Best deal ever?
Valve's reputation as a top tier developer began when Half-Life released in 1998 and was cemented in 2004 when they released the spectacular sequel. Now, they're bringing that magic back with The Orange Box. As we've said in countless previews, this is one of the best deals we've ever seen in gaming, especially for those people that have yet to play Half-Life 2 at all. With Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode One, and Half-Life 2 Episode Two, players can take the entire Half-Life 2 journey up to now in order. If that was the entire package, it'd be hard to express much discontent even with Half-Life 2 being a three year old game, but Orange Box also comes with two other games: Portal and Team Fortress 2. They're quite a bit different than Half-Life in spirit, but offer up unique puzzle based and multiplayer experiences that have exquisite style and beautiful senses of humor. Everything has the spit and polish that we've come to expect from Valve and nothing in the package disappoints.
We've reviewed Half-Life 2 and Episode One in the past and decided to review Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 separately as you can purchase them individually via Steam. You can find the links to all of those reviews directly below followed by our overall thoughts of The Orange Box if you don't care about the individual reviews.
Our recommendation for those of you that have always been interested in Half-Life 2 and haven't tried it is simple: buy this package! Not only do you get the best single player first person shooter ever created, you also get the two next chapters, a 3D puzzle game that also happens to live in the Half-Life universe and a terrifically fun team-based multiplayer first-person shooter. This is a lot of game in one package for only 50 dollars.
As PC gamers, we will have a few more options to purchase each piece than the console guys. Each of parts is available for separate purchase via Steam, though the cost is much more prohibitive than just buying Orange Box. The original Half-Life 2 is 30, Episode One is 20, Episode Two is 30, Portal is 20, and Team Fortress 2 is 30. Aside from the fact that it's likely you can find Half-Life 2 by itself for cheaper elsewhere (actually at the moment it's been reduced to 20 on Steam), all the pieces individually add up to 120-130 bucks. All of the new stuff together is 80. Do the math. Even if you only want two of the new games and don't plan on ever playing the other games, the Orange Box is a better deal, especially since you can give the other games away to friends.
©2007-10-09, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Valve's uber-bundle collects several killer new games into one amazing package.
[Editor's Note: This is one of three separate GameSpy.com reviews for titles included in The Orange Box package, as PC versions are being sold separately via Valve's Steam digital download service. For more details, see our reviews of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.]
It's hard to think of a stranger animal than Valve's new Orange Box. Since the launch of GameSpy.com, we've never had a case where a bundle has included three brand-new games, available only as a package deal in stores but separately online. But that's exactly the case with The Orange Box, comprised of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, as well as the previously released Half-Life 2 and Episode One. To commemorate the occasion, we've done separate reviews for all the new titles -- which are uniformly stellar -- leading to one conclusion: for $50, The Orange Box is one of the best gaming deals in years.
Oddly enough, the "weakest" new component of The Orange Box, relatively speaking, may be its most prominent. Half-Life 2: Episode Two (4/5 stars) is filled with all the great gameplay of its predecessors, including large-scale battles with the Combine and lots of puzzles involving the gravity gun. Clocking in at around five hours, the adventure continues the story of Gordon Freeman, once again teamed with sidekick Alyx Vance, as they attempt to deliver a packet of Combine data to the human resistance outside City 17. It's basically one big set piece after another, glued together with lots of scripted sequences and exposition to keep the story moving along. Or in other words, it's more Half-Life 2, with only a few inconsistent moments keeping it from reaching the heights of the games that came before it.
There are no such reservations in place about Team Fortress 2 (5/5 stars), the long-awaited resurrection of the classic Quake and Half-Life mod. With nine distinct classes, six tight maps covering a variety of gameplay types, and a sleek cartoonish art style, TF2's action never stops. In many ways, it's the anti-Battlefield, a throwback to the games of ten years ago, ditching huge maps and vehicles in favor of classic gameplay embellished with the physics of the Source engine, stat tracking, and a ton of other little touches that make it a contender for our multiplayer game of the year.
Maybe the biggest surprise of the package is Portal (4.5/5 stars), a "first-person puzzler," so to speak, that places the player as a subject in a test lab employing head-spinning portal technology. The early puzzles basically train you in how the portals work, but before long, you're dodging turrets and flinging yourself across rooms, and while the whole thing can probably be completed in under three hours, it all builds to one of the most epic, satisfying and funniest endings of any game in years.
As if this weren't enough, The Orange Box also includes full versions of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, providing an extra twenty hours of gameplay to help catch you up on the Half-Life 2 story if you're late to the party. All three new games contain developer commentary features (Portal's is particularly worth checking out) as well as Valve's own take on achievements, offering replay incentives once you've completed everything in the package.
On the technical side, everything in the PC version of The Orange Box has been working great for us to date. We've been able to run the game on several older machines dating back to when Half-Life 2 was released; the general rule seems to be if you could get HL2 running, you should be able to get The Orange Box titles going without much fuss. If you want to go the digital download route, Valve's Steam service seems to be holding up to the initial demand, and even offers all the titles separately if you're only interested in one or two of them.
But really, if you're reading this review, how could you not want The Orange Box? Every game in the package is a winner, and the price makes it a no-brainer for anyone remotely interested in Half-Life or PC shooters in general. Our only question now is which of its games we want to go back to first.
©2007-10-10, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved