PC Orange Box busted open at retail

Unbundled versions of Valve's award-winning Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Episode Pack for PC available April 9 in NA, April 11 globally for $19.99, $29.99, respectively.

Gamers who have any interest at all in playing Valve's smash hit The Orange Box have nothing if not options when it comes to picking up the title. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions notwithstanding, the PC version of The Orange Box can be picked up in all its five-game compilation glory through any number of brick-and-mortar shops, and it is also distributed through Steam, Valve's online digital distribution portal. Steam users are also able to download the award-winning shooter piecemeal, or gift any already-owned components to other Steam users.

Adding one more method of dissemination to the proceedings, Valve distribution partner EA said in February that it would be busting up the PC version of The Orange Box into its individual components for retail distribution as well. Today, Valve revealed unbundled versions of Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode Pack for the PC will land at retail on April 9 in North America and April 11 everywhere else in the world.

The Game Developers Choice Award-winning Portal will retail for $19.99, while Team Fortress 2 and the HL2: Episode Pack will run for $29.99 a piece. In addition to the first two episodes of Half-Life 2, the Episode Pack will contain Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, and Valve notes that any game already owned from the package can be gifted to a friend via Steam. All three packages operate as stand-alone products, and do not require the original Half-Life 2 to play.

81 Comments

  • bletzinger

    Posted Jun 25, 2008 5:28 pm PT

    Teamfortress is one of the greatest multiplayer games. Love to play it! Meet bunch of friends too. Gameplay is great and so are graphics

  • gamerkingg

    Posted Apr 27, 2008 5:37 am PT

    Me with my spade=you with the cracked head

  • Ratpads

    Posted Apr 18, 2008 4:47 pm PT

    heavy + medic ftw

  • beer_tree

    Posted Mar 27, 2008 4:59 am PT

    Idk about this game. The graphics look too cartoon like but everyone says the Gameplay is great.

  • typeRseries

    Posted Mar 19, 2008 2:11 pm PT

    i bought orange box for 25 bux at best buy on black friday...damn tats cheap

  • markevens

    Posted Mar 17, 2008 5:21 pm PT

    @ 42scarecrow
    Portal is well worth 20 bucks, if even for the 4 awesome hours of the first playthrough. There are also the advanced maps, challenge maps, as well as plenty of awesome user made maps now online.

  • ratix2

    Posted Mar 17, 2008 11:05 am PT

    ghost867:

    yeah, the most well balanced, easily picked up, kick ass hella fun multiplayer game ever released and its not worth $30. sorry, but for all the hours ive put into it its damn well worth $50, not to mention that valve DOES have plans to give the game massive content updates over the course of the year and even beyond that FOR FREE, as well as having a quite large modding/mapping community (thanks in part to hl2 having the second largest modding community in history, second only to the orginal half lfie, but mostly due to the fact that its a kick ass game) and you can say the game doesent have enough content?

    sure, only 7 maps, but so what? most games have 20+ maps at start, but only 2 or 3 of them are any good/worth playing. all of tf2s maps on the other hand are quite good, some better than others no doubt but they are all maps that are of high quality. not to mention that many of the control poing maps are varations on the game mode instead of exactly the same thing every map, so while its a similar game mode its also not the same for every map.

    tf2 is VERY MUCH worth $30 by itself, however, considering what you get for $50 with the orange box, that is a much better deal.

  • Grandstream

    Posted Mar 17, 2008 8:32 am PT

    I rented these on 360. The Half Life series along is worth it. The game's got over 90+ achievements, all that stem from doing little things in the game...TF2 looks pretty fun, and then Portal is just mind boggling...Half Life 2 is awesome though. Enough that I wanna play through it again and try to do even better. Now, I feel like I wanna wait until the price on the 360 version drops to 40, 45 bucks before I buy it.

  • 42scarecrow

    Posted Mar 17, 2008 1:43 am PT

    Theres no point getting any of these separate. May as well pay the extra 20-30 to get all 5.

    Also, portal for $20 a ripoff for a game that could never last anywhere near 10 hours.

    I would pay more for tf2, coz its the game that your gonna spend the most time playing.

  • apoxps2

    Posted Mar 16, 2008 5:41 pm PT

    TF2 is the ****

  • napp123

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 6:25 pm PT

    Tf2 is worth $30

  • ghost867

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 4:47 pm PT

    Portal for $20? Sounds good. HL2: Episode 1 & 2 for $30? Sounds good. Team Fortress 2 for $30? I'm sorry, but unless they really beef up the content or the quality on that game, it so just isn't worth it. The game was not that good, and way to limited for it to be a $30 game by itself. $20? That's perfect, maybe even $25. But $30? That's just asinine.

  • owman

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 3:16 pm PT

    EA must die.

  • nate1222

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 2:50 pm PT

    I'll probably get 'Portal' for the PC. The others look good, but Portal is what sells it. The fact that I won't need HL2 to install it is nice. I haven't used my Steam account in months, though. I hope like Hell they don't require it to install Portal. 'Cause, I can't remember my damn password.

  • xmg0

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 1:29 pm PT

    noice

  • MronoC

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 10:25 am PT

    while there releasing new packs, why not just release the black box?

  • thisranks

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 10:20 am PT

    I got The Orange Box first day release for the PS3. Today, i saw the PC version at Wal-Mart. After seeing the above article, glad i made my original purchase, and didn't get the itch to buy the above mentioned BS.

  • jknight5422

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 8:43 am PT

    If HL2 didn't make me sick to my stomach when I tried to walk around in its FPS game environment, I'd probably have bought a copy.

  • ColdfireTrilogy

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 7:21 am PT

    I wish they wouldve had the black box from the start like they originally planned... I still havent found anyone worthy of having my extra copy of HL2 yet and that is frustrating.

