The Orange Box

The embodiment of completeness?

More Images

It's hard to imagine what was going through the minds of Valve's accountants when the idea for The Orange Box was first put forward.

"So, let me get this straight. You've got the highly anticipated next instalment of one of gaming's best loved series, a mind meltingly entertaining new puzzle game and what's looking like possibly the best online multiplayer shooter in years, and you want to bundle them all together and sell all three for the price of a single game?"

"Yep, that's about it. Oh, and we want to bundle in Half-Life 2 and HL2: Episode One as well just in case anyone's missed them."

"But... but... don't you like money?"

You've got to admire Valve, not content with being generally great at what they do they've now also come over all charitable and are offering gamers quite possibly the best value slice of interactive entertainment the world has ever seen.

Leaving aside the fact that the package includes, almost as an afterthought, one of the best single player FPS's to be released in recent times (Half-Life 2) and its first episodic sequel, most gamers will be interested in the 'new' content, the stuff that Valve has been teasing us with for so long. So, let's take a more detailed look at the new bits of the Orange Box, starting with HL2: Episode Two.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

However good the other two new games in the Orange Box's trio are, I'd guess it's the inclusion of Ep2 that's going to be what attracts most of the initial sales. The second in Valve's series of episodic entries continuing Gordon Freeman's Half-Life 2 story is arguably the biggest upfront draw for fans.

Tasked with improving on the enjoyable but still slightly disappointing Episode 1, Ep2 gets underway right after the end of Ep1 with Gordon clambering out of the wreckage of a train to be reunited with Alyx. With the all important code still in Alyx's possession and the very imminent threat of Combine forces around the corner it's not long before you're off on the run once more.

Stepping behind the mouse again and taking control of Gordon is as familiar as you'd expect, controls remain laid out the same and everything in the interface is just where you left it last time. Much like a new episode of a TV show, or a sequel to a film the 'world' of Half-Life is firmly established now from both a technical and a story point of view, leaving Valve the far more entertaining job of telling the next part of the story.

It's almost becoming a cliché now but Valve really are very very good at telling a story via their games. With an established cast of well written, well voiced characters Ep2 is able to take the bull by the horns and push the story forward without having to worry about establishing ideas or introducing all the characters. For a game so driven by its plot it would be unfair for me to ruin any of it here, however, anyone who's invested the time in the series so far isn't going to be disappointed, especially by one of the most jaw droppingly well scripted finale's ever and a huge cliff-hanger of an ending.

For all that emphasis on plot however it's important to remember that this is still a shooter at heart, and the action is just as important as the story. Thankfully Valve have once again shown they can be trusted to deliver in this area. While the cynical amongst us could boil down Ep2's gameplay into nothing more than numerous shootouts linked by some relatively linear exploration, it's the way Valve are able to hide that lack of choice behind the illusion of a truly open world that continues to impress. Most importantly the battles themselves feel constantly fresh and exciting. Each encounter seems to have been designed to be as much fun as possible, taking Halo's thirty seconds of fun ethos and applying it to the formidable Half-Life 2 template.

Graphically of course we're still firmly in Half-Life 2 territory here, the Source engine remains impressive but can't compete with some of the distinctly more next-gen engines that are wowing gamers at the moment. However, that's not intended as a genuine criticism, the series' own sense of continuity almost demands it. What Ep2 environments may now lack in glossy spectacle they more than make up for in design and art direction. Ep2 wisely takes the chance to often return the series to the open air after the more claustrophobic nature of Ep1 and in doing so reminds us all what makes Valve's world so impressive. Large open vistas greet the players eyes as the Half-Life universe opens up once again, full of possibility.

While Ep1 was deemed a tad on the short side it's pleasing to see Valve upping the content of Ep2 with roughly six hours of gameplay, almost double the size of EP1. Such an impressive length, coupled with the unendingly high quality of the experience and the fact that it's not even a full price standalone title puts the majority of the rest of the FPS crowd to shame. In fact, the greatest compliment I can really pay Ep2 is that it's probably worth the price of The Orange Box almost on its own.

Portal

To simply call Portal an FPP (first person puzzler) game would be to trivialise the wonderful sense of immersion offered by what may seem the slightest of The Orange Box's trio of games. Yet that sense of inhabiting a perfectly realised environment, not to mention the large amount of whit and personality the game exudes, goes a huge way towards making Portal one of the best games of the year.

Awaking in a sterile looking white cell inside a place called the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre you, the gamer, are left little in the way of information as to what's going on or what you're supposed to be doing. It's only the ever present voice of GlaDOS, the AI that controls the test centre, which offers to make any sense of your situation as she acts as part encouraging guide, part amused observer to your journey from one test area to the other. While the underlying premise of the game that follows the deliberately bewildering beginning is easy to explain, make your way to the end of each short level solving whatever environmental puzzles halt your progress, its the inclusion of portals and, more importantly, after a few levels of the Portal Gun itself, that gives the game it's magic ingredient.

The beautiful simplicity of the portal gun concept adds a whole new dimension to getting around the levels. At its most basic pointing the gun at a wall and pressing the right mouse button will create an orange entry portal. Spinning around and firing at the opposite wall using the left mouse button will create a blue exit portal on the other side of the room. Now, if you turn back around and walk through the orange portal you instantly appear on the other side of the room through the blue one. See, simple! You can almost hear sound of weeping coming from 3D Realms as they see the Portal-esque ideas they dabbled with, but ultimately wasted, in Prey perfected with such apparent ease by the guys at Valve.

The mind bending complexity that gives the game its challenge comes from learning how to use and adapt that simple principle. Soon you'll be deftly creating portals on walls, floors and ceilings to get to otherwise unreachable areas of a level, falling down huge drops into orange portals so your momentum fires you through a blue portal onto a distant ledge elsewhere on a level or even using portals to guide deadly energy balls around a room to land safely in their receptacles.

The almost unseen brilliance of Portal lies in its pacing; the learning especially is perfectly pitched. While it may seem like you're strolling through the first three quarters of the game's 19 levels with ease, rest assured that all is not what it seems and all of your acquired skills will be called upon before the game reaches its conclusion.