TF2 Xbox is still pretty active, lots of lobbies and players daily, alongside a community discord existing with thousands of players that organize lobbies daily.
Damn, how small the world seems to be... Near the end of Summer in 2010, after getting a paycheck for a summer program that I just finished for my high school, went and bought an Xbox 360 and the Orange Box. Never played HL1, but all of the Gmod videos, especially Half Life: Full Life Consequences, made me excited to play HL2 and it's episodes. Got of all the achievements for them and Portal, and when I had money from Christmas / Birthday, or whenever my mom bought it, I played TF2 on XBox Live and I sunk hundreds of hours on vanilla TF2. My Senior year of High School between 2010-2011 was filled with memories of TF2 and Battlefield 1943 on Xbox Live... when life was simpler...
This game still gets 3k - 5k players a month which is great. We got a discord and everything and we have mods that have actually implemented pyros pc airblast and lvl3 teleporter recharge time. It’s a good time on this game.
Your video brings back memories for me. When I was in middle school my parents had an HP desktop computer that I first installed Steam on. I didn't have a credit card at the time so the only game I could download was TF2. The PCs specs were pretty bad making it almost impossible to play competitively against actual players. So all I did was similar to you roaming around empty lobbies exploring around. Now I'm an adult and have a full time job and can afford any computer I want, but something about the feeling of being a kid again and experiencing all that for the first time is irreplaceable
I started playing as a kid on PC in 2013, and I was too young and scared to join multiplayer servers. I stuck to "preparing" myself to eventually play with others, I would load up empty maps and try to learn the layouts and gamemodes, see how characters worked and mess around in the training mode. But my fondest memory of this period was loading it up with my brother, and it just being us fighting in an empty match of upward or 2fort. Obviously, I immediately deduced from this that Heavy was the strongest class in the game and that I should play him no matter what. Eventually, after weeks of doing this, I loaded up multiplayer for real and got my ass kicked. I'll always remember that kind of "incubation" period before I started playing the game, just walking around testing maps and playing with my brother. Whenever I play TF2 now I always feel like I'm chasing those feelings I used to have back in 2013-2015. I'm an adult in college now and I've kind of moved on to other things, but in my heart I'm still young and playing this game with my brother on an empty server.
I too started back in 2013, and funny enough I did the exact same thing. I remember rushing home and hopping on my family computer, spending countless days playing the training mode or listening to the developer commentaries. Of course, I eventually moved on to playing with real players through community servers. Every now and then I would pop my head back into training mode in order to warm myself up, but eventually I simply found it unnecessary after a while. I still sometimes like to hop on training mode nowadays just to get a nostalgic kick. Good times…
That's so cute. There's this sort of nostalgic wonder of playing a new game as a young child, no matter how much you sucked at it, that seems unreplicable in later years.
I remember the orange box tf2 had some odd developer mode that allowed you to listen to Gabe talk about the game and the map building. I loved listening to all the chat bubbles to learn more about what went into the game
Being in a lone server and hearing a spy cloak is a whole new feeling, worse part is I was a scout and Ik scout doesn't have a singular sound that can sound similar to a spy cloak
A while back my dad was living on the very top floor of a crappy apartment complex, it was always incredibly hot, even during winter, always had 4-5 fans running, but we made the best of it. Then, my stepmoms friends asked my dad to housesit for a year while they go travel, they were rich surgeons lol. He accepted, and we moved to this beautiful 4 story house with a basement full of videogames! They let us use and even have their xbox 360, and thats when i discovered orange box for the first time. Would play FT2 for 5 minutes, get my butt whooped and hop off 😂 great memories
I grew up with The Orange Box I didn’t have Gold when I was younger so I mainly ran around the maps. There was a time where I somehow had Gold for 3 days and I played nonstop pulled all nighters and everything. It was so fun. I now have my own PC and play this game for content having the time of my life. I’m so proud of how far I have come. Great video I had a great time watching it! I might have to check this game out again on the Xbox 360 maybe do it for a video. I miss The Orange Box
I remember I'd beg my older cousin for his Xbox Live trial codes. Remember the ones they'd give you sometimes when you bought a year pass? They usually lasted for 1 week
Had this same experience growing up, understandably my dad wouldn’t like me gaming, but on the off chance there was a free gold weekend, he’d tell me. Had my fun, get in trouble, but couldn’t have spent that time any other way. Wish I made better choices though.
i feel like we had the exact same childhood lol, this was my EXACT FIRST experience with tf2 and its what got me to play it on my first laptop a year later
Is this what happens to everyone or something? I remember starting tf2 on xbox, and as soon as the game went free around 2011 i got it for my pc and finally enjoyed it in multiplayer.
I played 360 version for a few months b4 I got PC version back in 2008 and I'm glad I did cause just like you described it was way lonelier and I got to appreciate the art style and maps more. Also seeing how ridiculous looking the game eventually became with all the hats, the 360 version is like a time capsule back to when Valve was in their prime and purest form. Great video.
