The Orange Box

So this week I dove Tophat first into another Valve release, The Orange Box. The Orange Box is comprised of Half Life 2 (Plus Episodes 1 and 2), the wildly popular Team Fortress 2, and the strange fps puzzler Portal.
The Orange Box compilation was released for PC, X-Box 360 and PS3 in late 2007.

HALFLIFE 2 and EPISODES 1 and 2
Halflife 2 is the sequel to Half Life, and follows the adventures of scientist Gordon Freeman, as he fights for "The Resistance" against an interdimensional empire known as the Combine.
Episodes 1 and 2 follow Freeman as he deals with the aftermath of Halflife 2.

STORY
After Gordon's work in the first game, Earth was invaded by the Combine, who rule with an Iron Fist; preventing human reproduction, but protecting humans from alien wildlife in numbered Cities at the same time.
Halflife 2 follows Gordon's work with the underground resistance to overthrow the evil Combine rule.
The Episodes featured in the Orange Box place the players back in the shoes of Freeman as he deals with the aftermath of Halflife 2.

The story featured in these games is interesting to say the least. Characters are likeable, and the story is so intriguing that it just makes you want to play more to see what will happen to the unlucky protagonist and his cause next.

PRESENTATION
The presentation of these titles is definitely one of its high points. Settings in-game all have a dystopic feel to them, yet all are unique too. Landscapes range from Zombie-infested Ravenholme, to the creepy prison of Nova Prospekt.
Voice acting is of a high standard, and characters feel that much more real because of it. Unlike so many other games, the voice actors have really pulled out all the stops to make it so that these computer generated characters have their own personalities.

At least, this is true of the main characters. Other NPC's all look pretty much the same, and many share the same voices. Its a bit odd, especially when you just saw an NPC get killed, then 10 minutes later, you run into his clone.
Halflife 2 also has one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a game, with each piece of music neatly encapsulating the emotions that each scene in-game will evoke in players.

Halflife 2 really does well when it comes to immersing the player. Aside from unique and varied settings and decent sound work, there are NO cutscenes. At least, not of the conventional sort. Instead of there being fully rendered cutscenes, all action happens in-game, while the player controls Freemans point of view. There are also no loading screens, just bars that come up between each chapter; this helps the player stay in character as Gordon.

GAMEPLAY
Halflife 2 presents players with solid First Person Shooter gameplay, mixed with occasional puzzle sections, and somewhat Survival Horror sections.
This is one of the few FPS's I've played recently that has a life bar, as opposed to the "Completely realistic" "hide until your face doesn't have blood on it" mechanic. Its a nice change of pace and it makes hazards seem more threatening when you can't just wait for your health to regenerate.

Combat in H2 works as well as you might expect; using hilarious ragdoll physics on enemies hit with explosions, sending them flying gayly through the air is definately a high point for me. Weapon selection is limited to about 12 weapons, although you'd only encounter about 10 of them in a normal game. The other 2 are quite cool; one being a pheromone pod which controls specific alien enemies, and the other being the gravity gun.

It is around this piece of equipment that many of the puzzles are based around. At first, its pretty cool having to balance objects on a plank of wood to make a ramp, but by the end of Halflife 2 i was glad to be finished with them. Then they gave me some more in the episodes. Yes Valve, i get it, you made a physics engine, and it works wonderfully. But how many times do you have to make me do a seesaw puzzle??
Then again, how many different puzzles really involve the use of physics?

A few other gameplay elements popped up time and time again, such as waiting for an extremely slow elevator to arrive, while you fight off hordes of zombies. Though repetitive, these sequences are always rather intense, making you think you may not survive.

REPLAYABILITY
Halflife 2, and its runty offspring, are all well and good; and provided me with quite a few hours of play-time, but they offer no multiplayer (if you're playing on the consoles) and only offers achievements (no trophies).

PORTAL
Portal is a single player, First Person Action/Puzzle game, consisting primarily of puzzles using teleportation to move your character and other objects around test areas.

STORY
At first, Portal's story seems like just a framework for these portal based puzzles, but its more in-depth than that. Players control "Chell", a test subject at the Enrichment Center for Aperture Science; who must navigate through increasingly difficult areas via the use of portals (and later the portal gun).
Chell is promised Cake and grief counselling as a reward for finishing these areas by the AI test monitor GlaDOS. However, the cakes existence is found to be questionable... but that's the least of your worries.

