Nintendo has Mario, the Xbox Master Chief, and Sega heralds Sonic as their mascot. But in the world of PC gaming, Gordon Freeman reigns supreme.
Admittedly, the name doesn’t evoke the kick-ass sensibilities of a cybernetic warrior, the cuddly antics of a super speed hedgehog, or the sheer wackiness of a plumber’s pipe dream. Instead, marked as an everyman (despite an advanced MIT degree), Freeman’s exploits center around the cast of characters he meets and the world he inhabits. And never before have we been able to experience a healthier dose of those exploits than in the Orange Box, presented by Valve Entertainment.
The Half-Life 2 portion of the Orange Box consists of the original game plus two accompanying episodes. A lengthy campaign lasting upwards of 20 hours to complete all parts, in many ways it’s only the beginning of the content offered in this package. The experience is rounded out by all new content in the form of Portal, a puzzle game with teeth, and Team Fortress 2, the class-based multiplayer component completely separate from the Half-Life universe. Let’s work backwards.
Team Fortress 2
Fistful of Donuts
Offering up nine classes, each with their own unique personality and abilities, Team Fortress 2 offers a diverse style of play. Walk and gun with the Heavy, a Slavic accented fat body toting a maxi-sized minigun. Defend choke points by building sentry guns with your Engineer, a Texan that will have you yelling “Yeehaw” as you watch your opponents drop. Or take on the role of the Medic, a German who looks way too comfortable giving rectal exams, but provides an essential component as the team’s healer in and out of battle. For those who prefer more standard fare, the Sniper caters to the patient player, while the Soldier and Scout cater to the more run and gun minded. If it’s camping tight corners you crave, look no further than the Pyro. His (or Her) ability to set opponents aflame can result in deadly and hilarious results. The Demoman offers the only “grenades” in the game in the form of two types of launchers. The standard grenade launcher he wields is contrasted with the ability to lay sticky bombs at choke points and then detonate them remotely with an alternate launcher. Lastly, for the more demanding player, the Spy is the most obvious choice. He can disguise himself as a member of the opposing team, backstab opponents, and turn invisible for a hasty retreat.
The comic nuances present in the now famous trailers for the game translate perfectly into the final version. Each character has multiple taunt animations that serve no purpose but to make you laugh, but they do so with great success. The animation is excellent, and will have you wondering if the next iteration of Toy Story will have Woody manning a machine gun and Buzz Lightyear launching rockets at hapless parents. Probably not, but Pixar could only envy the twisted hilarity of the design.
Where Other Cartoons Fear To Tread
TF2 offers six maps to explore, each with a matching game type. Valve opted to balance each map to a specific game type, allowing them to create tweaked versions of essentially the same game, but offering different results.
2Fort, an updated version of a map from the original Team Fortress, is a symmetrical Capture the Flag map. Each team starts on opposite sides, as standard fare suggests, but from there events take an interesting turn. The teams do not start at their flags, in this case a briefcase containing vital intelligence, most likely an amazing recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Depending on your class, your objective could be to haul ass and retrieve the intelligence or haul ass and set up a defensive front. However, with the multiple class abilities and entrance points into your base and the enemy’s, it’s almost never as simple as the straightforward CTF matches that similar games provide. Dropped flags also do not reset by touching them, adding an additional element to game play. Taking a full minute to reset, battles can often be dictated by where a flag was dropped, versus your heavily defended side of the map or the enemy’s.
The map itself offers several ways in and out of enemy territory. The two respective team areas are separated by a covered bridge over a moat. Crossing the bridge can be a deadly proposition as it’s the most open part of the map and where most of the carnage ensues. Thankfully, there’s a network of sewer tunnels running under the bridge that may offer a tighter area with sharp corners that can allow escape for a fleeing flag-carrier.
Whether you’re fleeing through the sewers, lost in the chicken coups, or setting up a sentry in the intelligence room, the map looks great. The characters integrate well with the environment, creating scene after scene from some cartoon gone wrong.
While currently CTF (and thus 2Fort) may be the most popular game type, the game does offer variation with several other choices all revolving around the control point scheme. This game type is at once very familiar and at the same time some has some foreign elements. Teams must capture control points by standing on them unopposed. Beyond that, it can vary significantly depending on the map.
Gravel Pit’s attack and defend scenario consists of three points that the attacking team must control and lock. The first two, A and B, can be taken in any order. The last point, C, can only be taken after capping the first two. Open areas abound with varying heights that allow for interesting defense choices. Attacking teams have the freedom of choice offered in multiple pathways leading to the control point.
Granary, on the other hand, offers a different style of play. Five control points scatter the map with one initially uncontested and two locked for each team. As a team locks the central point, made even more difficult by the occasional speeding train I might add, they must then make their way deeper into enemy territory and lock subsequent points in order. The added advantage is that each point locks more quickly while the disadvantage is that it brings them closer to the enemy’s respawn point. The map Well shares the same game type, but a totally different locale.
An even more interesting twist on the control point scheme occurs on Hydro, a territorial control point map. On this map, each team has one control point for the other to control and lock. The map is laid out in sections, with each round in a different locked section of the overall map. A Risk-like overview map separates the rounds and informs players how much territory they have lost or won. The first team to control all territories wins the game. And a team that loses territories can gain them back, offering an interesting push/pull effect.
Lastly, Dustbowl offers an attack and defend scenario with the defending team allowed a setup time before the round actually starts. While choke points are generally determined by control point placement, innovative Engineers can herd opponents with well placed sentries and Demomen can line tunnels with sticky bombs to force enemies to make different choices.
