The Orange Box is pure gold
One of the things you think about when you pick up a game is the overall value. With The Orange Box, value is not a problem. Five games are all in one box for a low price, which is something you don’t see in video games that often. The Orange Box is a great compilation that any fans of action games will love.
The first two games in the collection are Half-life 2 and Half-life 2: Episode One. Half-life 2 tells the story of Gordon Freeman traversing the combine controlled city streets of City 17. The biggest thing this game introduced was how the player interacted with the physics of the items in the environment, which is a theme that stays throughout the entire series. Half-life 2 is defiantly a modern classic that was first released in 2004 & still holds up today. Half-life 2: Episode One continues the story of Gordon Freeman running out of City 17 (trying to avoid spoilers) with Alyx Vance, a character introduced in Half-life 2. She is by your side throughout the entire episode, which is nice. Episode One is cripplingly short, about 4-5 hours, which was a bummer when it was first released. That problem has been fixed by putting it in a compilation package.
Half-life 2: Episode Two is the newest chapter of the series that has Alyx & Gordon traversing the dangerous White Forest to bring a package to Alyx’s father. While episode one is focused on interiors and corridors, episode two brings back wide open vistas & vehicles. There is one new weapon & one new enemy type to fight. Without getting into spoiler territory, the story is the main focus of episode two & let’s just say the story is at its best it has ever been with some serious stuff going down.
Team Fortress 2 is the multiplayer portion of The Orange Box. It’s has been in development for nine years and has gone through many iterations from an ultra realistic look to a counter-strike kind of look. What they have ended up going with is a Looney-tunes cartoon sort of look that looks so good & polished you would think Bugs Bunny would get the next frag. Like Team Fortress & Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2 is a class-based first person shooter that’s main focus is on the nine classes and how differently balanced they are from one another. The action is very solid & very fast paced. Although there are a few issues here. There is no matchmaking which is sensible on the PC, but makes no sense on the Xbox 360. There are only six maps with five of those being capture the point maps and the lag is quite noticeable rendering the game unplayable at times. It’s also sometimes hard to stay in a game when it kicks you out at random times.
Portal, the last game of the package, is quite the mind f*ck. This first person puzzle game is all about getting from the start of one of the nineteen puzzles to the end, which is usually a door. Sounds easy, right? Well it is…at first. The puzzles focus around the use of a gun that, undoubtedly, shoots portals. These portals allow you to pass though the environment as one portal is an entrance, the other an exit. It’s very jarring at first, but once you get used to it, it’s a cool effect that’s the star of the game. Or should I say would be the star of the game if it didn’t have the amazing and often humorous female robotic voice guiding you through each puzzle. Whether it’s stating that a puzzle is impossible & then badgering you for attempting said puzzle, to saying flat out that you will die at the end of the test. It just shows that she cares about your test scores, not you. The writing is great, moving you forward through each puzzle without it feeling like a grind. The only problem I have is the length. The game is about 2-3 hours long which is short by action game length, but on par with other puzzle games. Oh, and the ending is pretty mind blowing as well and deserves a shout out. The PC and Xbox 360 versions are identically the same. The differences are graphically. If you have a high end PC you can have sharper textures and the ability for mods. In no way the content is any different out of the box. Both versions have 99 achievements for all the separate games. You rarely see titles like The Orange Box. Valve could have easily just sold each part separately (which they give you that option on the PC through Steam), but putting all of these products together makes this a title that shouldn’t be missed.
Graphics- The frame rate stays a rock solid 30 fps at all times. The animations are spot on. The game has something for everyone to the Eastern European looking environments in Half-life to the crazy Road Runner cartoon styling of Team Fortress 2.
Sound- From the sounds of that are from the real world (like machine guns, explosions, and the voice acting) to things that don’t exist in the real world (like portals & the gravity gun). Nothing sounds out of place.
Gameplay- The shooting in the game is solid & the environmental puzzles break up the action nicely. Also, Portal’s puzzles ease you into the experience perfectly while getting progressively harder.
Value-
Half-life 2 with episodes one & two: 30-35 hours
Portal: 2-4 hours
Team Fortress 2: keeps you coming back
Needless to say that you will be playing this one for awhile.
