The Orange Box Review - The best bargain in gaming history

By Sam Coles:

2007 was truly a fantastic year to be gamer, because we got a slew of titles that had a massive impact on the industry such as Call of Duty 4, Bioshock and the game I’m going to reviewing The Orange Box. This was one of the best gaming bargains of the decade as you got several of Valves notable games which included Half-Life 2, HL Episode 1 and 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. I remember picking this up on the PC originally and thought “Wow! I got more than my money’s worth”. This rings true even today, I can’t think of another example of this maybe the Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection, but Konami didn’t produce many copies.

Well talking about the narrative is tough, as I would have to talk about 4 separate titles but I can lump Half-Life into one and Portal’s story is vague at best without doing background reading. Half-Life 2 takes place after the events of the original, where our bespectacled theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman has been brought out of stasis by the G-Man to battle a new alien threat. The combine have taken over Earth after the 7 hour war, the human race then surrenders and are put into walled off numbered cities, something straight out Orwell’s 1984. Like the first game the story is minimal, but this game started the trend of locking you in a room and then vomits exposition at you.

Portal’s story is vague, unless you do background reading on the series where you get into the Ratman etc. The basic gist is that you play as Chelle who wakes in a facility called Aperture Science; she is greeted by a flat mono and robotic voice in the form of Glados. At first everything seems rather innocent as you’re just doing tests, but as you progress through the game you find that the lab is sparse of human life.  

Gameplay in all of the games are from a first person perspective with shooting, except Portal unless you count firing portals on a wall as a shooter then be my guest. They all control differently especially Team Fortress 2 as you have a wide selection of different classes as they can range from slow to fast. Half-Life 2 still controls well for the most part although it can feel rather stiff and sluggish in some aspects especially when you’re turning around, this might have something to do with me playing the 360 version. An issue I had with this game was the “ground breaking” physics engine, as you can get stuck on geometry easily and the game has a habit of cluttering areas with random bits of rubbish which just get in the way more than anything.

Considering that the Source Engine is well over a decade old, it still looks surprisingly good with excellent lighting effects, coupled with bloom that’s not too intrusive unlike some games of the time. Textures can look a bit blurry if you stop to smell the roses, but it’s not a deal breaker as you have to bear in mind Half-Life 2 came out in 2004 originally. The game does have a few performances issues as the game targets 30 fps, but starts hiccup when things get busy with the physics engine, such as explosions or when there are loads ragdolls flying everywhere. Also the net code on the 360 version of Team Fortress 2 is atrocious, and yes there are people still playing the game on the 360 after 10 years.

The Orange Box is one of the best deals in video game history and to this day I can’t think of any other bargain you can get. You get hours upon hours of gameplay in this collection, with games that still hold up today. If you haven’t give this collection a go, but I would strongly recommend playing the PC version as it is the best way to play it, plus Team Fortress 2 is free to play these days. If not it is very cheap on the PS3 and 360 version, but out of the two I would recommend the 360 version because the PS3 has a lot of performance issues and long loading times.