The Orange Box

"A Mixed Bag"

Now, you may see the rating of 6 that I've given The Orange Box and think that it's terrible, but that isn't necessarily so. That is for all 5 games grouped together. In my opinion, Half-Life 2 and episodes 1 and 2 are great games. Exceptional even. Team Fortress 2 and Portal, however, are rather lackluster and if you're buying the Orange Box, then you have to pay for those as well. To be fair to each game, I'll be giving a series of short reviews for each game.

Half-Life 2: (This includes episodes 1 and 2)

Graphics:
The graphics are amazing! And the physics are really nice with the source engine. I love playing through my favorite levels and just marvel at how nice it looks... or at least I used to. I used to own the original Half-Life 2. I could run that bad boy on all maxed settings with my PC, and it looked great. When Valve re-released half-life 2 in the orange box, they updated the graphics to a point where it requires a very nice system to run it well. With the same system that used to be able to run everything on max, I can now barely ever run it without skipping and stuttering if I put every setting on rock bottom. Overall, if you gave a good gaming PC you'll enjoy the looks.

Sound:
The game sounds good. The voices are great, the guns sound like guns, water makes the appropriate sloshing sound when you walk through it. Nothing is out of place. There isn't much music, but when it kicks in it's always at an appropriate time and sets the mood well. It's nothing outstanding, and doesn't get stuck in my head for days like the music in Halo.

Gameplay:
The game is very linear, which isn't always a bad thing. The game is a mix of puzzle solving, shooting, and platforming. None of the aspects go real deep. None of the puzzles will make you scratch your head and be totally confused (Unless of course you just have one of those moments and miss something obvious) The platforming ties in with puzzle solving, since many times you need to create that platform to jump on my solving a puzzle. The shooting aspect isn't the most advanced. The AI of the enemies could definitely improve (not to say it's particularly bad though) and shooting is mostly just unloading in an enemy after popping out from your makeshift cover. All the guns are balanced pretty well though and each has its uses. The only minor problem is that the sub-machine gun is rather weak. I mean shooting an enemy at near point blank range and watching blood just poor out of him after taking like 20 shots to the neck is pretty ridiculous.

Now, the game is sounding pretty bland, but it's really not. All these aspects blend together nicely and it turns into a very fun experience. You're not always just platforming, or just shooting. The game balances the number of puzzles, guys you need to shoot, and platforming action in a way that you're always kept interested. But one thing that makes the game way more fun is the gravity gun, probably the coolest weapon ever made. It lets you pick up heavy objects and way around with ease, and if you feel so incline you can choose to launch objects. This means you can get a bit creative with how you dispatch your foes. If you're low on ammo in a broken down building, you can find a piece on concrete on the ground and launch it at the baddie coming towards you to kill them.

Replay value: Moderate
The game is fun for a few runs through. There are different difficulties to try, and some levels are just plain fun. There are also a fair amount of mods you can download for the game, the best one in my opinion being Garry's Mod. It does cost $10 through steam, but it is so much fun. It is a "sandbox" game that just lets you play around. If you buy this game you really should look into purchasing that, it'll really add a lot of time you spend playing the game.

It's also worth to note that episodes 1 and 2 (Which in case there is any confusing, are the second and third part to the story) are pretty short, and together they equal about the length of one game.

Portal:

Graphics:
Uses the same engine as half-life 2, so everything looks nice. Problem is there isn't much to look at, since the majority of the game you're just looking at white walls.

Sound:
Like with half-life 2, the sound is good. It gets the job done. Nothing to complain about or praise here.

Gameplay:
Portal is a puzzle game. You use the "portal gun" (very similar to the gravity gun) and you use it to make a portal on the walls/floor/ceiling and then make another portal somewhere else so things that go into the first portal to come out. It doesn't sound too interesting, but it's pretty fun because of how the physics work. For instance if you make a portal on the floor, and then another on the wall, then jump into the floor portal from high up, you'll be launched pretty far out of the wall portal, because momentum is conserved when traveling through portals. The only real problem with the game is that it is incredibly short.

Replay Value: None
Once you've played through the game in a couple hours, there isn't anything to do but replay each puzzle. This is very boring however since you've already solved them before and know exactly what to do. So you're essentially just walking through the game enjoying the "nice" scenery. (Oh yeah, got to love those white walls.)

Team Fortress 2:

Graphics:
This game is different from all the others. The characters looks extremely cartoony. This isn't necessarily bad, but the art style is definitely a turn off for some people. With the cartoony style comes pretty simple environments. The graphics aren't bad, but they're certainly not good.

Sound: As with everything else in the orange box, they get the job done.

Gameplay: Team Fortress 2 is a class based multiplayer shooter. Initially I was excited to play this, since I simply love Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (A class based multiplayer shooter), but I was very disappointed. There are a few huge flaws. For one, everyone moves insanely fast, making it way too hard to hit anyone. The second huge flaw is the insane amounts of health everyone has. To give you an idea of what I mean, I once shot someone 6 times with a sniper and they didn't die. No joke. They didn't pick up any health packs either. The final problem may be more of a personal problem. I found that I couldn't enjoy any of the classes. All of them used either short range weapons that were terrible at any amount of range, used weapons where you lob various explosives at one another, and then there was the sniper, which sucks because everyone moves too fast for you to hit anything with your scope out. All the weapons feel terribly underpowered when your enemy can take like 15 shots from them and not die.

Replay Value: None
I simply found the game to be incredibly boring, which means you never want to play it again.

So, in conclusion, the orange box package isn't that great as a whole. The half-life series is amazing. Portal is fun, but really short with no replay value. Team Fortress 2 is an abomination to the shooter genre. Don't waste your money on the the crappy games. I suggest you download the Half-Life 2 Anthology (Contains the 3 current half-life 2 games) directly from Valve via their "Steam" application.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/08

Game Release: The Orange Box (US, 10/10/07)