I’ve been a big fan of Valve since the first Half Life. Tack on TFC, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Frontline Force and all the various other crazy effin’ mods it was a gold mine. I was a big, big fan.
TFC was it though, for me. The pinnacle of my gaming career, TFC engaged me and was a thrill to play. Having finally played TF2 (on the XBox), I have a few things to say.
But I’ll start with Portal, becuase Half Life 2 is awesome and everybody knows it. For a game with such an interesting premise, it strikes me as a “Block Dude” clone. You know Block dude, the game for te TI-83? Yeah, I can’t quite get over that. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m not sure I want too. Portal is a boring mess of puzzles that involved everything from “put a block here, then put the block there and stand on something else” to “make a portal here to get to there then make sure your portal is in the right place because if it’s not you’ll miss”. And thats assuming you actually land in the portal, I’ve found landing on the edges happens a lot. Honestly, this is without a doubt one of the most boring games I’ve ever played. With people playing this, it’s no wonder everybody thought TF2 was so great. The only thing that keeps me coming back is that I’ve never played a game like this before. I’ve played a lot of games, and having played so many there is usually something I’ve done before to use to help me solve a puzzle. However, the unique premise of the game creates new puzzles I’ve never expierenced before. So, new expierences is all I really am interested in this game. Sad, I was kind of excited to play it. (btw I haven’t gotten past the 19th level of the training room thing)
TF2 is fun. It really is. Theres enough of the old to enrich the new and that’s really good enough for me. I do miss conc jumping (and bhop ) but it’s still a fun game to play. I am quite sure that all my problems stem from the total lack of updates from Valve for the 360 edition. It has apparently been stated already that the PS3 version will recieve no such updates, however, what with the release of Unreal Tournament III and the strong relationship between Microsoft and Epic that maybe Valve and Microsoft can work something out. I was gonna write Gabe Newell an email, but I might wait til I’m stoned.
Anyway, the remaining three parts of the Orange Box have been outstanding and sensational. Overall I’m thrilled with the purchase, I just wish portal didn’t suck.