  • joestierman

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 5:05 am PT

    You can also D/L it through steam for the same price as listed here.

    Personally, I liked the black friday sale, where I got Orange Box for $25!

  • Makhdoom82

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 5:02 am PT

    I have the orange box already and i bought it as soon as it came out ... No good news for me in this !!!

  • gandalf_storm

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 2:46 am PT

    i purchased it all on the 360 even thought id beaten hl2 on the pc, just had to play the next 2 episdoes, portal was fun but annoying some times, team fortress was great online but i tired of it quickly. Cant wait for episode 3 !

  • Chief_Kuuni

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 2:05 am PT

    different, why not just keep on selling orange box though? oh well, whatever works

  • KnightsofRound

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 1:32 am PT

    The individual prices for those games are a ripoff, if you consider what you get for the price compared to the Orange Box.

  • ChinoJamesKeene

    Posted Mar 14, 2008 12:56 am PT

    You can already get these games priced like this over steam, but the orange box including HL2 is still cheaper if you want portal and TF2. Its annyoing since i don't want another copy of HL2.

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 11:21 pm PT

    HOLY CRAP! The bundle saves you so much more.

  • speed45823

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 11:15 pm PT

    looks like EA's trying to make more money by seperating The Orenge Box.

  • JackfnBurton

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 10:03 pm PT

    Are people really griping over twenty dollars? Seriously? When you consider what most people I know blow every week on coffee, soda, fast food, downloading stupid ring tones...

    Come on. If you can't afford twenty bucks you shouldn't be playing games in the first place, you should be looking for a job.

  • snarple_basic

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 9:36 pm PT

    TF2 & Portal together for $30 would have been a better move. It would have been nice because cheap people could buy it and get more players playing TF2 online, and Portal is just a must have.

    For Half Life to have its own package doesn't make much sense you matters well buy the Orange box.

  • Black-Magic

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 9:27 pm PT

    I paid $20 for Portal. Absolutely no regrets.

    You can judge a games value better than just (Game Price)/(Hours to beat)

    I've easily played the challenges for more than 5 hours to get the gold medals. The game is an instant classic. I'd pay $20 for the ending song. What a great game. Gave me chills.

  • Kuripi

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 8:29 pm PT

    Wow, of course I bought the Orange Box for the Xbox 360, then again for the PC since Team Fortress 2 for the 360 sucks.

    And, now they come out with this. Greeat.

  • moocow21

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 8:19 pm PT

    Portal should be $10, other than that the prices for Episode 2 & TF2 are well worth it IMO.

  • Fauij

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 7:59 pm PT

    way too much

  • choffy31

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 7:41 pm PT

    $20 for Portal? Try $5-$10, at the most

  • ItchyIsVegeta

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 7:34 pm PT

    Are they forgetting consoles?

  • bulletsword

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 7:19 pm PT

    i think it's a bad move. Portal's probably the coolest part of the Orange Box, but it's pretty short even for $20. TF2, I have to admit, wasn't that great and it doesn't even come with too many maps (thankfully the community shells out more). $30 for that is still just wrong unless they were willing to bundle another Steam MP game like CSS or even DOD:S. it's a much, much better deal put together and even if you already had HL2 and EP1, you can gift them away to a friend and everyone's happy.

  • ocdog45

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 7:03 pm PT

    good idea

  • Pete5506

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 6:45 pm PT

    Why buy apart if you can get it all together

  • mrklorox

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 6:40 pm PT

    I was a humongous fan of TFC and have many great memories of joining my first ever clan with that game. But I don't believe I should pay 30 dollars for TF2 alone. Valve ripped off the early investors that bought hl2 then episode one, then are expecting the Black Box which doesn't contain those games (reducing the price), then they cancel the SKU all together. Sure I can give away what I already own... but screw that crap. I'm broke, I don't have the cash to throw away on something I already own.

  • Dawg9000

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 6:25 pm PT

    TF2=30$

    Noone in their right mind will buy that. Might as well get the whole package for 50.

  • True_Blu3

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 6:25 pm PT

    FINALLY! I have been waiting for something like this!

  • XeroComplex

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 6:07 pm PT

    Silly, silly console players thinking their system is the greatest...
    Ha! To the PC the console is a little upstart nothing!

    Don't get me wrong, I like my 360 but the PC just blows it away in potential in so many respects.

    Anyway I'd rather just get the whole thing because all of them appeal to me.

  • dartheggs973

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 6:00 pm PT

    yea, but half life 2 and its episode are about 16 hours(just guessing), plus team fortress 2 puts you at a while online, i think they were actually quit generous, but thats just my opinion.

  • VenomRitual

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 5:32 pm PT

    50 on pc and came with 5 great games. it seems like they're making it kinda expensive considering portal is just a few hours of gameplay.

  • meluvulongtime8

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 5:30 pm PT

    mastershake575 um yeaah..... I know you can get it on PC. The point I'm making is that like many others have commented, the price isn't exactly great. Unless you have a friend that can hook you up just not seeing the greatness.

  • imperial_agent

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 4:40 pm PT

    It's worth 60 just for Team Fortress 2. The most fun I've had in a very long time.

  • mastershake575

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 4:40 pm PT

    um meluvulongtime8 you can also get orange box on the pc also i don't see your point the point of selling individually is some people don't want all the games in the orange box or already own some of them

  • SaxxyGamer18

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 4:36 pm PT

    I guess this is good, seeing as the only game in it I like is Portal. But $20? That's kinda steep...

  • theclaw135

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 4:29 pm PT

    I bet none of these contain Day of Defeat Source...

  • Spartan_418

    Posted Mar 13, 2008 4:28 pm PT

    Portal is a fantastic game, but it seems too short to cost $19.99 by itself.

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