The Orange Box

The Orange Box was the very first game I got for my ps3, it was also the very first time I played a Half-Life series game, Portal and Team Fortress 2. I had no idea what to expect and was completely amazed and blown away by this great collection. I will review each game separately.

Half-Life 2 and Episodes 1 & 2

Half-Life 2 completely blew me away. It is very hard to pick up the story at the beginning (I had to do my internet research only to realize that you are not supposed to know whats going on exactly). The shooting elements, the visuals and the puzzle elements all work together in order to make a very complete and good game and one of the best shooters there is. The other episodes work quite well as well they do not add so much as to the gameplay elements or break completely new ground (you will constantly defend elevators, muck about with your gravity gun, and you will do lots of seesaw puzzles), but then again why fix whats not broken? At the very least the story is far more than enoguh to keep you interested and hungry for the upcoming thrid episode.

Portal

Portal was the first thing I played because I had heard very good things about it. It is easily the best game that appeared, short and fun, and also impossibly entertaining it captures your attention and does not let go until you finish it in one sitting. (which can vary a lot I finished the game first playthrough in about 4-5 hours but I've seen friends completely stumble through 8 hours with the thing) If this was the only thing in the orange box I would still recommend you to buy it at full price. With this game you will laugh, you will cry, and you will scream out in distress at being zapped yet again by that friggen energy ball.

Team Fortress 2
It is easily the most fun multilayer shooter I have ever played. The way that classes are managed and are all extremely powerful and over the top but in a completely balanced way. The variety of weapons, strategies, and gamplay maps make this by far the most replayable part of the orange box. The online gaming experience offers voice chat support although not as many people as one would like generally have it.

Weaknesses of the PS3
As much as I would like to have more people on TF2 PS3 servers to play with, quite frankly I cannot recommend you that you buy this in the PS3 unless you  do not have a gaming PC and a 360. The exceedingly long loading times, the lack of future valve support (comments have been made that the new TF2 PC achievements will come to the 360 but not the PS3 since it was), and the complete lack of a noticeable graphic advantage in between this and the 360 version puts it at the bottom of the list of the 3 versions.

However this does not mean that you should not buy the game, if you only have a PS3 then I most definitely recommend that you buy it although try not to die a lot as having to constantly load your saved portal game if you die each 5 seconds and having to watch a loading screen for 30 only to die again is extremely stressing.

Final Tally
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 8
Sound: 9
Replayability: 7.5
Overall: 8