The Orange Box

I’ve extolled upon the virtues of Team Fortress 2 already here on this site in a previous post, but now finally Valve’s ‘The Orange Box’ is available for play.

If you’ve already preordered this, you’ve played most of what TOB has to offer. Half-life 2 and Episode 1 have been out for months already, and the Team Fortress 2 beta has been nothing short of mind blowing. Now we finally have our hands on Portal and Episode 2.

Episode 2 is quite a bit longer than Episode 1, and provides a ton of setpiece combat sequences. I won’t spoil any of the details obviously, but there’s a ton to love here if you’re a fan of HL2, and the storyline continues in riveting fashion.

Portal is nothing short of a breath of fresh air. More of a puzzle game than anything, you’re tasked with traversing various environments using a portal generating gun, letting you warp around via the blue and orange portals you can throw around at almost any surface. It’s pretty mind bending, and is a totally hilarious experience thanks to some brilliant narration. The game also has one of the best end credits ever.

All in all, Orange Box is a ridiculous value for the money. Highly recommended.

Half-life 2: Episode 1

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Half-life 2 was a strange beast for me. I loved the first game, but the second was just… strange. The entire movement through the game seemed pointless, even thought the overall design was top notch. Just when things get awesome, story wise, it ends with a cliffhanger. Thus I wasn’t looking forward to Episode 1 with much interest.

Then the Orange Box set came and I preordered it for Team Fortress 2. It came with Episode 1 so I gave it a whirl. Wow. In a word, this is what the Half-life 2 should have been like from the start. It has a lot of really awesome gameplay concepts the first game didn’t, and there’s more exposition in the first 10 minutes of play than the HL2 had.

The story of Half-life 2 is pretty cool, it’s just a pity the first game focused more on getting you from point A to point B, rather than explaining what the hell was going on. Episode 1 doesn’t fill in all the blanks of course, but the narrative is a lot less derivative and is much more expertly delivered.

Graphically, Episode 1 includes an incredible implementation of HDR lighting, used to awesome effect throughout the game. Lighting itself plays a huge part here since you’re now paired with Alix, who’s your primary “weapon” to start off. She can only shoot what she sees, so if the lights go off you’d better be pointing your flashlight in the right direction.

The additional commentary icons you can turn on provide some impressive insight into the design process, and I can only imagine the rest of the game’s fans agree since Valve will no doubt provide this feature going forward. It’s not something you turn on during your first outing through the game since it entirely breaks the immersion, but it’s a really great thing to try with your second run through.

The whole package impressed me enough that the Orange Box preorder for me is entirely justified, especially with the inclusion of Team Fortress 2 and Half-life 2 Episode 2. If you’re on the fence about this set because you may have already picked up Half-life 2 already, don’t fret. Episodic content normally turns my stomach, but if Valve can continue to put them out with this level of quality I’ll continue to support them.

I realize of course this isn’t an intensive review, but I’d rather not spoil the experience of this and/or any ending details of Half-life 2 for folks who may not have played it yet.

Finished the Fight

So I picked up Halo 3 on Tuesday just like half a bazillion other people. Finished the campaign that night. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything for you.

So far my experience with H3 has been well… mostly what I expected it to be. It’s Halo 2 with prettier graphics and some gameplay tweaks, and overall it’s a better multiplayer experience than Halo 2. That’s the main draw, really. Campaign wise it wasn’t short, just easy to finish in a single long sitting if you’re so inclined. 🙂

Multiplayer wise so far it’s a bit tighter of an experience than H2. The addition of Forge for creating your own custom games will no doubt prove to be a great addition, and the theater lets you share your videos and pics with others. -10 points for charging us MS points to store more. Google gives me gigabytes of free space for my email, why can’t Bungie give a few gigs for free when a billion people preordered their game?

Money grubbing for the LOSE.

Really the micropayment crap and marketing blitz for Halo 3 is designed to make you spend tons of cash, when really the normal edition of the game will let you do everything you need to do to enjoy the experience. So stick with that, and you’ll have no regrets about buying this, as long as you’re not looking for a lengthy campaign.