I just wanted to say that u picked a good soundtrack for this video I really really love the superliminal soundtrack and the video everything about it was always something I wanted to express Im looking forward to seeing more content like this
6:40 this series of statements resonates with me heavily: one of the only games i had for my PS1 growing up was the jampack winter 2000 demo disc, which had about 10-12 games with 30 minute demos for each of them. this console was located at my grandma's house, where there was little else to do but play outside in the summer and come inside to cycle through all the games on the demo disc. contrary to what my elders thought at the time, playing those demos was such a great way to exercise one's imagination, so as to figure out what those games were actually like to play. that thought/gameplay loop was integral to my current and past relationship with video games, thank you for taking me back down memory lane like that lol.
I had a similar thing for me when I was really little on Minecraft. Our game didn’t update and I would see kids with witches and dragons and all kinds of crazy things on their Minecraft shirts and wonder what it was like. Then I got a switch a few years later.
Exactly what I went through, my minecraft was still stuck on the first title update while my cousin had sprinting and creative since he got internet before me😭
When I was a kid I used to play a game called Starseige Tribes with my family. I believe it was online only too, so when I was on my own, I liked to mess around in a multiplayer map by myself. I was too afraid to play with random people online. I was messing around, destroying equipment in the enemy team’s base when I suddenly died and I got so scared cause I didn’t understand how. The kill feed said I was killed by “debris” but being a little kid I thought that meant I was killed by another *player* named “Debris” rofl. I quickly logged out so scared that someone, somehow logged into my game and killed me.
The Orange Box on the Xbox 360 was my introduction to TF2 in probably around 2009, about a year before I'd play it on Steam. It is an absolute shame that people cannot have this game introduced to them the same way. Being able to have my introduction to a game which would go on to receive so many updates on PC in a much more stripped-down fashion by comparison helped give a starting mental concept of what the game was about. I really think vanilla TF2 should be available for everyone to play because the game has really changed so much and has had so much added since its launch that it is a much different game with a steeper learning curve.
@DropsOfMars definitely, trying to recommend tf2 to new people is hard when everyone else already has 1000+ hours on it. And don't get me started on the default settings like the fov that you have to use the console to move the view model to a reasonable size lol
There are vanilla servers that disable all extra content if I recall correctly. I haven't played TF2 in a few years but there were servers of all different flavors.
Something that helps a game a lot but is not really talked about is "how much real a place is without player interaction?" Mainly the sound escapes. Hearing the machines beeping, the breeze flowing through, etc. Alongside things like trains passing through, like the place doesn't need players to exist to feel alive. Source games are excellent for this. Team fortress 2, Half life 2 but even Left 4 dead does it. Gmod maps are also a great example for this. Honestly sometimes I think of getting a VR setup with a treadmill just to aimlessly walk on such maps.
Orange Box on the 360 was how I found an appreciation for Developer's Commentary. TF2's commentary introduced the team talking about the game's design and struggles. In it, bots are actually used to demonstrate some of the mechanics or concepts of the game. Being able to actually finally heal a teammate and use uber, or being able to see the effect of the Spy's disguise was such a small taste of the game, even if it was with lifeless bots that only did something when the node was interacted with. I high recommend checking out the Developer's Commentary. This video was very heartwarming
this is very close to my first experience with tf2, walking around empty maps and just listening to the sounds of the game with a deep sense of being alone I never did get xbox live so that was my only perspective of tf2 at the time untill much later when I finally figured out how to downloaded tf2 on my familys laptop
I work nightshift sometimes in an outdoor shopping mall, by myself. The mall is a 2 mile radius and about 5am I have to open it up alone. It's the same feeling, I'd say.
The Orange Box was also my first game... on Steam. So that's where our experiences hard diverge. TF2, mind you this was like 2009 or so, was amazing on PC. I dumped so many hours into that with my friends. I made great memories, from playing casually late on weekends, to trying to do the Highlander, to joining idle servers to get the random drops, or farm achievements for the items. I'm sad that Xbox never got updates, but am pleased they still are a strong community. I had the honor to be able to meet many of the TF2 voice actors, including Ellen McLain (GLaDOS, TF2 Announcer), in 2023 at PAX East. I hated waiting in that line for 3 hours, but these were people who lent their voices to media, specifically games in this instance, that had really deep impressions on me. It was worth it. Thank you for sharing your experience with TF2. It's so interesting to me to see how something so transformative for me is interpreted by others and the experience they had with these works.
the dev commentary makes the single player experience wholly unique, as i dont think its in the steam version anymore and in valve fashion, shows off the tricks they used for the game.
It’s still BIG i mean there are lobby’s all day people have hacked, airblast and payload into it so honestly, the community can change it how they want
wow, this video takes me back so many years ago, I still play tf2 to this day but gaming and life has changed so much the past few years.. oh how much I miss those simpler times
oh my god. Extreme G2 is a game ive been trying to remember FOREVER. Man, im so glad i decided to watch this video. Thank you so much! Also, phenomenal video man. Keep making content, this shit is gooooood
I love this video because I would always just hop on to just to see game mechanics and the maps layout. This video perfectly encapsulates my experience and I’m guessing plenty others experiences as well. I have a feeling this video will start to pop off soon enough.
