writes: "Valve has responded to the wave of negative feedback surrounding Left 4 Dead 2, asking gamers to "give us a fair shake" before writing the sequel off.

A Steam ‘boycott’ group has managed to amass almost 20,000 members, claiming that "the announced content of Left 4 Dead 2 does not warrant a stand-alone, full-priced sequel and should instead become updates (free or otherwise) for Left 4 Dead".

"We want to wait and weed through the comments, I’m already getting e-mails, and I’m responding to them," Valve’s Chet Faliszek said.

"Looking back, was the Orange Box a ripoff?" He said, on initial complaints at having to "buy" Half-Life 2 again in the compilation…"
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