User Reviews (1 - 11 of 173)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Great game ruined by DRM.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 51 / 93
Date: October 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am in college right now, and am often very busy. I do most of my gaming when I return to my mom's house for winter break and summer break. My mom's house has no internet connection. This game cannot be played without an internet connection, due to draconian DRM policies.

Remember: When you buy a game with DRM, you're not buying a game, you're buying...well, nothing at all really.

Steamy pile of ...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 34 / 62
Date: October 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The games themselves are ok. But the fact that everything is attached to Steam is awful. The worst piece of software I have ever seen. Support does not exist. No phone support at all, email requests been unanswered for over a week and now to top it all the account has been deactivated for no apparent reason. I am doing a chargeback and not buying anything from Valve ever again.

Gargabe game from garbage company

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 28 / 56
Date: October 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I will never buy a valve product again. I bought a legit game from a legit source, and valve just cancelled my account for no reason. They have done this to what I suspect is in the thousands of customers. There is a forum site where many people are screaming mad.

I played the various Orange box games for 1 week, than they basically screwed me over by deactivating a legit account.

If you wanna play a game sold by a crooked company, buy this game.

Worst Company Ever

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 33 / 48
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was in Thailand for a business trip when I saw the Orange Box sitting in a name brand store at a great price. I purchased the item as I was planning on purchasing it anyway. It is a legitimate product, not a bootleg. This is name brand store, not a back street vendor.

When I get home to the states I install the game with no problems. Over the course of a week I played Portal which is a good but short game. I then go on to episode 2 and play until I have 1 mission left to beat. I log off and then log back on a few hours later. To my surprise I cannot play any of the games. I get a message that the games are not available in my territory.

I head over to the Steam website but there is nothing about the issue. I look up a phone number for tech support but there isn't one. You have to put in a ticket which can take a minimum of 3-5 business days.

So here I am not able to play any of my games, I can't get any help at all from Steam. Steam is the most intrusive DRM program I have seen. If it has problems you can't play your game even though you have the disc in hand. And the companies wonder why people pirate things. Although I don't condone then I can understand some of their reasoning.

I've got my support ticket in and I doubt I will hear anytime soon. I hope those of you who purchase this never have any problems with Steam. You will be left with an unusable product and little to no support.

region locked

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 24 / 36
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

According to Valve, their games are region locked so make sure you purchase from the same area that you will play in, otherwise your games will be disabled. A copy of the orange box bought in one country will not work in another country since all valve games are verified through steam.

My biggest complaint is that no information regarding the region lock is listed on the box itself or on Steam's website. After purchasing a legitimate copy of the orange box while i was in asia, my games disappeared a few days after i had installed and played when i got back to the U.S. Theres no official statement from Valve as of yet and no word from their customer service.

Fun for the short time I was able to play it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 35
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I purchased the orange box retail (not Amazon), installed with the DVD, and successfully activated my key though Steam. Everything was fine and dandy for a few days but then I went to play some Portal one night and all the games associated with the Orange Box were removed from my account for no apparent reason. When I try the launch the games from my desktop, I get a 'Territory Error' and I'm forced to quit. Valve has not been helpful in this regard and I still can not figure out why the removed the games from my account without warning, and I'm a paying customer. Valve claims that you can install and play any game associated with you Steam account on any computer in the world. However, my experience so far has taught me that I can't even play them on my own computer! I urge you to stay away from Valves products until you can be guaranteed that you won't be locked out of your Steam account. As of right now I'm out $4X.XX and have no games to show for it. Valve will never see a dime from me again.

This is the Star Wars Galaxies of the HL franchise...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 37
Date: October 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I loved HL2. I loved HL2 E1. This episode, however, is both uninspired and frustrating. Too many missions which are thinly disguised timed missions. (You know, wave after wave of mobs are thrown at you and if one makes it past you through one of the areas you are guarding have failed and thus get to restart.) The plot that is being advanced is, well, about as original as as an MST3K movie. Your new weapon is a mine you must fire with the grav gun so it sticks to a mob, and then switch to another wep and hit the mine so it explodes.

BTW, if the mine gets hit by enemy fire even when it is in your grasp, it crumbles. Also, if you miss and land it near the mob, the mine merely shatters.

Wow! What a great innovation!

And, this is the wep you get for one of the timed missions--the last boss mission.

Sadly, also, this entire episode only takes about 5-6 hours to finish if you explore a lot. You are not getting a lot of content for your dollar.

This is the Star Wars Galaxies of the HL franchise...

Go play Quake Wars!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 32
Date: October 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game took 3 years to long. They force you to buy games you already own under the guise that you can give them to a friend. However, they know full and well your friend will want to play what you are playing, so they will end up buying the full box and have games to give away too. Don't waste your time with this overhyped piece of junk.

WARNING: Massively Region Locked

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 44 / 73
Date: October 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Orange Box is region locked like no other game before. If you buy this game in one country and bring your laptop to another country, there's a good chance Steam won't let you play it. This isn't mentioned anywhere on the box or in the license agreement, it's just a nasty surprise you get. So if you buy this game in the USA and take a trip to Japan with your laptop chances are you won't be able to play the game because Steam will detect you're using a Japanese IP address.

Right now Valve is locking this game down by country but next they may lock it down by state or even city. Sorry, you bought the game in Los Angeles, you can't play it in San Diego.

Negative five stars for a defective product. Valve stole my money.

Worst Amazon purchase I've ever made.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 105 / 244
Date: January 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've been shopping on Amazon since the late 1990s. I've been playing video games since the early 1980s. Between the two, I've probably bought over 100 different video games through Amazon for a dozen different game systems and computers. The Orange Box is, without a doubt, the WORST game purchase I have ever made here. Not only do I feel completely cheated, not only do I feel as if I am in fact owed several hundred dollars in frustration fees, I actually think my overall interest in video games has been damaged by this monstrous piece of marketing vomit masquerading as a playful gamer utopia. That is how ridiculous this piece of Trojan Horsed garbage is.

The culprit is a smarmy little ferret of a program called "Steam". I don't know who came up with this, but I hope they get hit by a bus and buried in a fire ant den. Simply put, "Steam" is an Orwellian nanny program that requires you to basically convert your computer into an Internet-enabled marketing survey to even access the games you "own" (but that Steam controls). Once upon a golden time, when you bought a game you could put the CD in your computer and simply play it, perhaps with an activation key. But with Steam, you have to set up an entire account larded with nefarious third party vendors just to have a fighting chance of even downloading the games that are supposedly just included in the Orange Box. Fantastic.

And guess what - there is no mention of Steam anywhere in The Orange Box. NONE. The entire instruction manual for the Orange Box consists of a single two-sided set of control instructions for the actual games. I guess they just forgot to print the "Oh, By the Way, You Need Officially Licensed Steam Spyware To Install or Play Any Of These Games, Suckers" liner.

I have never been more disgusted and embarrassed by a purchase before, and I've been to Amsterdam. I strongly encourage everyone to give deep and abiding thought to whether they really want to pay $40+ a pop for the privilege of having customized spyware run roughshod over their computer. I guess this "5 game* --- *if you manage to navigate 15 layers of watchdog control" game "deal" really is too good to be true.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions