The Orange Box

"Can't do much better than this"

I've always been a fan of the Half-Life series of games ever since I played the Uplink demo that came out way back in 97. Something about the series always just made me giddy, and made me want to play it multiple times, regardless of beating the same bosses x times again and again. Hell I even liked the Blue Shift expansion pack that most people seem to hate beyond measure. When Half-Life 2 came out I was ready to forsake all other first person shooters for the game's sheer majesty. I loved the game, perhaps irrationally so. I never played Episode One, I just didn't. My love for all that was Half-Life was tested when I played the rather mediocre port of HL 2 for the original Xbox. Granted I didn't hate the game, it just didn't contain the same amount of wonder that I loved on the PC. Granted it was the same game, it just wasn't the same for me. Perhaps it was just that I was jaded due to the fact that I already played it on the PC, and it automatically was inferior, I don't know. The Orange Box however completely destroys any sort of negative feelings I had toward the lukewarm console port of Half-Life 2 original.

Half-Life 2:

In Half-Life 2 you are cast back into the role of Gordon Freeman. The silent protagonist of the original Half-Life. Quite some time has passed since the events at Black Mesa, and the world has gone to pieces. Earth has been taken over by a malevolent army of aliens called the Combine. Gordon, having accepted the G-man's deal to work for him, arrives in one of the Combine main cities: City 17. City 17 is one of the last few areas that's inhabited by humanity, the majority of humanity had been wiped out in the six hour war. After Gordon arrives he joins a resistance group that's fighting against the Combine. Overall a good story.

The graphics in Half-Life 2 have held up surprisingly well. The game manages to go the realism route, but manages to keep it in a spectrum that isn't either overly brown, or overly gray. The HDR (high dynamic range) is simply superb, and the character models are all fantastic and very emotive. The weapons look pretty good too, but it's really the background environments and the character models that steal the show. Also unlike the Xbox port of HL2 this one plays very well, and has very little framerate issues. This is how the Xbox port should have been.

Sound-wise the game is very well-done. The voice acting in the game is among some of the best in gaming. Also the guns in the game have the right amount of noise to them, without sounding too weak, and not sound obnoxiously overpowered. The game also has a pretty good soundtrack that's mainly ambient, but really picks up during some of the games numerous action set pieces.

Gameplay is where the game shines. To the games credit it has no tutorial to speak of, it just gradually tells you how to do things. So there's no obnoxious “run around and look here and there, then we'll let you fight people” that plagues a lot of games. A lot has said about this game, and a lot of it still holds true to this day. The gameplay is still as amazing as it was back in 2004. Where the gameplay really excels is when the game gives you the gravity gun. It really serves to break up the monotony of the usual “aim gun at man and make dead” contrivance that plagues most shooters. Basically if there's anything that's not too large (like a building) you can grab it and fling it at enemies. I defy anyone to not enjoy hurling a television at a soldier and not smile about it.

Half-Life 2: Episode One:

Episode One starts shortly after the end of Half-Life 2. City 17 is on the verge of destruction, and Gordon and Alyx Vance need to escape.

The graphics are largely unchanged from the graphics of Half-Life 2, the only difference is that things look a lot more destroyed and desolate from the last game, and some of the people look a bit more battle-weary. The graphics still retain the same majestic quality of the original HL2.

The sound is largely unchanged from the original HL2. It still features the same fantastic audio, the same great voice acting, and the same audio effects.

Gameplay for Episode One is largely unchanged from Half-Life 2. One of the changes from original HL 2 is the removal of the pheropods that you used to control the antlions, other than that the gameplay is largely unchanged. One thing worth noting is the fact that the game can be played by almost exclusively by using the gravity gun. Granted the final battle of the game necessitates the use of the rocket launcher, but aside from that the game can be played using primarily using the gravity gun. Also due to the fact that this is the first game in the episodic expansion packs for Half-Life 2 the game doesn't offer very much closure.

Episode Two:

Episode Two begins very shortly after the end of Episode One. City 17 is all but a smoldering ruin, and the Combine are trying to get reinforcements to eradicate the rest of humanity through the super portal opened in Episode One. The game also adds a new character, Dr. Magnusson, who just happened to be another researcher at Black Mesa. The story is just as good as the other parts of the Half-Life 2 saga, unfortunately it doesn't offer very much closure in terms of story. Still the story is quite entertaining, and does well to continue the saga of Gordon Freeman. Also not too spoil much, The G-man says more in this episode than in Episode One.

Graphically the game is similar to Episode One and vanilla HL2. The difference between this and the others is the fact that instead of being set in primarily a large urban center this episode is set in more outdoorsy areas and really makes the Source engine shine. It looks every bit as wonderful as the other parts of the Half-Life 2 series.

The sound is largely unchanged from the previous two parts in the HL2 saga. Which is a good thing, it keeps all the wonderful sound effects and voice acting as the other Half-Life games. The music in the game is still the same wonderful music that was in the other parts of the Half-Life 2 series. It's basically the same thing that was in the previous Half-Life 2 games, and that's not a bad thing.

The gameplay is largely unchanged since the other parts of the HL2 series. One thing that was noticeably absent from Episode One was the lack of driving segments. I know that most people didn't care for those parts in the original HL2 but I quite enjoyed them. They make a comeback in this episode, and it is still largely satisfying as it was in regular HL2. Another thing that Episode Two adds to the series is the new Hunter enemy. Granted they were briefly shown in Episode One you didn't get to fight them, in this one however you do. The Hunters a quite an annoyance, they are, in essence, mini-Striders. However they can be dispatched with less effort than a Strider. The game is loads of fun to play, and it really keeps you glued to the game until you complete it. Like Episode One this episode is noticeably short, roughly five to six hours. But the game is so much fun that it's easy to forgive it's short length, the downside however is, once you complete the game you have to wait until Valve releases Episode Three.

