Orange Box on PS3 largely unplayable

The Orange Box was one of the best games of the year and is already a serious contender for game of the year in my books. On the PC it was simply an awesome experience. On the Xbox 360 it was good, though obviously not as good as on the PC due to the controller and the lack of mods. On the PlayStation 3 though things were a little more distressing.

The game was first delayed on the PlayStation 3 platform due to porting problems. Then in an interview with Next-Gen.biz, Gabe Newell himself said that the PlayStation 3 version was, quite literally, a waste of everybody's time. Ol' Mr Newell was never very keen on the poor PlayStation 3 though.

Now, the final nail may be in the coffin. 1-UP recently did a hands-on preview of the PlayStation 3 version of the game and found that the game was largely unplayable.

The preview was described as 'near-final', which either means that it's about to be shipped or that it's still in the works depending on which way your bias swings. Either way, nobody was impressed.

"It's apparent that this version suffers from a number of technical flaws, which at best merely hinder game play and at worst make the experience downright unplayable" Said David Ellis of 1-UP.

Framerate was apparently the worst problem in Episode 2 and the past Half-Life games. The FPS would frequently drop to below 10 apparently, for no reason. Team Fortress 2 meanwhile had server problems which meant the game could not even be played. Portal meanwhile was technically sound, but obviously won't play as well as on the PC.

With the clock ticking down to the release of the already delayed game, EA has very little time to fix these problems. Think they can manage it? Let us know in the forums.