The Orange Box Video Game Review (About In Description)
0Five great games. One box. Hot damn!
There's never been a package on a console like The Orange Box. For $60 you get five games: Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode One, HL2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. If you're keeping score, that's one of the best shooters of all time, its two expansion packs, a new and innovative puzzle game, and an off-the-wall multiplayer game. That's in one box, on one disc. If there's one must buy game of the year, it is, without a doubt, The Orange Box. All five components are excellent, with Half-Life 2 and Episode Two being the two finest single-player first-person shooters on Xbox 360.
Accessing the five games is easy, thanks to a simple, but elegant menu system. You can hop into any of the Half-Life components without having beaten the prior versions. So, if you've played Half-Life 2 before, you can skip it (though you really should play it again), and go right into the episodic content. Also included for every game (save HL2) is director commentary which offers an in-depth look at level and map design as well as story elements for the Half-Life universe. It's about as slick a package as you will find on a console. The only failure is the horrendous box art, which I'm pretty certain was designed by a select group of mildy-talented fifth graders.
Because The Orange Box contains so many pieces, Microsoft made several exceptions to its normal rules regarding Achievements. While there are still only 1000 Gamerpoints to be earned, there are 99 Achievements to unlock (as opposed to the normal limit of 50). You can also access unique Achievement lists inside each title that are game-specific. There are some well-planned Achievements to be had. Add some spice to replaying Half-Life 2 by trying to earn every Achievement. It's quite a challenge.
Half-Life 2
There's little debate that Half-Life 2 is among the greatest shooters ever made. Despite having played Half-Life 2 three years ago on PC and two years ago on the original Xbox, I still have fun playing through yet again. Anyone with decent skill can burn through the full game in about ten hours, but those are some truly quality hours. Half-Life 2 can go toe-to-toe with any shooter of the past three years.
If, by some strange chance, you haven't played Half-Life 2 before, here's the set-up. You play as Gordon Freeman, a former scientist who, while working at Black Mesa, accidentally opened a portal to another dimension. After saving the world in the original Half-Life, you were tucked away in a bizarre form of stasis, not to be awakened until humanity needed you again. Guess what; humanity needs Gordon Freeman again. With crowbar in hand, you must free City 17 from the extra-dimensional military force known as the Combine.
What helps Half-Life 2 stand out, particularly for a console title, is the use of physics. Most games that use physics do so merely to wow you with some nifty visuals. Half-Life 2 uses it for gameplay. And not just in isolated cases. The design is built around the physics engine. The world Gordon Freeman inhabits feels organic. This is as immersive an experience as you can get, both from the excellent voice work and the exhilarating gameplay.
The physics come to life once Gordon gains the gravity gun. With this tool in hand, you can catch an enemy grenade out of the air and shoot it back their way, unplug wires to lower barriers, and move debris to help you access new areas. While the crowbar has long been representative of Gordon Freeman, it's the gravity gun that remains the most important constant through HL2 and its subsequent episodes. While there is a decent assortment of other weapons, none will treat you as well as the gravity gun.
Half-Life 2 rarely slows down to allow you to catch your breath, instead pushing you faster and faster as you progress through the story. Much of the narrative is told through the action. The story never gets in the way of the action, but just as importantly, the action never interrupts the story. Half-Life 2 is the very definition of an epic adventure. The level design is outstanding. Though you sometimes have to return to an area you've been to before, there's almost no back-tracking whatsoever. There is almost always an alternate route on the way back somewhere so that it never feels as if you are retracing your steps. Bungie and many other developers could learn a lot from Half-Life 2.
There are a few issues, though, that keep HL2 from being the greatest thing since grated cheese. There are several times during the campaign when Freeman is assisted by AI teammates. Though these guys and gals perform well in a fight, they can often get in your way when trying to move about small places. And though there is a command to tell them where to move, the AI often ignores these orders or will simply refuse to stay put and let you get through a corridor. As with the PC version, there are mid-level loads that halt the action. Unlike on PC, these loads