The Orange Box // Xbox 360
Big bangs for your buck

// The skinny: In Half Life 2 you continue the liberating adventures of Gordon Freeman from the occupying alien force. In Portal, using an innovative device you escape from mazes and ultimately captivity. Team Fortress 2 is the much awaited sequel to the popular Half Life mod where you battle it out online in objective scenarios.

// Review: The Orange Box is a compilation of 5 games: Half Life 2, HL2: Epiosde 1, HL2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. It's a ton of high quality content in one package that makes for an incredible value.

// Half Life 2- When original came out it recieved over 50 game of the year awards and blew the doors off of FPS games much like the way Doom and Quake did. Let's put it this way, when I lived in China in 2006, Counter Strike was one of the most popular games played. HL2 was also extremely well received but came out the same time as Halo 2 and GTA: SA, and was still regarded as one of the best that year.

/ Playing it for the first time years later and knowing the hype going in, I didn't think it held up quite that well. I played the port and the graphics were average, but I can't imagine the PC version being mindblowing. The gameplay was extremely linear, but my biggest beef was the lack of story. In a dystopian future ruled by the alien Combine, all you do is go to Point A to Point B. There are no cutscenes, but there were no other methods of storytelling save for buying the HL novel. I found parts fairly challenging and I think it would've been easier using a mouse than a controller.

// Half Life 2: Episode 1- Continues directly after the events of HL2. The entire "story" is just trying to get out of town before it blows. The main difference this time around is that Alyx accompanies you most of the time. She makes for a decent tank and there was a strong sense of your relationship building that wasn't cheesy, which was impressive given that you don't speak a word. There were also more puzzles that gave it variety.

// Half Life 2: Episode 2- In this volume, you are trying to get some stolen data to the resistence movement so they can launch a satellite to screw with the Combine. Again it's pretty straightforward. While Alyx is still on the run with you, she isn't fighting along with you as much. The ending was very frustrating. It's basically a dozen rounds with the hardest enemies plus their annoying bodyguards, you have to drive a car that handles like a shopping cart with 2 broken wheels, they destroy the special ammo caches, and it's timed. That last battle really soured the entire experience for me.

// Portal- Probably the best out of the package. Highly innovative gameplay. You wake up in a science facility and are given a prototype device that allows you to open two portals on any surface that connect to each other. Every room is a puzzle that you use your portal gun to manipulate crates, eneregy balls and physics to get out. But then the game changes and it becomes an attempt to escape from the facility itself. Along the way the AI named Glados utters hilariously discouraging remarks. My only complaint is on the more advanced levels, even though you figure out what to do, you need perfect timing and precision.

// Team Fortress 2- The developers boast that this game was 9 years in the making. The most striking thing you notice is the unique design style, which looks like you are playing a Pixar movie. It's really impressive. There are 9 different class types you can play, all with their distinct abilities and weaknesses. This game is very team oriented, which can make the learning curve a little daunting. Unfortunately only a small fraction of people play this online compared to Halo, and there are only 3 maps.

// Wrap up: Besides playing with the gravity gun and partnering with Alyx in Half Life, I thought it was just okay. Portal was really fun and unlike any game I've played before. I didn't do a lot of TF2 because a lot of people don't play it, and if you've played much online gaming, then you know trying to get people to work together can be, challenging. But overall, The Orange Box makes for probably the best value you can buy.

Entertainment rating:
Half Life 2- 3
HL2: Episode One- 4
HL2: Episode Two- 3
Portal- 4
Team Fortress 2- 4