First Week Impressions - The Orange Box

Normally, after a full week with a new game, I can give the game a pretty through review.  However, with everything packed into The Orange Box (plus its Weds release and some really interesting football this weekend), I can really only give my initial impressions.  I rented this game because I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to drop $60 on, but I went out and purchased the game yesterday.

As a disclaimer to my review of the HL2 portion, I have never played any of the HL games, so HL2 is a new game to me (even though it is 3 years old).  I am a little lost in the story because they keep making references to things that I presume happened in the first HL.  However, I really don't care because I love the gameplay.  Valve did a great job of mixing things up and giving players a variety that keeps the entire game fresh.  The game includes standard FPS elements of course, but it also includes vehicles and mini puzzles.  This game is one of the few that make me want to keep playing late into the night because I can't wait to see what I get to do next.  I think I am about halfway through HL2 (I am about to get to drive the buggy) and it was VERY difficult to pull myself away from it at that point.  There are a fair number of load screens which I can live with, but they are in some of the weirdest places imaginable.  You can easily be in the middle of doing something and you hit a load screen.  Don't backtrack after one of these or you will have to go through the load screen again.  Also, it is discombobulating for me not to be able to see Freeman's hands.  Through much of the game, I don't even notice that you can't see his hands, but when using a turrett or driving an air boat, it is weird.  It looks like the object being interacted with is working through force powers or something.  However, these gripes are minor when compared to the overall experience of HL2.  The achievements are really creative and would seemingly make the experience new even for the HL2 vet.  I played through Ravenholm using only the gravity gun (I have a tip on how to get past the part where you are waiting on Gregori to send you the cart if anyone needs help on this).  It was very difficult, but it was also incredibly fun.  I will definitely play through the early chapters again as I overlooked some of the achievements and want to go back and get these.  If you haven't played any of the HL2 games, so far, this alone is enough reason to justify purchasing the game (and, supposedly, Episode 2 is the crown jewel of this experience).

Much praise has been heaped on Portal in the reviews that I have read.  It is a fun game, but I find it somewhat frustrating.  It is super easy for the first 3/4 of the tests, but when it gets harder, it gets significantly harder.  What frustrates me is not the difficulty of the puzzles as much as the fact that many of them require precise execution over being able to figure out how to solve the puzzles.  What I mean is that I generally know what to do, but I can't get the timing right to do it.  As an older gamer, my hand-eye coordination has started to slip and I have trouble playing platformers because I can't always time my jumps right.  Portal is like a Super Platformer in that it requires precise jumps and superior placement of portals.  I find it frustrating, but yet I still play on.  It is funny and it is very different.  If you get motion sickness playing video games (apparently a few people in my clan do), I would strongly recommend not playing Portal because it occasionally makes me quessy and I haven't ever gotten motion sickness from a video game.  As an add-on, Portal is a unique and interesting game.  It is too short and too frustrating to justify a purchase as a stand alone game, but it is something worth experiencing as part of The Orange Box bundle.

Finally, there is Team Fortress 2.  The first 4-5 times that I played this game, I really didn't like it.  It can be really confusing to someone that hasn't played the original Team Fortress Classic.  However, after I played a few games and started to get comfortable with the maps, tried out a few of the different classes, and read Custom PC's Complete Guide to Team Fortress 2 (www.custompc.co.uk/features/601396/the-complete-guide-to-team-fortress-2.html), I started to understand how to play and then the fun really started.  I mentioned that I had trouble pulling myself away from HL2 at the point in the story that I was at, well it was TF2 that was the motivation that I needed to pry myself away.  This game rocks.  There is no way that a run and gun team can beat a team that coordinates its attack.  Choosing the right combination of classes is vital.  I can see this being the kind of game where a well-oiled team that communicates and is willing to sacrifice individual glory for the good of the team (like the 2old2play folks) can dominate a team of more talented individualists (like the Timmies).  Rumor has it that Valve has additional maps ready or near ready to offer as DLC in the near future.  This will likely be necessary as there are only 6 maps and each map is tied to a game type.  That said, the maps work extremely well for their particular game types.  The classes are pretty balanced and I assume that those that don't seem balanced seem that way because I am not good enough to play them as they were intended to be played.  There is an achievement for playing a full round using each of the 9 classes and a full round tends to give you enough time to figure out what you do and don't like about a particular class.  Speaking of achievements, I LOVE that achievements can be earned in Player matches and that you can make all or most of the slots private and invite the people that you want to play with.  I love getting achievements, but I don't really like doing so enough to have to play with the Timmies in a bunch of ranked rooms.  With TF2, I can play with who I want, earn my achievements, while not having to subject myself to the Timmies.  PLEASE let this become a trend!!! 

All in all, I think that I have barely scratched the surface of what all is offered by The Orange Box.  If the rest of the experience is as varied and as much fun as what I have experienced so far, I couldn't recommend this game more.  If you have played HL2 and Episode 1, I don't know if the new items are worthy of a purchase by themselves (although TF2 gets close), so I would recommend renting it to see if you like the additional content enough to drop $60.  However, if HL2 is new for you, it is one of (if not "the") best bargains I have ever seen in video games.