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Posted on: Oct 19, 2007
The Orange Box
WORDS BY: Dan Amrich
Whatever you thought a game could deliver, think again. The Orange Box packs so much quality content into one $60 title that it sets an almost dangerous precedent for all other developers and publishers. Good thing we like danger.
The Orange Box is actually five games in one, or three, depending on how you look at it. The cinematic single-player shooter Half-Life 2 anchors the collection. Revived and rebuilt after its mediocre showing on the original Xbox, it’s now joined by its add-on adventures Episode One and Episode Two. As a bonus, the disc also offers the multiplayer-only shooter Team Fortress 2, and – if you act now – the first-person action/puzzle game Portal. They’re all wildly different from one another, but since they share some technology, it made sense to throw all five titles onto one disc and let all of us 360 folks drown in content.
It’s okay to call Half-Life 2 a thinking-man’s shooter because it stars a thinking man —Gordon Freeman, gaming’s most celebrated hero scientist. Five years after the incident at the Black Mesa Research Facility, you find yourself in City 17, a dingy totalitarian realm where Dr. Breen appears on video monitors, telling reassuring lies about the alien culture that sits poised to take over the planet and reminding everyone how grateful they should be now that they no longer need to reproduce. You’re a stranger and this is definitely a strange land, filled with faceless guards and, as in any good fascist state, a healthy underground resistance movement. Before you know it, you’re on the run, crowbar in hand, piloting vehicles (which could handle better for our tastes) and generally learning about the world as you explore and absorb it. Unfortunately, our travels included some noticeable pop-up, something we thought we left in the last generation.
That “alienation in an alien nation” vibe gives context to Gordon’s often-solitary trek, but the best parts of the game come in the company of Alyx Vance, who would be the best sidekick in gaming history if that title didn’t feel like such an insult. She’ll intelligently blast enemies by your side, give you crucial info, and yes, flirt here and there, too. By the time you’ve played through all three segments, HL2’s characterization — a successful combination of excellent writing, spot-on vocal performances, and impressive facial animations — will make you care about these people, dammit.
Better still, all three HL2 chapters give the player credit for being a critically thinking human being. You solve puzzles not by collecting keycards, but by simply looking around and seeing what you can do with what you’ve got. You’ll solve lots of physical puzzles — throwing switches, moving cinder blocks, shifting weights, and using enemy fire to blast open passageways. Those potential solutions open up tenfold when you get the object-hurling gravity gun, easily one of the coolest playthings in any FPS ever. Launching a sawblade through the midsection of a headcrab zombie is a defining moment, for both Half-Life 2 and the gamers who play it.
Swap the gravity gun for a cannon that rips holes in the fabric of space, and you’ve got Portal, the first major advance in puzzle gaming since Russians started dropping blocks. Trapped in Aperture Science’s sterile testing facility, you’ll need to navigate 19 treacherous levels by blasting entry and exit portals in the walls, floors, and ceilings of your surroundings, then stepping through them. Your only guide is a sing-songy computer voice with a sinister sense of humor; it often glitches out when discussing safety, repeatedly promises you delicious cake, and cheerfully reminds you that the taste of blood is not part of the tests. The physical puzzles — involving switches, moving platforms, turrets, forcefields, weighted cubes, incinerators, and the negation of petty concepts like “up” and “down” — make Portal the best brain-twister in years. Even more interesting: if you pay attention, you’ll discover a link between Aperture and Black Mesa…and Valve swears the all-too-brief Portal is just the beginning.
That leaves Team Fortress 2, which has finally emerged from its nine-year development cocoon. After all that, it’s a pretty straightforward objective-based team shooter — 16 players split into two teams to capture a flag or fight to control territories on just six maps, each of which is locked to a specific game type. The game’s cartoonish look and humor are a welcome change from über-serious shooters, and we were impressed with the nine well-balanced, visually distinct, strictly defined roles for players, ranging from an invisible spy to a lumbering heavy-weapons monster. But with Halo 3, Shadowrun, and Call of Duty 4 already serving up multiplayer mayhem, do we really need another team-based shooter on 360? Despite its obvious quality and visual charms, TF2 suffers from brutal load times, doesn’t offer interoperability with PC players, and simply didn’t draw us in the way we’d hoped; it felt balanced, but not really new or compellingly different from the other games we could play.
But even if you never touch TF2, the extended Half-Life 2 saga and the delightfully devious Portal will give you ample reasons to buy and love The Orange Box. Sometimes, more is more.
ON XBOX 360
- All these for one price? Thanks!
- Portal is the start of something bigger, and we can’t wait.
- Pop-up sometimes spoils HL2’s very tangible world.
- How will EA deliver Episode Three on 360? Will it be the first downloadable game?
Wed, 10/28/2009 - 16:34
Posted by chiery
I think there's not much of games that has a quality, class, and a lifetime experience which is unforgettable and Orange Box certainly one them. It gives you one of the best PC fps game like Half Life with added dose of mind puzzling portal and really addictive and fun base multiplayer PC game called team fortress. This is definitely one of the best game that gamers can have.
