The Orange Box - Xbox 360

Game compilations are usually dry and dusty affairs. Most are either a collection of "classic" games that were new 10 or 20 years ago or a repackaging of two- or three-year-old games with all of their expansions. In general, they're usually nothing to get excited about. So trust Valve to completely redefine this category with the weirdly named The Orange Box. This is a package that has something for almost everybody, including one of the greatest shooters ever made and some of the best new and original content of the year

The Orange Box a great deal. It's practically guaranteed that if you enjoy video games, you'll find at least one thing to like in this collection, though there's also a very good chance that you'll really enjoy all of it.
Between Half-Life 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, you're bound to find something you'll absolutely love in The Orange Box. Let's start with new stuff. Episode Two is the continuation of the Half-Life 2 story. It picks up right where Episode One leaves off, with Alyx helping Gordon out of the rubble of a train crash. You've escaped from City 17, which now looks more like a smoking crater in the ground with a huge, swirling portal floating over it. But you aren't safe just yet. You've escaped with information that the Combine very much wants to get back from you, so the chase is on again. Fortunately, you'll do much more than just run in

Episode Two. The biggest difference here is that Alyx doesn't directly accompany you through the entire game. You'll split up much more frequently, so, for example, you'll find yourself working your way through antlion nests and crushing antlion grubs all by your lonesome. You'll also negotiate a mine with the help of a vortigaunt who happens to serve as a subtle form of comic relief. It spouts dialogue that plays off of the serious, spiritual tone that most of these aliens take, only applying it to things such as crates full of supplies that just flew down a broken mineshaft and out of reach. These bits alone give Episode Two a much different tone than the previous games, but there are also significant gameplay alterations.

Episode Two marks the return of the lengthy vehicle sequences seen in Half-Life 2. There's a large block of action that takes place with you moving from spot to spot in what appears to be a stripped-down Dodge Charger. There are also a couple of big set pieces, such as one sequence where you have to defend the center of a mine from relentless antlion attacks. Likewise, the game's final sequence takes place in a wide-open area and, without getting too specific, feels very different from anything Half-Life 2 has done so far. Although you won't encounter any new weapons in Episode Two, the developers have at least broken the flashlight power meter out from the same auxiliary power that you use to sprint. This is a smart change that doesn't make much sense in terms of continuity between episodes, but it's handy and the sort of thing you wish they'd roll back into the much darker, much more flashlight-oriented action of Episode One. At about four or five hours, Episode Two is also longer than Episode One.

With all that Half-Life, you'd think that the other two parts of this package would be minor additions thrown in to make the deal sound more attractive. But Portal is probably the greatest thing about The Orange Box. It's a clever mix that combines first-person action with very focused puzzle-solving. It's also completely hilarious. The premise is simple. You're a woman who wakes up in a tiny box inside some lab facility run by a mysterious company called Aperture Science. You're presented with a portal that lets you walk out of the room and into another. From there, the game gradually introduces you to portals and eventually gives you a gun that you can use to fire portals onto walls, ceilings, and floors. Your primary and alternate fire buttons are used to create blue and orange portals, respectively, and walking, jumping, or falling into one portal sends you out of the other one. You can also pick up objects, such as large boxes, which often must be placed on large buttons to open doors so you can proceed through a variety of test chambers.

In case you haven't played the two already-released games in the Half-Life 2 saga, they tell the story of Gordon Freeman, your silent protagonist. At the end of the original Half-Life, the scientist was placed into stasis by a mysterious, nameless figure known outside of the HL universe as the G-Man. This governmental-looking guy pops up right at the beginning of HL2 to awaken Gordon and, apparently, place him on a train headed into City 17. This is a very different world than the one Gordon left behind. Time has passed, though it's unclear how much. The alien invasion from the first Half-Life has resulted in the Seven Hour War, at the end of which humanity surrendered to a force now known as the Combine. But even with the human race under complete lockdown, there's still a group of rebels out there fighting for freedom. Some of these rebels are scientists that come directly from the Black Mesa facility where the original Half-Life took place. You quickly hook up with the rebels and the "good" aliens, the vortigaunts, all of whom speak of you in hushed tones, as though you were a legendary hero. Half-Life 2 is a very lengthy adventure with somewhat odd pacing. The game contains two very long vehicle sequences that perhaps go on a bit too long, but let's let sleeping dogs lie. This 2004 game is an absolute classic that should be played and enjoyed by almost anyone that comes into contact with it.