"Orange Box" emerges as video game sleeper hit

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Life!) - What do you get when you throw together a 3-year-old video game, two sequels, a multiplayer variant a decade in the making and a quirky concept game involving a gun that shoots teleportation holes?

If you're Valve Corp, one of the best-regarded independent video game studios, you get "The Orange Box", which is winning rave reviews and emerging as a sleeper hit.

The main game is "Half-Life 2", a shooter set in an Orwellian future where aliens walk freely among us. The game came out in 2004 but is going strong thanks to two expansion packs, 2006's "Episode One" and now "Episode Two".

"We wanted to provide a mix of gameplay mechanics and environments," Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi said of the latest installment.

"We try to give you more of an epic scale than we've done before."

As Valve was putting the finishing touches on "Episode Two", it was also wrapping up "Team Fortress 2", an online multiplayer combat game. The original "Team Fortress" came out in 1996 as a popular free modification for the game "Quake".

"'Team Fortress 2' and 'Episode Two' were kind of on a collision course release-wise," Lombardi said of the decision to sell the games together.

"We said do we want them competing or complementing each other?"