Half-Life 2 - The Orange Box on Xbox 360

The Biggest Bargain In Gaming History!

A customer from StokeOnTrent, England , 20/10/2007

Half-Life 2(arguably the greatest shooter in the world) and both of its subsequent episodes is worth the price of The Orange Box.

Then you add Portal, which cannot be described in mere words.

AND Team Fortress 2, the premier squad-based online shooter.

You have...The Orange Box.

Graphics for both Half-Life 2 and Portal are in a world of their own, and episode 2 has improved graphics. Team Fortress 2, on the other hand has it's own unique graphical style unlike any other.

Buy, Rent, Own.

Just Get It.

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average

Paul from Manchester , 13/12/2007

I tried to like this game but couldnt really. In a word I would describe it as dull. It has dated a lot and I don't think it represents value when 2 of the games are old and the new episode is plain tedious and is nothing I havent done before. It just didnt do anything for me.

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Thumbs Up!!!

Kristofer Lee from Much Hadham [Highly rated reviewer] , 03/12/2007

The Orange Box is definitely one of this years best releases. Five games for £50, a great deal by any standard.

All the games are fantastic and have superb graphics and sound. Portal is definitely the dark horse of the bunch and is still my favourite. It is a game like no other. It has an interesting plot and the game play is nothing short of revolutionary. This is all helped long by amazing puzzles that make you think and can really test you at times. The hilarious narrative by 'Gladross' really makes you laugh and makes you want play the game again just to hear the comments again.

Team Fortress 2 is an amazing online game and is really worth playing. Its unique visual style makes the game truly memorable and adds to the effect of the manic game play of the many different classes which provide something for everyone. A few connection errors slightly spoil the experience but EA has been patching them up recently so they work fine most the time.

The Half Life games are the main attraction of this compilation and really provide an amazing experience. All have engrossing stories and great game play. However there is not that much new apart from the story introduced over the three games. It would have been nice to see more new features in the games but they are fantastic still.

Overall unless you really detest FPS there is no reason you shouldn't by this game as it is not only a great deal but the games are all so memorable you will still be playing them well into next year.

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Excellent, but.. what happened to TF2 Online?

Talsar from Vulcan [Highly rated reviewer] , 22/07/2008

I have owned Orange Box for a few days now, and I am really over the moon with the number of titles I got for my money - 5 Games! Woot!!!

Only thing I would say though, and I was a little gutted! As an online player (Team Fort 2) I was expecting an huge player base for this game online, and when I was online over the past 3 days, I have struggled to get a game, even hosting 1 or 2 people would join.

It is like the game has been out for over 2 years the way the player base is like online, only after 11:30pm (when USA started gaming) did the player base get better.

I am going to give it a full testing over the next week or so, if it improves I will amend this review :(

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Good honest shooter, Classic Half life!

Lewis Taylor from Sheffield , 21/09/2009

Loved this game! I am a big Half-life fan and as usual the developers have excelled at producing half-life “add ons” that are as good as the main game. Great game, great story, graphics as usual were good but nor perfect, but this is because so much more effort is put into the game play and not just graphics (IE opposite to Far Cry!)

Good honest alien crunching fun! I would recommend this game to any one who likes a good honest shooter with a good story. Easy to get into even if you haven’t played the first half life.

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The BEST game I've played on the 360 so far!!!

