Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

The Orange Box

1. Official Site
2. Platform: PC
3. Publisher: Electronic Arts
4. Developer: Valve Software
5. Release Date: 10/09/07
6. Genre: Action/Adventure

by Mitch Youngblood

After playing through The Orange Box, this reviewer sits amazed at the contradiction. On the one hand, the sheer brilliance and amount of glorious content for $50 is mesmerizing. The downside is that the ostensible focus of The Orange Box, i.e. Half-Life 2: Episode 2, is a let down because not only does it fail to break new ground in terms of both story and design, it recycles the same puzzles while failing to offer anything new. It even goes so far as to introduce a new character late in the game whom everyone else but you seems to know, while neglecting so much as a passing mention of one of the franchise’s favorite sons.

But the good news is that The Orange Box does come with a genuine masterpiece, one none of us saw coming. When gamers play through Portal, they’ll realize that the seismic shock this small title brings with it could very well be a model of PC gaming going forward. In the time that The Orange Box has been in my Steam account, I’ve played through Episode 2 once and Portal four times. The amount of sheer bliss in Portal is mind blowing and it cannot be stated enough times that this is the primary reason to own The Orange Box.

Everything else is just a cool extra, and it physically hurts me to say that regarding my beloved Half-Life 2. But there are a great deal more goodies in store for gamers than just these two titles, and even though Episode 2 is a let down by Valve’s high standards that still means it is better than 80 percent of titles cramming store shelves.

The game is just as pretty as it was when it debuted a few years ago. Nothing drastic has been changed other than the addition and tweaking of the HDR lighting. Valve’s Source engine has proven to be a work horse thus allowing the developers time to focus on the levels and story since they know it will all look pretty in the end. The games look extremely nice on either low or high settings so it is hard to go wrong regardless of computer specs. Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, and Portal all work flawlessly in this engine and this reviewer never saw a single clipping issue or graphical oddity.

Team Fortress 2 is a stand-out in art design though, especially since it looks entirely different from the more realistic nature of the other Orange Box components. Imagine playing an online shooter version of “The Incredibles” crossed with “Batman: The Animated Series” and you’ll have a good idea of how it looks. The characters all have the requisite lantern-jaw and over-designed costume per class, along with some genuinely funny character traits. Watching the Pyro strum his axe like a guitar while waiting to tackle a map is the sort of little touch Valve is known for. If someone eventually crafts a map that’s based on 1950’s suburbia, this game will reach entirely unheard of heights of awesomeness.

The sound effects from the first game are recycled yet again so there is nothing new to report on the Half-Life titles other than the voice acting remains top notch. Merle Dandridge remains at the top of her game as Alyx Vance and continues to make her character a genuinely believable companion for Gordon. Episode 2 deepens their relationship and I’m fully aware how bizarre that sounds. But the way Valve continues to tell this story amazes me, and by this point it genuinely feels like a you’re rejoining a group of old friends who still need your help.

Portal, on the other hand, is out of this world. The sound effects of the portal technology itself are cool in their own right, but the voice acting goes above and beyond the call of duty. There are moments when an actor transcends the material and achieves iconic status, and the AI in Portal is just that. The AI delivers one genuinely funny phrase after another in a deadpan voice, and if that wasn’t enough the voice acting for the gun turrets is equally funny. To say anything more would give details away, and that would be a crime.

The controls handle as well as they do on any other FPS title on PC complete with a scheme that is easily remapped. The standard W-A-S-D controls movement along with the mouse handling the pointing functions, so this is what you’re looking at unless you feel the need to play using I-J-K-L or something equally odd. Nothing fancy, nothing off the charts odd, nothing really at all to comment on. The controls for the PC version are what they are, and you can change every single one of them which is always a good feature to have in a game.

It’s scary to look at a calendar and realize we’ve been playing the Half-Life story for close to 10 years now, and scarier still when we realize how little Valve has improved upon the core gameplay. Their storytelling is a model of subtle efficiency, and the ongoing saga of Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance continues to be both a heartfelt and heart pounding adventure the likes of which are rarely seen outside of the Cineplex. I’ve come to accept Valve’s insistence on physics-based puzzles involving radioactive waste, the gravity gun, crates, and zombies as par for the course because the overall package is polished to a high and merry shine.

It helps that saving the world from an enemy as brilliantly conceived as the Combine while a counterpart continues to fall believably in love with you is an experience we discover once in a lifetime. When I reviewed the original Half-Life 2, I praised it as a model of interactive fiction, and Episode 2 continues that trend in style. If only Valve would branch a little more because they need to come up with something more than the same puzzles requiring the gravity gun. For all the ballyhooing of Valve’s physics engine, it seems painfully incapable of functioning in an open world. The Half-Life series continues down the path of being a rail shooter, albeit a highly entertaining one, and no where is there the option to look to your left and just wander off into the world in search of... anything.

The story picks up immediately after the unforgettable final shot from Episode 1 and finds Gordon and Alyx on the run in the forests surrounding City 17. The Combine desperately want to retrieve the data Alyx collected from the Citadel, and they send some new pets out to track them down. Through the course of their adventures, Gordon and Alyx find themselves holding the line against tides of Antlions, waves of enemy soldiers, and… oh, you’ve heard this before?