PRESENTATION
The settings in Portal are all presented as pure white, clean testing areas with various scientific apparatus scattered within (which are used in the tests).
(SPOILER WARNING)
However, these clean environments soon give way to dark, rusty hallways and staircases as Chell makes her escape from Aperture Science, after finding that the cake is a lie.
Music and voice acting are also rather limited, what with only GlaDOS (and occasionally, gun turrets) speaking, and music being conveyed either through the radio, or as atmospheric background music. That said, however, the voice acting is of high quality, and even though the speaker is a computer system, it is filled with its own personality.
Music helps to set the scene, especially at the beginning of Chells horrible realisation... that the cake is non-existent. And other things. But I wont spoil that too much for you.
This title is full of some of the darkest humour I've heard in any game, and it'll have gamers reciting quotes for years to come.

GAMEPLAY
I went into Portal expecting a series of challenging portal based puzzles to get my brain working, and that's exactly what I got. Test areas are challenging, but start off easy enough, introducing you to the technology and how to use it.
In later levels, you get to wield the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (Or Portal Gun) and create portals for yourself; which leads to more challenging test areas that rely on your accuracy, as well as timing and momentum altering abilities (which the device allows).
All in all, gameplay with the portal device is simple, but challenging to master in the later levels, especially during Chells escape.

REPLAYABILITY
Again, there is no multiplayer option available on this title, but after completion, players will find that challenge modes have been unlocked, which are a fun to go back and play over and over again, trying to improve your score.

Unfortunately, however, Portal doesnt last long. I completed the standard story in less than 2 hours, and it left me wanting more. That said, maybe its not such a bad thing. Surely the portal gun feature would have gotten old after prolonged use.
So portal doesnt outstay its welcome, which is good.

TEAM FORTRESS 2
Team Fortress 2 is a Multiplayer Class Based First Person Shooter. It is the sequel to Team Fortress Classic.

STORY
Theres no real story to TF2, other than, theres a Red army and a Blue army, and they hate each other. And they have to capture each others flags... or areas.... or just kill each other.

PRESENTATION
TF2 looks really cool with its unique art style, both for environments and other characters. It leaves the realistic art style of Valves other releases, for a more Cartoonish approach, which works really well for it.
The map design has a strong evil genius theme with archetypal spy fortresses, concealed within inconspicuous buildings such as industrial warehouses and farms to give plausibility to their close proximities.
The bases hide exaggerated super weapons such as laser cannons, nuclear warheads, and missile launch facilities, taking the role of objectives. Between the bases there is a neutral space and its a really funny, but really cool approach.

That said, there isn't a whole lot of variety. Maps seem to have the same Desert/Industrial feel to them, which is a little disappointing.

GAMEPLAY
Team Fortress 2's gameplay is limited to online multiplayer, which is fine, but your judgement on the game will really depend on the speed and quality of your connection.
TF2 offers 9 classes to choose from, being Offensive (Scout, Soldier and Pyro), Defensive (Engineer, Demoman and The Heavy) and Support (Medic, Spy and Sniper).
They're all incredibly balanced, so long as you play them as they're meant to be played.
Another thing adding to the balance of the game is the exclusion of grenades. This may sound weird at first, but by not having grenades, it means that newcomers won't be isolated and fragged over and over by those who have mastered them.

Despite the amount of classes to choose from, there isn't a whole lot of variety to gameplay, not helped at all by the same-y ness of the maps, and the lack of variety in gameplay modes. If i recall correctly, theres only "Team Deathmatch", "Capture the Flag" and "Point Capture", and that's disappointing.

REPLAYABILITY
TF2 is definitely one of those games where i can keep coming back for more, because all the classes are fun to play as, and the design of maps and characters just keeps luring me back. However, i find it difficult to play for extended periods of time, due to the lack of variety.

OVERVIEW
The Orange Box is definitely one to have a look at, especially at the price its at these days. 5 quality games in one box; it'll keep you playing for quite some time. Some titles such as TF2 and Halflife 2 (+Eps) suffer from a clone virus where there isn't much variety at points, but problems like that can be overlooked because aside from that, they're really great games.

OK, so thats another top quality game that I think people should take a look at. Again, if there are people reading this, I'd like some feedback =). Be sure to join the Facebook page, and keep playing, people!
Also, sorry about the long review, next time i review a compilation, i may split it up a bit.