Chris Hoskins from Devon, England [Highly rated reviewer] , 14/06/2008

I don't know if I'm alone in realizing this trend but a lot of the great console games began their story on the PC then at some point have been ported onto consoles as the story continues, titles like Hitman, call of Duty and Half Life all started on pc. This makes it ever so hard for people (like myself) who prefer to play games on a console rather then PC to fully engage in the story to an extent where its as if the PC gamers are some how the primary superior intended audience and the console gamers are just there to increase sales. This is what put me off getting half life for the ps2, there were soo many expansions that were PC exclusive I thought I’d avoid being labeled as the console thicky by my PC gaming friends who were able to delve deeper into the series and get the answers that I never could, so I just gave it a miss. In retrospect I made an awful decision which made me miss out on probably one of the greatest games ever!! Playing the orange box made me ashamed to think I was a hard core gamer as I passed up the gaming experience of a life time. luckily I've rectified my mistake slightly by playing this but I'll never get the whole story.....that said it didn't seem to matter that much, sure there were a few times I didn't really get what was going on but if you just roll with the punches and keep on playing through you'll find the knowledge you've missed is made up by a thoroughly enjoyable game experience. The storyline of this game could stand up to most movie plots and so could the writing and the voice acting I was just blown away by the quality of this game its soo highly polished yet soo under rated, in fact I have only 2 criticisms. 1- the difficulty level: while on the whole I thought the lack of difficulty levels really worked for this, having one level where the game is always challenging but never impossible was a really brave and clever choice BUT there were a hand full of sections mainly involving plotting you in battle against loads of enemy gun ships that actually were impossible there were 3 occasions of this and each time I had to use the invincibility cheat to beat these bits after countless attempts of doing it normally. 2- the length of episode 1: while I was over satisfied with the length of Half life 2 clocking in for me at around 12 hours and Episode 2 lasting 5 hours which was sort of what I was expected not too short but not all that long. Episode 1 how ever flew by in about 3 hours....where it all went I’ll never know it seemed to end before it began! But all 3 games regardless of their length were absolutely fantastic from start to finish, I can only think of few occasions where I left a game more satisfied and in awe then I did in completion of these games. These two points are honestly the only negatives I can think of for the Half life part of this collection. The positives of the games are too many to list!! The way the game looks won’t make you go and leave you're wife but it’s still nice to look at. The sound effects are among the little things that combine to make this game truly great, the control system isn't anything ground breaking or revolutionary but it works well. The physics engine is one of the best I've come across you really have to play it to see just how good it really is. The sound track is perfectly suited, more so then I've heard in any other game the up beat tracks really get the adrenaline pumping and adds even more to ever changing atmosphere, that being one more great thing about the game, one minute your blowing away enemy soldiers the next its pitch black, zombies are coming at you from all angles and your flash light is running out it’s a fantastic blend of horror, action and to make it just that bit better there's platforming and puzzle solving elements to it as well, I’d go as far to say over 75% of the game involves these elements, now this is what appealed to most about this game, normally I don’t go for platformers or puzzle games, I find them a little boring but this actually has some really fun scenarios to work out. This game really breaks the mould, there’s no cut scenes AT ALL!! Instead all the action you’d usually find in a cut scene just happens around you as you play leaving the player always in control and in awe of the amazing events that unfold around, the way the other characters interact with you is truly ingenious and unusually you grow to (without sounding like a total ponce) ‘care about the characters’. There’s no ‘objectives’ section or compass or guide arrow telling you what to do you have to figure things out for yourself which I LOVED I’m feed up of games just spoon feeding you all the answers and constantly telling you what to do this game never ‘tells’ you actually making you think and work for the ending, it’s also the first game I’ve played in a L_O_N_G_T_I_M_E to actually have a health bar instead of the halo ‘hide and heal’ style most games are using. With all this taken into account I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone, if you like things to be kept simple with minimum effort on your part then this isn’t for you, if you don’t like really thinking further then Aim-Shoot-Kill then this isn’t for you either but if you’re a fan of games which are a tad un conventional and original, games which require you to think and have a great storyline then you’ll love this. For me was very reminiscent of the first Red Faction so if you like those sorts of games check this out, you can even Wikipedia the series and there’s a bit of back story there which is helpful if like me you’re new going in to the series. Now time to move on to the next part of the package, Portal. Now if you came up to me a couple weeks ago and told me a puzzle game would soon become one of my favorite games I’d probably slap you in the face and walk away laughing…...but now after playing portal you’d be totally right! I LOVED THIS GAME!!! basically this game is set in a science testing area somewhere within the half life universe but totally unrelated to the Half life story it pretty much is what it says on the tin you use portals to solve various puzzles over the 3 hours it will take you to complete the game, there’s not really a lot else to say as it’s a small game with good graphics great sound easy controls and fairly hard puzzles that really push you, especially the advanced maps and portal challenges you unlock once you’ve completed the game first time round. I cannot think of one single criticism for this its just puzzle perfection with some of the funniest moments and one mind blowing ending which you HAVE to see this game is definitely one which any self respecting gamer has to play. The final section of the Orange box is Team Fortress 2, now I’m sad to say that I was disappointed with this. For me personally it was just unplayable, the cartoony graphics quickly wore on me, the controls were just about workable, there were only three boring maps with 2 boring game types. The actual game play was one of the worst I’ve come across! There are some clever ideas like all the different abilities of the classes but most of these are just really unworkable within the context of a game as its too fast paced making you die so often that you spend more time watching others play then actually playing yourself as it takes ridiculously long to respawn. Now I hear that this game has been in development for nearly 10 years!! What the hell they’ve been doing in that time I don’t know, well obviously they were concentrating on Half Life and Portal, this game is by far the weakest in the collection and if your after squad based combat which is apparently the selling point of TF2 then go out and buy Call of Duty 3, it’s a much better all round workable squad based online shooter. This has been on my high priority list for months now and it’s definitely been worth the wait (even if TF2 is a waste of space). If this isn’t on your rental list then add it, if it is then move it to high priority, simply put PLAY THIS GAME!!

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