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Half-Life 2: The Orange Box

User Rating:

ESRB: Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Language - Mild
Publisher: Valve Software
Genre(s): Action / Adventure, Shooting
Home Page: http://orange.half-life2.com/

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By: Nick Evanson Oct 25, 2007

Portal

Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 had huge expectations from critics and gamers alike, but Portal was very much a "background" oddity. We all knew it was going to be a fun puzzle game but little did we know that this would be one of the finest slices of video gaming for years. Very witty and thoroughly entertaining - this is a real contender for GOTY.

Advanced Levels complicate things with extras, such as sentries that can't be toppled over.

The simple visuals belie fiendish puzzles.

"Yes, it's short. Very short. It's also long enough. I'm fully aware that these statements are somewhat contradictory, but there you are. Portal is a strange game. The length is not a big downer, as it feels just right - the storyline managed to carry the idea, without turning it to a repetitive rehash of similar puzzles. It couldn't really have fitted in more to the main storyline without either regurgitating existing concepts, or introducing more artificial elements to complicate things, and the plot felt natural without excessive padding, with a very satisfying beginning, middle and end. At best, the game could have continued as a separate chapter not related to the Aperture Science lab, but that would be another story for another day - more suited for a proper sequel."

Portals allow you to travel to otherwise inaccessible places, and to move objects through them.

Do what the signs say and you'll be fine... mostly.

Click here to read our full, in-depth review - Overall Score: 94

In addition to these three games, The Orange Box also sports Half-Life 2 (the full game) and Episode 1; if you already own these games, you can give them away as gifts to other Steam users.

Overall Thoughts

There's no question that Valve packaged Team Fortress 2 and Portal with the initial release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to counter the long wait and brevity of the saga's continuation. Although they're all available as individual releases, it's quite frankly not worth it. Just by the darn thing and enjoy! Valve's biggest problem now is how the heck to they top this or even equal it?

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz or AMD equivalent	Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or AMD equivalent
Memory	512 MB	1024MB
Graphics Card	DirectX 8 compatible 128MB graphics card	DrectX 9 compatible 256MB graphics card
Graphics Card Example	ATI Radeon 8500 series / NVIDIA GeForce 3 series	NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS 256MB / ATI Radeon X1800 256MB
Free Disk Space	5 GB	5 GB
Net Link	not specified	not specified

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	AMD Athlon XP 2400+ / Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz	AMD Athlon 64 3000+ / Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz
Memory	512 MB	1024 MB
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB / NVIDIA GeForce 6600 128MB	ATI Radeon X1800 GTO / NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB
Free Disk Space	5 GB	5 GB
Net Link	Broadband for multiplayer	Broadband for multiplayer

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	95	Something for everybody: single player, multiplayer, puzzles. Perhaps the only questionable aspect about the main three pieces is the issue of brevity, although it's only a small concern.
Graphics	90	Nothing revolutionary in any of the games but what's there does the job just fine. Art direction for Portal and Team Fortress 2 is superb. At least, there's motion blur and HDR for the techno geeks.
Audio	92	Valve understand the important of sound only too well: 60s twang in TF2, cute but crazy computer in Portal and top-notch voice casting in Episode 2.
Technology	92	All of the games in the Orange Box will run on a wide range of PCs, dating back to over three years in the past. The odd audio glitch spoils the party here and there, but it's an otherwise bug-free gaming experience.

OVERALL

This is pure value-for-money: a total of 5 excellent games for the price of one (and a bit). The sheer quality of the gameplay to be experienced makes The Orange Box an absolute "must have" purchase. Get it now, get the gnome into space but don't eat the cake.

If you would like to comment on this review or discuss the game further, then click right here (registration not required).