Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Half Life 2: The Orange Box - Reader Review

The Orange Box was released on October 10, and is the greatest video game deal to date. the Orange Box includes, Half-Life 2, HL: episodes 1 and 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

The Main Part of this game is Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 is a 3 year old game from valve in which the player controls Gordan Freeman, the scientist that unleashed an alien world on the Earth in Half-Life. The game picks up a few years after the events in Half-Life 1, and has you in a desperate race to reach the citadel, when the main bad guy is controlling and negotiating with the enemy. You will receive multiple weapons through the course of the game including a shotgun, SMG, a Gravity gun, and a crowbar. The enemies you encounter range from simple pawns, to epic fights for survival. This portion the game will take you anywhere from 8 to 10 hours to complete, and can be revisited to unlock hidden and well placed achievements.

In Half-Life episodes 1 and 2, you continue off of the ending of Half-Life, desperately trying to end the alien menace, from destroying the rest of humans population. These episodes are more 'vehicle' based, but are a joy to play through. In Half-Life 2: Episode 2, a sense of humor is unreleased, and takes away the stress of some of your objectives. The 2 episodes will add another 8-10 hours to the already lengthy FPS.

Portal, is an interesting game, included exclusively in the Orange Box. In it you control a test subject, trying to experiment with seemingly inescapable situations. The game play is very smooth, and the voice acting is spot-on. It is a fantastic comical adventure, as well as a well creed First-person puzzler. the game take you through 11 chapters, consisting of 1 or 2 puzzles each. The ending is a surprise, and comes a little too quickly. The game can be finished in only about 3-4 hours time. However, you will have a blast every moment that it has.

finally, Team Fortress 2, the sequel to the grand-daddy of Class-based online FPS(es), is here. The game has taken on a very cartoony art direction, but does not take away from the pure enjoyment of the experience. There are many classes to choose from, including a scout, an engineer, a spy, and a heavy assault. The game only has 6 maps, and you will see everything, in a matter of 2 hours. But the pure addictive nature of the game, and the clever jokes put into the core game play are fun to see and experience.

Overall, the Orange Box, is the greatest deal you will find this year, and as something for everyone. If you are into puzzlers, first-person shooters, or online mayhem, this is defiantly worth a buy.

- Review by PawnagE

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Definitely a great game(set), sadly out shadowed by all the other blockbuster titles that hit stores the same time. Sad story. Paha

CS Beast said...

Well not HL2 but I play CS all the time. Great port, and still goiiiing strong.