Back in late '09 we lost the landline to our house, and with it I lost any chance of consistent online gaming for the next 5 years. I got a copy of The Orange Box the month after that loss, really hoping that console TF2 had some sort of offline experience, as it was mainly the reason I bought it. I wanted a piece of what every GMod animator was playing at a time when I didn't have a suitable PC. The whole backrooms energy of booting up a private server off-network personifies my loss of broadband internet at the time, and it made my waiting for taking my copy of the game to a friends house a really big deal. In the interim the only thing keeping me company was the trains on CP Well.
yeah i had an experience that's similar with modern warfare 3 i was able to play the campaign and special ops modes but never the multiplayer unless i played with a relative that is. but i didn't really play mw3 because it would often crash
I actually have fond memories of this even recently. Before me and my friend got our PCs we would play this together and I would always host a public lobby and people would join! It may not have a lot of people but there are still those who played to that day!!
I've talked about this once or twice on my channel! It's always super cool to hear that somebody else has had the same offline xbox experience with TF2 that I did. Good story, stellar music choices, amazing video!
I remember I didn’t have a PC at the time so I just used my hand me down Xbox 360. Pulled my first all nighter playing Skyrim and half life 2 and I remember in 2016 and 2017 there were still players on 360 tf2 complete with the same zany antics of the pc tf2 player base. I miss those days since my acc got hacked in 2019 and I wasn’t able to get it back
I really like this video. I like the part where you discussed having a collection of N64 cartridges. as a kid I always had a fascination with the N64 (I think it was the odd controller and being home to games like Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64) but I just missed it since when I was born right as the GameCube released. Those N64 kiosks (at McDonald’s and such) were legendary finds for me though.
Thankfully I was able to play this game online at launch but man I just love how this version of TF2 still exists. It’s really neat. The PC experience is definitely the best but the 360 version was my first time playing the game and I loved playing 2fort.
My first experience with tf2 was also on the orange box, after playing half life and portal i eventually played tf2, having never learned about the game and only seeing old gmod machinimas including the mercs, for some reason i could never get into a match though despite having internet, it was really odd going offline and experiencing the ambience, even if it was just grasshoppers and crows.
outside of scary levels like ravenholm I FIRMLY believe source maps alone are cozy, they feel like an afternoon whyen you were all alone a a kid or teen its great
I experienced a similar thing with this game, only in reverse. Like you, I got a copy of The Orange Box knowing nothing about the games in it. I had heard of Half-Life before, but being a console gamer at the time, I never played it myself, having only watched my friends older brother play it at his house on his PC one time. So needless to say, I was blown away by what I played. But after I got my fill of Half-Life and Portal, I decided to try TF2 on a whim. I was fortunate to have access to Xbox Live at the time, so I just jumped into the first server I could that had a healthy player count. I immediately gravitated towards Engineer and Spy, and was hooked INSTANTLY. I played every single day after school for almost all of my high school years. I watched as the PC version got all these cool new weapons, hats and mechanics, meanwhile the lobbies on Xbox Live were dwindling by the day. It got to a point where there would only ever be 2, maybe 3 matches with players, then 2, then 1, then none. I held hope for so long that they would update the game for consoles, not fully understanding that it was technically impossible. Eventually, I ended up getting a PC that was JUST BARELY able to play the game at a somewhat playable state (it's still a Source game after all,) but I'll always remember my time with the 360 version of the game, and the people I eventually grew to know by name because the community got so small.
Man i remember whenever i got a new game i was super excited to find it came with a free month of live or (the holy grail) 3MONTHS of free live. Only the crazy triple A titles at the time MAYBE came with those trial cards but man when it did i felt like i hit the lottery basically. What a time
This video is lovely, because it confirms how you can love TF2 even offline. I loved playing it on PC with bots on Nucleus, because no one plays online this map... This game has perfect gameplay and style... 14:58 appreciate this moment...
Had to pause on 1:39 just to say bro frrrrrr playing the orange box as kid with no knowledge of the games I am playing was truly the greatest feeling I fell in love with portal and half life those 2 games got me through some shit 😭🙏
As someone who didn't have a proper PC until 2014, I feel like I can understand the sentiment of imagining how it is to play a game, and overhyping it in your head due to excitement. I'd spend hours on the TF2 wiki or watching random gameplay on YT so that I could sort of try to keep up with the game -- I think I didn't understand it back then, but it may have been me trying to circumvent FOMO, since TF2's community and popularity made me feel like it was the biggest thing ever, and I was missing out on it for years. I even had a friend buy me the game a whole 4 years before I was able to play it, sort of mirroring your experience with the N64 games you had, which I think is kinda funny. An unfortunate twist ended up being that I've spent so much time trying to "stay around" TF2 before playing it that, when I finally had the chance to do so, I felt kind of burned out and disappointed due to it not really meeting my unrealistic expectations of it, despite me still loving the game. The bot situation (although seemingly under control now?) and the game's uncertain "it's so over - we're so back" existence sort of creates another melancholic feeling altogether, which combined with the weird experience you had on the Xbox version really makes you wonder how TF2 is able to achieve all of these complex emotions in its fans whenever things just aren't quite right with it.