That’s Not All Folks
TF2 is not without its faults, most occurring on the logistical side. The lobby system is a step backward in console gaming, and a lateral move compared with other PC games. No party system is offered and the simple act of inviting friends can be an arduous task. A lag-free connection is guaranteed only with a decent host. A dropped host is a lost game and you’re forced to re-invite an entire room and coordinate through messages over Live, all of which can be frustrating. It’s possible to be dropped from a room for no apparent reason, but this, thankfully, seems rare. A night can go by without any of these problems, but a patch or two is necessary.
You’re also forced to complete all objectives in order to win the game. You must cap the required amount of flags to win (three), take all the requisite control points, or complete all objectives in territorial control. Barring that, a sudden death round with no respawns occurs. You can then finish the given objective for the map or kill every member on the enemy team. If unsuccessful, you’re forced into a stalemate regardless if you had more flag caps, control point caps, or territories controlled.
Maps can be unforgiving to those that don’t learn them. This may be common sense, but it’s worth noting. Other games offer visual cues toward objectives or a mini-map as a means of navigation. TF2 offers some clever scenery, but it can be easy to get lost. However, once you do learn the maps, ammo and health spawns, and choke points, it’s easy to appreciate why they opted for simplicity on the HUD.
Overall, TF2 looks and runs beautiful, easily the best looking part of the package, though some may prefer the gritty “realism” of Half-Life 2 to the caricatures of TF2. Showcasing great particle effects and lighting, TF2 really shines in its loony toon cast of characters, their diversity of play style, and the humor they offer. The six maps and the variety of game types they offer will keep you engaged for a while, but it won’t be long before a desire for new content sets in. The game offers an intense, team based style of play where lone wolves need not apply. You’ll definitely want to try out every class, and probably settle on three you like as opposed to one. While you might struggle with team dynamics initially, by the end of your first play session you’ll be wondering when it’s best to ubercharge your H-Dub to make a rush for the enemy’s cap point. And you’ll be grinning the entire time.
Portal
One part FPS, one part puzzle game, then add a pinch of platforming elements and you have the recipe for Valve Entertainment’s Portal. Originally a student project, the experience has been baked to near perfection. Combining a slick narrative and beautifully simplistic game play, Portal will most assuredly be the slice of the Orange Box that is on the minds of most for quite some time.
The Carrot
Awakened in a sterile environment with few comforts seen outside a hospital room, the player is greeted by the androgynous voice of GLaDOS, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. The sole voice heard throughout the game, GLaDOS serves as tutor, satirist, and instigator. Its acerbic wit and veiled contempt are what make the unsurprising theme of escape so novel.
The writing is phenomenal, hitting every nerve intended. The game fluidly combines disturbing music with corny humor, a sharp tongue mollified by faux tenderness. GlaDOS is without a doubt one of the more interesting characters we’ve seen in a long time.
Black Forest
Almost immediately you’ll be equipped with the portal gun, a device that creates gateways allowing the player to traverse the level. The player will also quickly learn to place crates on buttons, redirect energy balls, and work with moving platforms. Trust me, things become less obvious from there. At first, you’ll only be allowed to create one portal with a second portal already existing somewhere on the level. Reaching the elevator and receiving some encouraging words from GLaDOS will signal the end of the test area.
As you progress, your portal gun will be upgraded with the ability to create two portals, blue and red respectively. Placing each portal on an approved surface allows the player to travel from one portal to the next and back again. Portals also allow objects to pass through them, either with the player or without.
At times throughout the game, you’ll encounter areas where gravity and momentum come into play, requiring you to launch yourself through one portal to the other side of a room. Or perhaps even another portal. This technique is called “flinging” and offers some of the most fun, yet challenging segments of the game. It takes the passive skill of solving puzzles and morphs it into a more active platforming skill.
The game’s environment conveys a great sense of isolation in its drab, white walls and glass observation booths, creating the feeling of a test subject stuck in an endless loop of experiments. Most will breeze through the first half of the game and about the time you want “out” of the experiment, you’ll be treated to a welcome change.
Devil’s Food
Portal isn’t without its flaws. A PC port, there’s a slight delay when using the controller. It’s pretty minor, and easy to become acclimated to, but noticeable nonetheless. I also wish we had some leaderboards, or at the very least tracking between friends. Additionally, some may the difficulty too easy. It should last the average gamer about three hours, but that can obviously vary. Thankfully, when completed with the main game, you’re offered multiple challenges on five of the levels. These range from an advanced version of the level, which adds new twists, to goals that involve completing the level with the least amount of portals or within a certain time period.
With these “new” levels comes a greater challenge as well as the ability to earn achievements associated with them. Like every other game included in the Orange Box, achievement goals are tracked with in-game status reports and all achievement progress can be accessed from the menu of each game. We’ve seen this before with G.R.A.W. 2 and The Darkness, but this wonderful feature should be implemented throughout every title.
Also available in Portal, as well as the other games minus Half-Life 2, is developer commentary. The audio tracks scattered throughout the levels are excellent. They give an inside look at design, the beta testing, and are both entertaining and informative.
And Eat It Too!
Portal is one of those experiences that reinvigorate our love for video games. It’s certain to become the Radiohead of the gaming world, often talked about, but never truly understood outside its circle. The game is also proof that short form media can work, and work well. Portal provides intelligent game play built around a persistent and consistent narrative that will have you thinking about it long after you finish. And most likely you’ll return. With achievement points to earn, goals to complete, and advanced levels to enjoy, this game can keep you interested for quite some time.
