While box blurb is usually nonsense - Halo 3 isn't even the game of year, let alone "the decade" - the praise on the front of The Orange Box is merited. Out this Friday, The Orange Box is clearly the "best deal in videogames", assuming you like your first person shooters. The package includes the original Half Life 2, plus two smaller (around 5-10 hours long) episodic follow-ups, the latter of which is newly released. Multiplayer only Team Fortress 2 and innovative puzzler Portal round off a package that is hard to criticise.
Sure, Half Life 2 is getting on a bit but playing through it on the 360 over the weekend was still a hugely enjoyable affair. In many ways I enjoyed it more on the 360 than the PC, partly because of the big screen and partly because the temptation to quick save every few seconds was negated by a relatively annoyance-free checkpoint system. The loading times are frustrating though and combined with the odd sudden death scenario remind you that things have moved on/got easier. Bioshock - perhaps Half Life 2's spiritual successor in the story driven first person shooter genre - is certainly more forgiving. But Half Life 2 deserves its new console audience.
I never played the original so Team Fortress 2 doesn't have the emotional attachment that it does to some but the fact that the character design is more Pixar than space marine and that it encourages players to properly work together put it above the majority of 360 multiplayer shooters.
Portal is the dark horse though. Essentially a puzzle game, Portal asks you to shoot exit and entry "portals" through walls, outwit gun turrets and manouvre crates across seemingly impassable barriers. A welcome change of pace, Portal perfectly complements the other four games. But the Orange Box as a whole is recommended. And with the new DS Zelda game out this week too - initial impressions very positive, although the controls may annoy Zelda purists - this Friday is shaping up to be an expensive one.