I still play it now and again. Its a lot more fun than dealing with all the try hards on pc. Playing in the early morning is such a nostalgic, peaceful, or even euphoric feeling for me. I recommend trying it if you can. Playing alone though was a whole different beast. It was like at any moment you could turn a corner and see something peaking out at you, or something weird and creepy would happen, much like minecraft at the time. Horror games dont unnerve me as much as those games do.
This feels like when I revisited Garden Warfare 1, when the match was over, still waiting for players. Or in the backyard in Garden Warfare 2. There should be people fighting, but it’s just the npcs.
There is something about going back to the games you played as a kid and instead of playing them you just walk around, listening to the ambiance. This might sound a bit corny, but it almost feels like i’m visiting my childhood home. Tf2, half life 2, halo, hello neighbor. All these games just make feel so nostalgic and hollow.
I remember buying the orange box on xbox 360 long long time ago, and playing tf2 for the first time. such a sweet long time ago, I wish I could go back.
Damn i used to play this so much 2015 to 2019 then i got a pc i never will forget those years the mods the small lil community always seeing the same players. Its special id love to play it again
i bought the game using my moms credit card only knowing that the prorvided preview screenshots in the 360s market place had the physics gun and tf2 that i instantly recognized. best 60 dollas of my childhood, thx moms credit card. console tf2 still is and will probably be the only version i will play in the forseeable future. the glitches and the handful modding community give the game way more life. like the glitch where u can move around just the same but while doing ur static taunt with a combination of a jump and a press of the taunt button is just so fucking funny to see in game.
This was how I started playing TF2 back when the Orange Box came out... Today I still play it and have been relishing the bot ban! I'm 27 now and I was 10 when this game came out.
I'm glad to see from the timeline peaks that I'm not the only person who found the inclusion of the whole Orange Box trailer to be kind of annoying as hell
I literally had the pretty much same experience when I was playing the orange box by the age of 10, ecxept I was only playing the dev commentary maps. I still had my fun despite me being so lonely with not a single enemy or friend, later on I dug out a realy old gaming pc from the 90s or early 00s out of our basement and I installed steam on it with TF2. I was so happy that I could finally have players to play with, but I didn't realy know how to play the game back then. Despite all that I had a good time.
I remember waiting for those updates that were supposed to put the xbox version on par with pc. I would still play a proper console version of TF2. Wish theyd release it on modern consoles
TF2 Xbox is still pretty active, lots of lobbies and players daily, alongside a community discord existing with thousands of players that organize lobbies daily.
How do I find this discord?
@@Mr.Peggle QdVx3tDQ4J
@@LoremIpsum1919 pffffft
Cool
proof
Damn, how small the world seems to be...
Near the end of Summer in 2010, after getting a paycheck for a summer program that I just finished for my high school, went and bought an Xbox 360 and the Orange Box. Never played HL1, but all of the Gmod videos, especially Half Life: Full Life Consequences, made me excited to play HL2 and it's episodes. Got of all the achievements for them and Portal, and when I had money from Christmas / Birthday, or whenever my mom bought it, I played TF2 on XBox Live and I sunk hundreds of hours on vanilla TF2.
My Senior year of High School between 2010-2011 was filled with memories of TF2 and Battlefield 1943 on Xbox Live... when life was simpler...
Battlefield 1943 😢❤
This game still gets 3k - 5k players a month which is great. We got a discord and everything and we have mods that have actually implemented pyros pc airblast and lvl3 teleporter recharge time. It’s a good time on this game.
how 2 join
@@chairwood I’ll break it up into 3 comments cause TH-cam will ban the comment otherwise.
tf2xbox
.com
. Com
1:04 THIS TRANSITION THO
a whole fucking movie
3:00
Your video brings back memories for me. When I was in middle school my parents had an HP desktop computer that I first installed Steam on. I didn't have a credit card at the time so the only game I could download was TF2. The PCs specs were pretty bad making it almost impossible to play competitively against actual players. So all I did was similar to you roaming around empty lobbies exploring around. Now I'm an adult and have a full time job and can afford any computer I want, but something about the feeling of being a kid again and experiencing all that for the first time is irreplaceable
I'm in the same boat except I'm still a college student lol.
I remember that my first computer COULD run Team Fortress 2…but it took several centuries just to download-
I started playing as a kid on PC in 2013, and I was too young and scared to join multiplayer servers. I stuck to "preparing" myself to eventually play with others, I would load up empty maps and try to learn the layouts and gamemodes, see how characters worked and mess around in the training mode. But my fondest memory of this period was loading it up with my brother, and it just being us fighting in an empty match of upward or 2fort. Obviously, I immediately deduced from this that Heavy was the strongest class in the game and that I should play him no matter what. Eventually, after weeks of doing this, I loaded up multiplayer for real and got my ass kicked. I'll always remember that kind of "incubation" period before I started playing the game, just walking around testing maps and playing with my brother. Whenever I play TF2 now I always feel like I'm chasing those feelings I used to have back in 2013-2015. I'm an adult in college now and I've kind of moved on to other things, but in my heart I'm still young and playing this game with my brother on an empty server.
