The Life Of A LittlBUGer

Hello. I was just curious if there were any other gamers out there who, for some reason, don’t already have Half-Life 2 and HL2: Episode 1 and who are interested in getting them for cheap? Because of my recent purchase of “The Orange Box”, I have two licenses to the above games, and thus in the Steam client, I can give the two games above to anyone I chose as a “gift” which would use one of my licenses. This is completely legal (it’s part of Steam—thus you’d need to install Steam for free and download the games through it) and it would be the full versions. Normally these would sell for somewhere around $30-40, but I’d be willing to sell them for a minimum of $10 if anyone is interested. Please let me know. Thanks.

Well, like many other gamers out there, I had to buy “The Orange Box” recently because I just couldn’t live without Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. Portal was fantastic and I can’t wait until they implement that technology into other mainstream games. GlaDOS and the ending were just brilliant. I have yet to play HL2: Episode 2 because I’ve been too enthralled with the other games…

Team Fortress 2 on the other hand is kind of a mixed bag for me. Don’t get get me wrong, the game is good—nice graphics, sweet facial expressions, frickin hilarious at times, nice new features, and of course it’s the damned sequel to one of the greatest co-op multiplayer games of all time that’s FINALLY here. So it’s good overall. But there are a few… issues… that really bug me almost to the point of where I didn’t want to play it anymore. These include but are definitely not limited to:

1.) The maps. Obviously, it came with few maps and only two different types of maps. This is somewhat understandable as the game is new and they probably wanted to let the modding community to start hashing out stuff or to give them ideas. Then again, it’s been what, 8 FRICKIN YEARS and they only started it out with 6 maps??!! Grrr….

2.) Grenades… where the F*$K are the damn grenades?! This was one of the main features/highlights of the original TFC, to be able to not only throw and properly time the regular grenades, but to get your own special grenade based on your class chosen. It not only added another great element to the game, but it allowed for so many more things that wouldn’t have been possible. I just feel robbed without grenades and it just seems to simplify the game a bit too much, like there’s not quite enough stuff to use or at least have the availability to use. This is more or less unacceptable to me and almost made me not play the game at all after the very first time I tried it. Damn you Valve, damn you! This BETTER be FIXED in the next release/patch…. GRRRRR….

3.) Armor… again, where the hell is all the damn armor?! It’s bad enough that there’s still uneven balances between a few certain classes that allows many people to get killed way too easily, but to then also take armor out completely, the one thing that allowed you to survive that much more longer, give yourself a sense of extra security, and yet add another exciting element to the game… and it’s not there?! GAH!!! Again, unacceptable and just plain ridiculous.

4.) As I mentioned above, not quite balanced classes. Most of the things are balanced pretty decently, but the damn spy and sniper are way too powerful in this game. It’s just damn silly really. The spies can not only become a member of the other team, but they can go completely invisible?! Are you fricking kidding me? It’s hard enough at time to keep those damn spies at bay when they are already disguised as your own teammates, but to completely make them invisible is just damn crazy stupid and nearly impossible to detect. Oh, and their ability to destroy a turrent is just sad. And then there’s the sniper… let’s not only give him the ability to kill people with ease (if the player has skill) because no one has any frickin armor, but to then allow his gun to “charge up” and become super powerful and allow for one-hit kills almost no matter where you shot the victim? Seriously? Gimme a break!!!

Anyway, those are the main points for my dislike of the game. Other than the fact that, for my main class (Engineer), you can’t tell if the enemy is by your dispencer and thus destroy it to try and kill him, and your turrent is just plain too loud and obnoxious (and thus easy to spot/destroy). And what’s up the with teleportation technology? You just released Portal with these game set, yet you have the sick sad excuse for a “portal” in TF2 instead of using the ones in Portal… yea… Oh yea, and the ability for medics to heal from a distance… nice in some situations, bad in most.

So there you have it, my little rant on The Orange Box. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, as I know I … might have.