As I said earlier, there is nothing new to Episode 2 save the furthering of a storyline that at best solely sets up the conclusion. Maybe Episode 2 suffers from Middle Child Syndrome but I seem to recall The Empire Strikes Back as having a clear beginning, middle, and end all while furthering the characters and the storyline itself and it was far more substantive than Episode 2 is. Episode 2 does plenty with the characters, not a lot with the story other than one major achievement, but it does stick the landing by closing on a devil of a cliffhanger. It leaves us needing Episode 3 immediately which is what the whole point of the exercise is when you think about it.

But once Episode 2 is concluded, gamers can jump into either Team Fortress 2 or Portal. For multiplayer action the likes of which we’ve all seen before but love anyway, Team Fortress 2 refines online shooters by adding layers of options to each character class. Every character comes loaded with personality in their respective skins, but they handle exactly the same as they do in other online shooters. Snipers, Heavies, Scouts, and Demomen may as well be cut from the exact same cloth as any one of a dozen shooters we’ve all played since DOOM. Team Fortress 2 also lacks significant variety in the maps, or really any variety for that matter, but one suspects the mod community is already hard at work fashioning new arenas of combat. It is regrettable Valve didn’t throw in more because what is here is a lot of fun.

Where the game does set itself apart from the rest is in the characters not mentioned above. Engineers, Medics and Spies in particular have distinctly different talents that offer exactly the sort of electric fun promised by the now legendary teaser trailer. Engineers can build weapons turrets, Medics heal on the run and can turn invincible, and Spies are crafty buggers who will frequently backstab you in addition to posing as one of your players. The subtle differences between a Medic and Spy dressed as a Medic are part of the excellent charm of this and if you’re looking for a fun way to kill an evening it is hard to go wrong with Team Fortress 2, though I would recommend a private server to avoid the scourges of the internet.

Finally, we come to Portal which is nine kinds of brilliant. The set up appears to be little more than a training exercise at first as your nameless character wakes up in an institution and must solve an increasingly difficult variety of puzzles using a portal gun. Put simply, you shoot one portal at the wall to your left, another portal at the wall on the other side of the chasm in front of you, and you enter the portal to your left and exit the portal on the other side of the chasm. It’s deliriously fun and cool to try new ways of solving the puzzles, and believe me there are plenty of ways to beat each map, but when you least suspect it the first cracks in the facade appear.

Frankly speaking, this reviewer sat in stunned silence as Portal gripped me by the throat and refused to let go. Without giving anything further away, the moment the game turns from a simple puzzler to something far different is one of those classic moments in storytelling when you realize the protagonist, i.e. You, is monumentally screwed.

It helps that Portal is also one of the funniest games you’re likely to play outside of the "Monkey Island" series. The AI voice who walks you through each level fires off one bon mot after another and brings the funny in a major way. The writers were originally from "Old Man Murray" and it shows in how pitch black, and mercilessly funny, the humor is start to finish. And what a finish. As excellent as the game is, the ending is absolute genius capped off by a hysterically awesome song made all the more awesome by the accompanying visuals.

The game can be finished in about two hours on the first play through, which I felt to be the right length. You get in, you play and enjoy yourself, and you get out. If I had to nitpick the game, I’d say Portal actually runs about a level or two longer than it should but I had so much fun with it all four times I played it that I didn’t care. After the story mode is completed, there are bonus maps where players can do speed runs through certain levels, or try and complete levels using the fewest number of portals or taking the fewest steps. Some of these challenges are downright insane, which only adds to the fun in figuring them out. The Microsoft-mandated achievements are a little silly considering three quarters of them will be unlocked just by playing the game, but there are a few gems in there. If you’re capable of unlocking the gnome one then more power to you.

This is a tremendous amount of game play for a single purchase and if you’re into PC games at all then you owe it to yourself to buy The Orange Box immediately.

For $50 you receive the following: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Peggle Extreme. That is a tremendous amount of gaming goodness for your money and if you already have Half-Life 2 and Episode 1, then you can give them away as gifts via your Steam account. While Valve’s generosity in this regard is stellar, gamers may ask themselves why they should bother paying that much when all they may want is one game or another. Fortunately, you can buy them individually but it is honestly cheaper to go for the whole package.

I’m not here to shill for Valve, as I doubt they need the extra help. But I will point out that The Orange Box is a heck of a deal with the amount of content it brings to the table and any one of these titles would be a must-own by themselves. When you have everything all in one box, this is the steal of the season and should not be passed up. Period.

The Orange Box is packed with enough content to keep gamers satisfied for a long time. In addition to the original masterpiece of Half-Life 2, the continuation of the saga with Episode 2 and Portal provide more fun than we’ve seen in years. Portal alone is reason enough to pick this package up immediately and developers everywhere should take note of what exactly tight, well-structured and well-written gaming looks like. A breath of fresh air is exactly what this industry needs and Portal delivers it, along with one of the most brilliant songs in video gaming history.

Buy The Orange Box immediately.

Gaming Trend Score

97

1. Graphics: 95
2. Audio: 98
3. Controls: 95
4. Gameplay: 97
5. Value/Replay: 100
6. OVERALL:97