I too started back in 2013, and funny enough I did the exact same thing. I remember rushing home and hopping on my family computer, spending countless days playing the training mode or listening to the developer commentaries. Of course, I eventually moved on to playing with real players through community servers. Every now and then I would pop my head back into training mode in order to warm myself up, but eventually I simply found it unnecessary after a while. I still sometimes like to hop on training mode nowadays just to get a nostalgic kick. Good times…
That's so cute. There's this sort of nostalgic wonder of playing a new game as a young child, no matter how much you sucked at it, that seems unreplicable in later years.
That nostalgic silent stroll when you were the last person on the server after a long fun night of playing.
I remember the orange box tf2 had some odd developer mode that allowed you to listen to Gabe talk about the game and the map building. I loved listening to all the chat bubbles to learn more about what went into the game
14:57 its weird hearing this without the screams of a demo and soldier jumping to the point and a heavy going "YAAAAAH"
Being in a lone server and hearing a spy cloak is a whole new feeling, worse part is I was a scout and Ik scout doesn't have a singular sound that can sound similar to a spy cloak
A while back my dad was living on the very top floor of a crappy apartment complex, it was always incredibly hot, even during winter, always had 4-5 fans running, but we made the best of it. Then, my stepmoms friends asked my dad to housesit for a year while they go travel, they were rich surgeons lol. He accepted, and we moved to this beautiful 4 story house with a basement full of videogames! They let us use and even have their xbox 360, and thats when i discovered orange box for the first time. Would play FT2 for 5 minutes, get my butt whooped and hop off 😂 great memories
0:10 TRANSFORMERS FALL OF CYBERTRON THE GOAT
YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS
Quite impressive they managed to put 3 complete games onto one disc
Nowadays companies can’t even put one working game on to a disk
Nowadays we have no disks.
Now they split an incomplete game across 3 downloads
The original versions of these games share some assets. Makes it easier
Valve are masters at optimization
Id like to thank all of you for all your positive feedback! Reading all your guy's comments and own experiences for this old game warms my heart.
I grew up with The Orange Box I didn’t have Gold when I was younger so I mainly ran around the maps. There was a time where I somehow had Gold for 3 days and I played nonstop pulled all nighters and everything. It was so fun. I now have my own PC and play this game for content having the time of my life. I’m so proud of how far I have come. Great video I had a great time watching it! I might have to check this game out again on the Xbox 360 maybe do it for a video. I miss The Orange Box
I remember I'd beg my older cousin for his Xbox Live trial codes. Remember the ones they'd give you sometimes when you bought a year pass? They usually lasted for 1 week
Had this same experience growing up, understandably my dad wouldn’t like me gaming, but on the off chance there was a free gold weekend, he’d tell me. Had my fun, get in trouble, but couldn’t have spent that time any other way. Wish I made better choices though.
i wouldnt be where i am without tf2
tf2 ambiance is engraved into my head after 2000 hours
i feel like we had the exact same childhood lol, this was my EXACT FIRST experience with tf2 and its what got me to play it on my first laptop a year later
also this is the first non corny "valve games are spooky" video ive ever seen, absolutely fantastic work
Is this what happens to everyone or something? I remember starting tf2 on xbox, and as soon as the game went free around 2011 i got it for my pc and finally enjoyed it in multiplayer.
@@kenpalarold9476probably, I started on xbox 360 too
I played 360 version for a few months b4 I got PC version back in 2008 and I'm glad I did cause just like you described it was way lonelier and I got to appreciate the art style and maps more. Also seeing how ridiculous looking the game eventually became with all the hats, the 360 version is like a time capsule back to when Valve was in their prime and purest form. Great video.
I just wanted to say that u picked a good soundtrack for this video I really really love the superliminal soundtrack and the video everything about it was always something I wanted to express Im looking forward to seeing more content like this
Never played Xbox TF2 BUT I have 3k hours on PC. It’s my favorite game.
I thought that title was saying the XBOX servers went offline recently
It's p2p so it doesn't rely on server's.
me toooo
@@clownproductionia Source can't be p2p, host's machine is server
@@clownproductionia Wouldn't you still need some kind of servers for matchmaking?
@@milymiloyeah but they're cheap cos they don't host the servers themselves
6:40
this series of statements resonates with me heavily: one of the only games i had for my PS1 growing up was the jampack winter 2000 demo disc, which had about 10-12 games with 30 minute demos for each of them. this console was located at my grandma's house, where there was little else to do but play outside in the summer and come inside to cycle through all the games on the demo disc. contrary to what my elders thought at the time, playing those demos was such a great way to exercise one's imagination, so as to figure out what those games were actually like to play. that thought/gameplay loop was integral to my current and past relationship with video games, thank you for taking me back down memory lane like that lol.