Sun, 10/18/2009 - 05:10
Posted by wickland
I just got the orange box about a month ago for like $10! That is insane. Team Fortress 2 is my favorite one but I loved the Half-Life games, which I played first. TF2 is a pure multiplayer game so it never gets old.
Tue, 12/30/2008 - 23:10
Posted by Legolas12280
I agree and think that Every game, especially TF2 and Portal, is one of the best games
Tue, 10/07/2008 - 00:35
Posted by skanlakers
Probably the best video game deal in history now that it's only $30. Also, Team Fortress 2 is WAY underrated. More fun than COD 4 in my opinion.
Tue, 02/19/2008 - 04:32
Posted by dpike36
OMG, Valve please get episode 3 out before I blow an artery! The wait is torture! WE WANT THE BOREALUS!
Sun, 01/27/2008 - 15:34
Posted by Uber n00b
portal alone is a 9.5
i think the orange box should have recieved a ten because they packed a bunch of EXCELLENT games into one box not a bunch of bad ones
so giving it a ten honestly seems more reasonable to me
Sun, 01/06/2008 - 04:39
Posted by GMAN CLAN
okay heres my take. Half Life is pretty much awesome so i would give it a 9.5 because some things in it can get kind of repetative. Portal-Best Game Ever! Id give it like a 15. Team Fortress 2....fun but you run so damn fast its hard to shoot anyone. All are tremendous fun...and for 60 bucks...you already own all the other good games...wtf else are you gonna buy?
--My Gamertag is GMAN CLAN. Check me out on xbox live!
Sun, 12/16/2007 - 22:48
Posted by SpartanThe1st
TF2 had bad lag but I mean its fixed now so stop wining. Also- Five games all reveiwed in the space of one review I dont understand how the IDIOT who wrote this actually thought that Fucking SHADOWRUN was any competion.
What a bloody fool.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 15:57
Posted by dartvader1171
Im torn on the 9.5/10 debate. on one hand, this is simply the most brilliant gaming package of all time, and yes, i have had more fun playing through this than i ever did with halo even if i am a halo fanatic. but on the other hand these games still aren't absolutely perfect, though no game is, so i guess that this game does deserve a ten. and even after reading the review i dont see how TF2 getting a little old and pop-up in HL2 can really drop the score from 10 to 9.5 .
this might be one of OXM's first review scores i really just cant agree with, considering that scores i havent neccesarilly aggreed with before have at least been backed up with good resaon not to have been worthy of somthing higher. I mean come on, The half-lifes have possibly the greatest story and process of telling it ever, TF2 is just plain fun, and portal is maybe one of the all time best games ever, i cant stop playing. so you have your oppinions, but if you're gonna stick it out in the world can you at least give the world reason to think 9.5 , not 10. even you cant argue its true worthiness.
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" And then god said, 'let there be rock', and there was rock."
Wed, 11/28/2007 - 22:59
Posted by thedude8591
I'm going to have to agree with itchy tasty on this one. The Orange Box very well does deserve a 10. Not just because it has 5 games for the price of one or because the Half-Life 2 series and Portal have a kick ass story and gameplay to it. But more of it tests your mind and your tactics more than any other game I have ever played. It's more than just pull right trigger to fire weapon sort of deal. you have to think through out the game. Also many FPS games have constant battles going on and it eventually gets old to the person playing. Kind of like a battle fatigue. In Half-Life 2 you don't have to worry about that battle fatigue because they throw in a sort of interactive puzzle to cool you down before you go in to another battle therefore you can play for a longer time without getting bored. I can only play a max of 3 missions on Halo 3 before getting bored or frusterated to the point where i want to break something. With Half-Life 2 I've gone all day playing and not stopping once to turn off my xbox to take a break from the game. It's a different gameplay from all the other games. Even the way Half-Life is advertised is different. Many other games they'll draw you in with a cool picture to make the game look cool or an attractive to draw in players. On the cover of the original Half-Life 2 Xbox game box there isn't nothing much. It's just regular old Gordon Freeman who looks just like everyone else and holds no super powers or speacil abbilities. In my term the cover of that box is a litte more honest then others. Overall The game is just a different aproach than most of the other games. And sorry for this being a long comment for those who read this.
Thu, 11/15/2007 - 07:38
Posted by ItchyTasty
Usually when a media outlet gives a score that I don't agree with I just chalk it up to a difference of opinion but I can't let this one slip by. This game absolutely 100% deserves a 10. The more I play this and reflect upon it the more all other games seem to pale in comparison. Any one game in the Orange Box is better than Halo 3. That might sound a bit extreme but it is my honest opinion and just to clear the air, I like Halo 3 and am not just writing this because I am one of those losers who likes to hate on something cuz its popular. I own all of the Halo novels and comics but the more I play this years other AAA games my opinion of Halo 3 seems to lessen. Again just to remind anyone reading this I am not a Halo hater or some sort of Half-Life snob.
Thu, 11/15/2007 - 00:40
Posted by djpotatohead
portal kicks ass