I’m pretty excited about The Orange Box.

When I first saw the video for Portal, my mind caved in on itself for a split second. When Kaiza showed me Narbacular Drop and I had some hands on experience with it, all I could think of was: "This is tripping me out. Hard. And it’s going to look so much better."

Episode 2 doesn’t get me quite as excited, though. The concept of episodic content was an interesting one, but development just wasn’t agile enough. It’s nice when you’ve already got the bulk of the assets all there, ready to be used. But when you put in new weapons, enemies, levels, scripted sequences…not to mention sound effects, motion capture, testing, development of the other bits, marketing, more testing…time adds up, and the anticipation is lost on me. Oh well. I’m still playing it.

Team Fortress 2 doesn’t need an introduction. At first I was still a bit jaded and bitter over the numerous delays on the original TF2, which was then taken over by BF1942 etc. But after I took a look at the trailers and after several engrossing discussions about the finer points of Quakeworld TF and TFC, I was converted. I’m loving the cel-shading approach and from what I’ve heard it sounds like it’s shaping up to be a great release.

And here I am without a credit card to do a pre-order. Boo.