I had a similar thing for me when I was really little on Minecraft. Our game didn’t update and I would see kids with witches and dragons and all kinds of crazy things on their Minecraft shirts and wonder what it was like. Then I got a switch a few years later.
Exactly what I went through, my minecraft was still stuck on the first title update while my cousin had sprinting and creative since he got internet before me😭
This was my exact experience with tf2 for 12 years just running around and shooting until i even knew what a online match looked like
When I was a kid I used to play a game called Starseige Tribes with my family. I believe it was online only too, so when I was on my own, I liked to mess around in a multiplayer map by myself. I was too afraid to play with random people online. I was messing around, destroying equipment in the enemy team’s base when I suddenly died and I got so scared cause I didn’t understand how. The kill feed said I was killed by “debris” but being a little kid I thought that meant I was killed by another *player* named “Debris” rofl. I quickly logged out so scared that someone, somehow logged into my game and killed me.
The Orange Box on the Xbox 360 was my introduction to TF2 in probably around 2009, about a year before I'd play it on Steam. It is an absolute shame that people cannot have this game introduced to them the same way. Being able to have my introduction to a game which would go on to receive so many updates on PC in a much more stripped-down fashion by comparison helped give a starting mental concept of what the game was about. I really think vanilla TF2 should be available for everyone to play because the game has really changed so much and has had so much added since its launch that it is a much different game with a steeper learning curve.
@DropsOfMars definitely, trying to recommend tf2 to new people is hard when everyone else already has 1000+ hours on it. And don't get me started on the default settings like the fov that you have to use the console to move the view model to a reasonable size lol
There are vanilla servers that disable all extra content if I recall correctly. I haven't played TF2 in a few years but there were servers of all different flavors.
Something that helps a game a lot but is not really talked about is "how much real a place is without player interaction?" Mainly the sound escapes.
Hearing the machines beeping, the breeze flowing through, etc. Alongside things like trains passing through, like the place doesn't need players to exist to feel alive.
Source games are excellent for this. Team fortress 2, Half life 2 but even Left 4 dead does it. Gmod maps are also a great example for this.
Honestly sometimes I think of getting a VR setup with a treadmill just to aimlessly walk on such maps.
Orange Box on the 360 was how I found an appreciation for Developer's Commentary. TF2's commentary introduced the team talking about the game's design and struggles. In it, bots are actually used to demonstrate some of the mechanics or concepts of the game. Being able to actually finally heal a teammate and use uber, or being able to see the effect of the Spy's disguise was such a small taste of the game, even if it was with lifeless bots that only did something when the node was interacted with.
I high recommend checking out the Developer's Commentary. This video was very heartwarming
i loved doing the out of the map glitches as a kid 😂
THANK YOU FOR PUTTING Transformers FOC in the intro. One of my personal favorite transformers games ever
this is very close to my first experience with tf2, walking around empty maps and just listening to the sounds of the game with a deep sense of being alone
I never did get xbox live so that was my only perspective of tf2 at the time untill much later when I finally figured out how to downloaded tf2 on my familys laptop
I work nightshift sometimes in an outdoor shopping mall, by myself.
The mall is a 2 mile radius and about 5am I have to open it up alone.
It's the same feeling, I'd say.
The Orange Box was also my first game... on Steam. So that's where our experiences hard diverge. TF2, mind you this was like 2009 or so, was amazing on PC. I dumped so many hours into that with my friends. I made great memories, from playing casually late on weekends, to trying to do the Highlander, to joining idle servers to get the random drops, or farm achievements for the items. I'm sad that Xbox never got updates, but am pleased they still are a strong community.
I had the honor to be able to meet many of the TF2 voice actors, including Ellen McLain (GLaDOS, TF2 Announcer), in 2023 at PAX East. I hated waiting in that line for 3 hours, but these were people who lent their voices to media, specifically games in this instance, that had really deep impressions on me. It was worth it.
Thank you for sharing your experience with TF2. It's so interesting to me to see how something so transformative for me is interpreted by others and the experience they had with these works.
I love your calm edits within your video man, keep it up!
the dev commentary makes the single player experience wholly unique, as i dont think its in the steam version anymore and in valve fashion, shows off the tricks they used for the game.
dev commentary exists in the steam version
@@Boomrainbownuke9608 It's in the Steam version, you just need to find it.
It still exists, there's a small button for it on the bottom right of the main menu
I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the title.
It’s still BIG i mean there are lobby’s all day people have hacked, airblast and payload into it so honestly, the community can change it how they want
This most nostalgic game ever this game will never end ❤
2007-2024 17 years !
wow, this video takes me back so many years ago, I still play tf2 to this day but gaming and life has changed so much the past few years.. oh how much I miss those simpler times
This kind of reminds me of the ending sound that plays on the tf2 record when all the tracks have been played. It’s just 2fort ambience on loop.
oh my god. Extreme G2 is a game ive been trying to remember FOREVER. Man, im so glad i decided to watch this video. Thank you so much!
