Grunt of God's Profile

I'd always wanted to try out Half Life 2. It's been called one of the best FPS's of all time, so obviously I was curious. I'd also heard good things about Portal and Team Fortress 2 (TF2) so naturally, when confronted with it at my local store, I thought: 'Sure! I get to play Half Life 2, and the other games don't look bad. Why not?'
Why not indeed.
Naturally, the first thing I did after putting the Orange Disc into the White Console was to load up Half Life 2. For those of you who haven't heard about it, Half Life 2, and its subsequent episodes, are all told through the eyes of the practically mute Gordon Freeman. He doesn't talk, it's always first person, and there's no time jumps. You are, for all intents and purposes, Gordon Freeman, and it provides a deeply immersing world. The story is a real masterpiece, each character being fully developed, be it the enthusiastic and tomboyish Alyx or the mysterious and slightly creepy 'G-Man'. Sometimes, I had no idea what was going on, but I learnt to enjoy it all the same.
The graphics are beautiful, although they have a slightly dated feel. The facial animations are particularly awesome, providing life like expressions all the time. This is especially important due to the games lack of cut scenes, but you wouldn't notice they were gone, it's done so seamlessly. Each of the games many weapons have good balance and feel, the Carbine in particular makes a particularly grunty noise, I could almost feel the recoil.
The game play though, got me a little off guard. For someone used to action games such as the Halo or Call of Duty series, Half Life will take some getting used to. The action, when you get round it, is mostly good, but a good part of the game involves puzzles, be it to progress throughout the level or to beat some entrenched enemies. They're seamlessly implemented to their credit, but some are particularly devilish, relying on the games physics engine, or mostly your knowledge of it, to be completed.Of course the Physics engine is wonderfully realistic, conveying gravity and momentum accurately, but if you're used to conventional FPS's, this will take a lot of getting used to.

The Orange Box also includes Half Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2, which are much the same as Half Life 2, although Alyx plays a much larger role. Episode 2 also features outside levels, which for many will be a welcome change from City 17, the location of Half Life 2 and Episode 1. They are welcome as they extend the story and left me yearning for Episode 3.

Many of you have heard of Portal, the game that breaks physics and lies about cake. Let me assure you that all the hype you've heard is true. The story, although nearly non-existent, is surprisingly deep and the ending credits are a doozy of a cliff hanger, or a catchy jingle, depending on how you feel.
The game play is puzzle based and revolves around you using your 'Portal Gun' to shoot Orange and Blue portals against walls, enabling you to reach the end of the level. You can freely move between the Blue and Orange portals, and so can any objects. Your momentum is also transferred, allowing you to leap massive distances, and allowing the puzzles to get incredibly tricky.
For some people the puzzles may be too hard, particularly the latter ones, but for the rest of us, their challenging little things that, although they make you fume with anger at first, make you laugh with joy as you finally make that final jump! After your finish the game, it even provides you with extra levels of difficulty on the later levels, which I have still yet to complete.
This is definitely a game you have to play once in your life.

How ever my favourite game in the box was Team Fortress 2. This multi player FPS focuses on class based combat, and to be honest, it absolutely succeeds in every way.
The art style is the most standout feature. It features a cartoony look, much like the cartoons in Fallout 3. And although it definitely isn't life like, it's still amazing and works surprisingly well. The classes them selves also have very different models, from the rubber coat wearing Medic to the machine gun wielding Heavy, each class is very easy to tell apart and identify, making battles that much easier to fight.
The game play between classes also works very well. To me, each class has a very different style of play. The Engineer for example, can plant turrets, teleporters and ammo/health dispensers and so I find my self thinking hard on where I place each one, and how it'll help the team in general. The Spy on the other hand, is very much a loner class. Part of the fun of the Spy is disguising your self as a member of the other team, and infiltrating their base, trying not to draw attention to yourself yet still try to cause some damage. Many are the happy moments when I've sat right next to an enemy Engineer or Sniper, and they're none the wiser. However each class can't be used by itself and requires team work to succeed.
The maps themselves are very well laid out, although one or two of them are a tad unbalanced. Each map has a different game type, from 2Fort's Capture the Flag Mechanic, to Granary's control points.The Art Style makes the different locations on the map easy to locate and after a couple of minutes, you'll hardly ever get lost.
One problem I had with this is that there is no form of offline play. Although I understand that it would have been quite difficult to script A.I's for it, a tutorial at least should have been included, as well as split screen play for a single guest for live play...
The Orange Box is probably one of the best purchases you'll ever mark when it comes to video games. It contains enough game play to last you a good couple of months, especially the online play of TF2, the value I think can't really be stressed enough. This game has a lot of good things going for it, and its definitely going to be in my top three 360 games for a long time. Imagine the mark as a 9.5/10.
~Divine