Portal:

The undeniable star of the show. Ever since the E3 trailer back in 2005 I have been looking forward to this game with great anticipation. Fortunately the game lived up to my expectations.

Initially Portal doesn't offer you much in terms of story. All your told is that you (as the character named Chell) is a test subject for a company known as Aperture Science. When Chell awakens a computer known as GLaDOS informs you that you are part of the Aperture Science experiments utilizing portals. The story ties in with that of the Half-Life 2 series, but beyond that I won't spoil anything for you.

The game is visually pleasing and proves that for a three year old graphics system it can still look amazing. It starts out with these bleached white corridors of a scientific center but as you progress it begins to degrade and look more weathered. The portals in the game also look equally fantastic, odd as that may seem. It does indeed look like it's tore directly into the walls, floor, whatever you choose to shoot, and is set slightly aflame. Everything looks wonderful, minimalistic though it is.

Sound in the game is quite enjoyable. The soundtrack is wonderfully minimalistic, and it sounds great. It's got this nice moody, atmospheric tone to it, and doesn't sound out of place. It fits in nicely to the theme of Portal. There also isn't much in the way of voice acting. I think there's only voices for GLaDOS and that's it. The thing about GLaDOS's voice is that it's a wonderful blend of sarcastic and helpful. Also there are these turrets in the game, they have these cute little voices that made me smile. They chime out little things like “are you still there,” in this cute sing-song voice that made me smile gleefully.

Gameplay is where this game shines. Going into the game I expected an enjoyable puzzle game with portals, and surprise of surprises that's what I got. It really is an enjoyable puzzle game. It doesn't rely on heavy action set pieces to make itself great, it just has super enjoyable puzzles that are clever, and make you use the ol' gray matter. One of the downsides to the game is the fact that the game is remarkably short. But that's fine with me, I enjoyed it regardless. After completing it, you can play through it again at a harder difficulty, and with various other challenges. Despite the short length of Portal, it is, in my opinion, the best game in the entire collection.

Team Fortress 2:

The multiplayer component in The Orange Box. I'll admit that I never really played Team Fortress Classic, so I can't really make a comparison that way.

Graphically Team Fortress 2 is just a cel-shaded version of the Source engine. The environments in the game look neat, although they don't really differ much from each other. They're all fundamentally some industrial building in a desert environment. But that's fine, the game looks fantastic, and all the character models are beautiful and it's all beautifully detailed. Each character model looks quite unique, and for that I'm grateful, especially when in this day and age most character models are simply the main character with different colors (vis-à-vis Halo).

Sound in TF2 is quite enjoyable, it has a nice soundtrack, even though it's never heard past the title menus. The characters all have distinct voices, such as the Slavic Heavy weapons guy, the Texan Engineer, the Scottish Demoman, the New Yorker Scout, and the German Medic, among others. The weapons are suitably weapon sounding, and overall it's a pretty good.

Gameplay is of course the meat of the game. For some reason a lot of people complain about the lack of a straight deathmatch mode, but when there's a game called Team Fortress 2 I don't understand that complaint. Obviously it's meant to be a team-based game. Anyway, the game doesn't really have a team deathmatch (as far as I know, I could be wrong) mode to speak of. It's basically just there's the Red team and the Blu team, and a mash of different objective based gameplay types. There's the capture the flag mode, the control these territories mode, and the one team try to take over this area whilst the other tries to defend against it mode. But where the game shines is in the class distinction. There's the Heavy Weapons guy whose fundamentally a wall of continuous gunfire (hence why he's a defensive unit). The Demoman (who recently got nerfed) whose downright deadly in the right hands. Medic whose a great support unit. The Scout for people who want to zip around from point A to point B on a map at quick speeds. The Sniper who I won't explain, the Pyro whose actually a really effective defensive/offensive unit. The Engineer, who has great defensive capabilities with his turret that can be very annoying to opposing players. And lastly the Spy, who has the ability to disguise himself as any one unit from the opposing players team. These are quite a good array of unit types and no one unit is prominently dominant over another. It suggests that people play as more than just the Scout, or the Heavy, but to mix and match their team to capitalize on each units strengths. The only downside to this game is the occasionally lag-filled match, and the fact that playing the same maps time and again can be tiresome to most. Other than those minor quibbles the game is really quite fantastic.

At the end of the day The Orange Box has to be the best value for 360 owners. It has five superb games for the price of one, despite the brevity of the Half-Life 2 Episodes it is well worth the price of admission. A lot of people seem to find fault where in my opinion there is none. The set is near perfect, the only complaints I have is the lack of additional maps in Team Fortress 2, and the fact that we‘ll have to wait many months for the finale of the Half-Life 2 series. But aside from that the set is well worth the price asked for it. Especially when most games are short affairs where it seems like the developers were sort of phoning it in. Also it must be said, if you have the option to get this set on the PC do that. The community for Team Fortress 2 is much larger, and there's the custom made maps that will almost assuredly come out for both TF 2 and Portal. That being said however, you can't go wrong with The Orange Box on the 360.

Half-Life 2 Series:
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 10/10
Story (as a whole): 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10

Portal:
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 10/10
Story: 8/10 (it is a puzzle game after all…), the humor makes it worth it though
Gameplay: 10/10

Team Fortress 2:
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 10/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Community: 9/10 (not hard to get into matches, and they‘re largely lag-free)

Value of the set as a whole: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/30/07

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