Also, phenomenal video man. Keep making content, this shit is gooooood
I love this video because I would always just hop on to just to see game mechanics and the maps layout. This video perfectly encapsulates my experience and I’m guessing plenty others experiences as well. I have a feeling this video will start to pop off soon enough.
Don’t comment often, but I came to say this is a beautifully done video.
Back in late '09 we lost the landline to our house, and with it I lost any chance of consistent online gaming for the next 5 years. I got a copy of The Orange Box the month after that loss, really hoping that console TF2 had some sort of offline experience, as it was mainly the reason I bought it. I wanted a piece of what every GMod animator was playing at a time when I didn't have a suitable PC. The whole backrooms energy of booting up a private server off-network personifies my loss of broadband internet at the time, and it made my waiting for taking my copy of the game to a friends house a really big deal. In the interim the only thing keeping me company was the trains on CP Well.
the way you commentate over videos and have the background music makes me feel like im playing getting over it, i absolutely love it
I'm very much reminded of that old TF2 machinima "Ignis Solus" by Lit Fuse Films watching the end of this video.
Xbox 360 had some fire games🔥🔥🔥🤟
Best console in History!
yeah i had an experience that's similar with modern warfare 3 i was able to play the campaign and special ops modes but never the multiplayer unless i played with a relative that is. but i didn't really play mw3 because it would often crash
This video is such incredibly good quality.
some cinematic shots in here, wow!
I actually have fond memories of this even recently. Before me and my friend got our PCs we would play this together and I would always host a public lobby and people would join! It may not have a lot of people but there are still those who played to that day!!
Watched this whole video, this is how it felt to play offline with many online games I had as a kid. Thank you for this experience.
I've talked about this once or twice on my channel! It's always super cool to hear that somebody else has had the same offline xbox experience with TF2 that I did. Good story, stellar music choices, amazing video!
It’s eerie how identical to my first experience with TF2 this is.
i also didn’t have xbox live so I just walked around in tf2 maps alone, i didn’t have a good pc but i loved tf2 vids on youtube
fall of cybertron mentioned, todays a good day
SMOOTHEST TRANSITION EVER WTF
I remember I didn’t have a PC at the time so I just used my hand me down Xbox 360. Pulled my first all nighter playing Skyrim and half life 2 and I remember in 2016 and 2017 there were still players on 360 tf2 complete with the same zany antics of the pc tf2 player base. I miss those days since my acc got hacked in 2019 and I wasn’t able to get it back
I really like this video.
I like the part where you discussed having a collection of N64 cartridges. as a kid I always had a fascination with the N64 (I think it was the odd controller and being home to games like Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64) but I just missed it since when I was born right as the GameCube released. Those N64 kiosks (at McDonald’s and such) were legendary finds for me though.
Bought on PC and playing TF2 to this day. What a Christmas
2:17 proof heavy is schizophrenic
Nice use of the superliminal soundtrack
When the cowards actually hide
"We got a discord" where might this discord be sir?
Love the quality man, keep it up!
Thankfully I was able to play this game online at launch but man I just love how this version of TF2 still exists. It’s really neat. The PC experience is definitely the best but the 360 version was my first time playing the game and I loved playing 2fort.
Now there’s just one server everyone plays on and when ones ends someone just makes a new server and everyone joins it
i preach the use of superliminal soundtrack. nice vibes.
We’ve got a small but dedicated community. Feel free to join.
My first experience with tf2 was also on the orange box, after playing half life and portal i eventually played tf2, having never learned about the game and only seeing old gmod machinimas including the mercs, for some reason i could never get into a match though despite having internet, it was really odd going offline and experiencing the ambience, even if it was just grasshoppers and crows.
They had ranked matches decade before the PC port
outside of scary levels like ravenholm I FIRMLY believe source maps alone are cozy, they feel like an afternoon whyen you were all alone a a kid or teen its great
I experienced a similar thing with this game, only in reverse. Like you, I got a copy of The Orange Box knowing nothing about the games in it. I had heard of Half-Life before, but being a console gamer at the time, I never played it myself, having only watched my friends older brother play it at his house on his PC one time. So needless to say, I was blown away by what I played. But after I got my fill of Half-Life and Portal, I decided to try TF2 on a whim. I was fortunate to have access to Xbox Live at the time, so I just jumped into the first server I could that had a healthy player count. I immediately gravitated towards Engineer and Spy, and was hooked INSTANTLY. I played every single day after school for almost all of my high school years. I watched as the PC version got all these cool new weapons, hats and mechanics, meanwhile the lobbies on Xbox Live were dwindling by the day. It got to a point where there would only ever be 2, maybe 3 matches with players, then 2, then 1, then none. I held hope for so long that they would update the game for consoles, not fully understanding that it was technically impossible. Eventually, I ended up getting a PC that was JUST BARELY able to play the game at a somewhat playable state (it's still a Source game after all,) but I'll always remember my time with the 360 version of the game, and the people I eventually grew to know by name because the community got so small.
