French/German Orange Box stall

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 December, 2007

Some Euro PS3 versions held up.

French and German PlayStation 3 owners will have to wait until early 2008 to play The Orange Box, Electronic Arts said this week, despite confirming that it will be available in North America and Europe next week.

The German release date is known to be 17th January at the time of writing, but the French one we're waiting to hear back about.

As we told you last month (la-di-dah), gamers in the UK will definitely be able to pick it up on 14th December at retail, although the lorries will start moving them in buyable direction from the 10th, meaning that US gamers will be able to pick theirs up on the 11th. Keeping up? Good.

Like the Xbox 360 version, The Orange Box on PS3 consists of Half-Life 2 and both of its episodic follow-ups, Portal and Team Fortress 2.

As you've probably noticed, there has been a certain amount of preview-based whinging about the PS3 code's frame-rate issues over the pond, but sources close to EA UK confess to being bewildered by the ferocity of the reaction, claiming that the PS3 version handles itself very well compared to the 360 release.

All will be revealed next week when the review embargo lifts.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dizzy #1 4 years ago

    "claiming that the PS3 version handles itself very well compared to the 360 release"

    Ha ok... all is fine then. They fixed the 3FPS Half Life Episode 2 moments then.
    Edited by 1 at 05/12/07 @ 09:57

  • monkie_king #2 4 years ago

    Well, if EA say so, it must be true, mustn't it? I can't think of any motivation they might have for exaggerating.

  • sickpuppysoftware #3 4 years ago

    "We asked EA to be more specific about France and Germany, and they said they are both countries in mainland Europe."

    Thanks EA. Do you want to tell this woman?

  • Wrobel #4 4 years ago

    In the last 1up podcast they mentioned that a lot of the issues reported with the pre-release version had been fixed in the final version, however that it still struggled with framerate problems in some parts but was still very playable and a must have PS3 purchase if you do not already have a 360.

  • tobsen #5 4 years ago

    German users will likely have to wait because Valve needs to implement the same ill-conceived censorship measures like with the PC version - TF2 characters that explode into junkyard items, EP2 combine troopers that vanish into thin air when killed etc.

  • Darren #6 4 years ago

    Half-Life 2 doesn't look that great on the 360 IMO, it looks very dated alongside the Xbox 360's better looking games like BioShock, etc. It has no anti-aliasing and the texture filtering is poor to non-existent. The framerate isn't always brilliant either and, of course, the engine's age means that the games pauses for 10 seconds every few minutes to load data, none of the near-seamless stuff that the Halo managed FIVE years ago for example. ;)

  • zuljin #7 4 years ago

    @tobsen
    See I was wondering why COD4 had a cheat which made people explode into tires when you kill them... It all makes sense now!

  • betahoven #8 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:36:16 17-12-2011

  • DB2k #9 4 years ago

    that will teach them for speaking old dead languages I guess!

  • Ghettomurph #10 4 years ago

    @tobsen

    Only trouble is that Valve aren't coding the PS3 version, an internal EA team is.

  • Waffleaber #11 4 years ago

    Good, usually the UK has to endure a delay to accommodate languages we don't speak leaving us with American spellings and a late game. The only thing developers usually add to a UK release is a PAL region lock.

    I'm surprised this isn't being spun by EA as an early UK release rather than a delayed continental europe one.

  • miiiguel #12 4 years ago

    "very comparable"... PS3'ers want to be better! not "almost as good"! God damn it!

    da power of da c33ll! users know it's there, the teraflops and all that shit!, why devs don't ?
    Edited by 1 at 05/12/07 @ 12:11

  • ParanoidZombie #13 4 years ago

    Merde! Scheisse!

  • monkie_king #14 4 years ago

    does this mean separate languages on UK discs and continental discs? But teh capacity of bloo-ray!

    ISTR a few Eurogamers were mighty pissed off that their localized releases of Halo3 only offered bad foreign dubs, and were intending to import the English-language version instead.

    "Der Kuchen ist eine Luege!"

  • bioreit #15 4 years ago

    Mike at Kotaku did a very thorough round-up of the PS3 HL2, including any and all gameplay issues.

    Can't be bothered to round up a link yet, but give me some time.

    Ooh, for those going off to find it, be careful - there are some spoilers!

  • Garulon #16 4 years ago

    "very comparable"... PS3'ers want to be better! not "almost as good"! God damn it!

    Ehh, I'm pretty sure PS3 owners are starting to settle with the fact that the 360 is just always going to be as good or better for multiplatform stuff. Just be thankful you guys get a version at all, what with how few of you guys acutally buy your late jerky 360 ports.

  • mooseman721 #17 4 years ago

    This game is sooo 2004. Why is anyone bothered? My PC plays this with ease and it was built 4 years ago!!! Good game but not the be all and end all it's billed as.

  • miiiguel #18 4 years ago

    Buy Fassbinder's complete box set instead, just came out.

  • hbunny #19 4 years ago

    @monkie_king, LOL as I'm learning German.

    And that YouTube video that sickpuppysoftware posted, wtf? Where do these people come from? Oh, yeah, the good ol' US of A.