Man i remember whenever i got a new game i was super excited to find it came with a free month of live or (the holy grail) 3MONTHS of free live. Only the crazy triple A titles at the time MAYBE came with those trial cards but man when it did i felt like i hit the lottery basically. What a time
This video is lovely, because it confirms how you can love TF2 even offline. I loved playing it on PC with bots on Nucleus, because no one plays online this map... This game has perfect gameplay and style...
14:58 appreciate this moment...
THE SUPERLIMINAL INTRO OMG
the orange box still goes hard
played this on xbox live with a consistent group back in the day before i had tf2. Oh ignorance was so bliss
Had to pause on 1:39 just to say bro frrrrrr playing the orange box as kid with no knowledge of the games I am playing was truly the greatest feeling I fell in love with portal and half life those 2 games got me through some shit 😭🙏
As someone who didn't have a proper PC until 2014, I feel like I can understand the sentiment of imagining how it is to play a game, and overhyping it in your head due to excitement. I'd spend hours on the TF2 wiki or watching random gameplay on YT so that I could sort of try to keep up with the game -- I think I didn't understand it back then, but it may have been me trying to circumvent FOMO, since TF2's community and popularity made me feel like it was the biggest thing ever, and I was missing out on it for years. I even had a friend buy me the game a whole 4 years before I was able to play it, sort of mirroring your experience with the N64 games you had, which I think is kinda funny. An unfortunate twist ended up being that I've spent so much time trying to "stay around" TF2 before playing it that, when I finally had the chance to do so, I felt kind of burned out and disappointed due to it not really meeting my unrealistic expectations of it, despite me still loving the game. The bot situation (although seemingly under control now?) and the game's uncertain "it's so over - we're so back" existence sort of creates another melancholic feeling altogether, which combined with the weird experience you had on the Xbox version really makes you wonder how TF2 is able to achieve all of these complex emotions in its fans whenever things just aren't quite right with it.
I still play it now and again. Its a lot more fun than dealing with all the try hards on pc.
Playing in the early morning is such a nostalgic, peaceful, or even euphoric feeling for me. I recommend trying it if you can.
Playing alone though was a whole different beast. It was like at any moment you could turn a corner and see something peaking out at you, or something weird and creepy would happen, much like minecraft at the time. Horror games dont unnerve me as much as those games do.
aint no tryhards on pc everyone sucks play sniper click heads and you win every game its little kids playing they suck
I got the orange box in 2022 and I've had about 8 games since then. Once lobbies are created it tends to fill up fast but finding a game was a pain
This feels like when I revisited Garden Warfare 1, when the match was over, still waiting for players.
Or in the backyard in Garden Warfare 2. There should be people fighting, but it’s just the npcs.
There is something about going back to the games you played as a kid and instead of playing them you just walk around, listening to the ambiance. This might sound a bit corny, but it almost feels like i’m visiting my childhood home. Tf2, half life 2, halo, hello neighbor. All these games just make feel so nostalgic and hollow.
I remember buying the orange box on xbox 360 long long time ago, and playing tf2 for the first time. such a sweet long time ago, I wish I could go back.
Damn i used to play this so much 2015 to 2019 then i got a pc i never will forget those years the mods the small lil community always seeing the same players. Its special id love to play it again
I played the PS3 version in 2016. The servers were pretty active back then compared to now.
god tf2 was my first game ive ever played i have so many vivid memorys with the game. I was 4 at the time of first ever playing
i bought the game using my moms credit card only knowing that the prorvided preview screenshots in the 360s market place had the physics gun and tf2 that i instantly recognized. best 60 dollas of my childhood, thx moms credit card.
console tf2 still is and will probably be the only version i will play in the forseeable future. the glitches and the handful modding community give the game way more life. like the glitch where u can move around just the same but while doing ur static taunt with a combination of a jump and a press of the taunt button is just so fucking funny to see in game.
This was how I started playing TF2 back when the Orange Box came out... Today I still play it and have been relishing the bot ban!
I'm 27 now and I was 10 when this game came out.
I'm glad to see from the timeline peaks that I'm not the only person who found the inclusion of the whole Orange Box trailer to be kind of annoying as hell
6:39 no one in history will ever experence this ever
I literally had the pretty much same experience when I was playing the orange box by the age of 10, ecxept I was only playing the dev commentary maps. I still had my fun despite me being so lonely with not a single enemy or friend, later on I dug out a realy old gaming pc from the 90s or early 00s out of our basement and I installed steam on it with TF2. I was so happy that I could finally have players to play with, but I didn't realy know how to play the game back then. Despite all that I had a good time.
I'm watching this thru a panic attack before a big test, feels like a horror movie
OSHIT, IT WAS MEANT THAT WAY
Did you pass?
I remember waiting for those updates that were supposed to put the xbox version on par with pc.
I would still play a proper console version of TF2. Wish theyd release it on modern consoles
9:10 sa4ab3h joined the game
this video is so bs he just ran around a empty level and yapped
Ur 20 min vid feels like 4 hours history class
woow the old gameplay its like asmr to me
I knew I wasn't crazy, when I was a child I saw this and never bothered getting it then I came back and it wasn't there,