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Best deal in video game history! 5 games in one box!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 64 / 73
Date: October 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have been a fan of Half Life, so I knew I would get this for Xbox 360. (I prefer playing games on consoles.) I was also curious about the other games in this package. There is one disc...when you put it in the 360 a main menu comes up with five choices across the bottom of the screen...1. Half Life 2, 2. Half Life 2 Episode One, 3. Half Life 2 Episode Two, 4. Portal and 5. Team Fortress 2. That's right 5 games! One disc. One box. $59.99! Great deal.

Half Life 2 appears to be much better looking graphically than the original Xbox version...there are not as many glitches either. The backwards compatible version had quite a few bugs that made playing the game on the 360 quite annoying. Not to worry here. The game play is smooth and quite comparable to the PC version. The bonus here of course is that you have both Episodes One and Two to move on with after completing Half Life 2...or you can play just Episode One or Two. You don't have to solve one to play the others. That may be beneficial if you have played Half Life 2 and just want to jump right into the Episodes. The graphics on the Episodes really shine...it looks amazing...they did a great job with this version.

Portal is an interesting game and quite challenging. It seems very similar to Half Life 2 in that it is in first person, but this is more of a puzzle game. You have a portal shooting gun, and you have to figure out how to use the device to get through a maze or puzzle. There are a few twists on this too...moving platforms, switches, blocks, weight activated floor buttons, electrical sensor receptacles, energy emitting zappers that can activate the receptacles and later in the game this is even more complicated by motion sensing robotic machine gun turrets. It really stimulates the brain. It definitely makes you think outside the box. Eventually, you get the ability to shoot two different portals...one an entry portal, and the second an exit portal. I got addicted to this game and played for two hours straight until I became completely stuck and confused. I had to put it down and relax for a while...I was getting a little too intense. I can't wait to play again.

Team Fortress 2 is an online multiplayer based game. You are set up into teams, and then there are different objectives to play. I only played it twice, so I don't know all the ins and outs of it. However, it does look quite interesting. There are a few different characters to choose from with different abilities. These abilities can make one character better at defending a base, one is better at going out and stalking the other team, etc. There are snipers, medics, heavy weapon handlers, spies, scouts and a few others that I can remember. This game appears to have some replay value and a lot of fun for online multiplayer.

With all those games in one box and on one disc, who wouldn't want it for $59.99?!? This is truly the best deal in video game history. Why don't more companies do this and release more content at one time? This may make developers think about quantity in addition to quality.

Good Game, could have been better, but they only had 10 years.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 49 / 68
Date: October 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a really good deal for what you get, however, you should note, to play Team Fortress 2 and the new version of Half Life, you will need a XBOX Live gold membership.
Orange box includes the old Half Life games, I am not sure why you would want to rehash that, especially since most of us probably have the original versions. Old versions seem tired, and I wonder how it kept my attention years ago. If you are even a occasional gamer, you ought to have something better to play than old first person shooters.
Team Fortress 2 is excellent if you can find a decent server to play it on. When the system goes to search there doesn't seem to be near the variety that pops up with some other multiplayer games like WarHawk.
I am also getting tired of multiplayer releases without single player gaming on the disc. These games initially do fairly well, if you can find a good server, but try and play it in a year or two, servers will be even harder to find. 10 years of development should have been enough to give this game a single player version.
The new Half Life version is okay, but you have a feeling that you have already played it. Again, surely there is something that hasn't been rehashed out there that an occasional gamer could better spend his time playing, perhaps BIOSHOCK or STRANGLEHOLD.
Portal is excellent and the saving game of this bundle, but alone it would not be a great game to own.
Those giving this bundle 5 stars need to expand their video game collection to the newer, more cutting edge games.

Orange Box, Black Box, whatever! It's all good!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: November 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I should mention up front that I'm a PC gamer, and that while there are some here that might hold that against me (you console folks can be brutal) I'm going to give as honest a review of the Orange Box games as I can. Given that Valve's release coincided with some catastrophic malfunction of my wife's car, the funds I had set aside for this game for my PC ended up getting sucked up into car repairs, thus I was forced to play this on my brother's Xbox 360. And that said I thoroughly enjoyed the Xbox version, much to my surprise, even without a mouse and keyboard to aim and shoot with.

Orange Box includes the original Half Life 2, and it's subsequent followups Episodes 1 and 2. In addition it contains the quirky spatial-puzzle game Portal, and as icing on the cake Team Fortress 2. To get these separately (at least on PC) would run in the realm of $250, more or less, and to get all 5 games in one bundle for all of $60 is too good to be true. On to the actual reviews.

Half Life 2 begins with MIT PhD Doctor Gordon Freeman, released some 20 years after the Black Mesa incident by the G-man and into a dystopic City 17. It appears that Earth has been conquered by a galactic conquering empire of sorts who used Freeman's previous handiwork at Black Mesa to burrow through the walls of time and space to invade Earth. The game follows his insertion into this volatile situation culminating in his leadership of Earth's rebellion against the Combine Overwatch. The game's "silent protaginist" approach, where the player's character never speaks, is played out perfectly and adds greatly to the storytelling angle. The game tells it's own story and you're basically along for the ride. The weapons selection is fairly standard fare for a shooter, with your usual selection of pistols, rifles, and the ubiquitous shotgun. The real nice touch is the Gravity Gun, which can pick up loose objects on the ground and can then be used to hurl said objects at your enemies. The sound, voice acting, and atmosphere of the game (of a familiar world turned into an Orwellian style police state) are all fantastic.

Episodes One and Two both continue the story as Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance both try to escape City 17 in the former and deal with the remnants of the Combine in the latter. Each new episode showcases a new technology add to the engine (lighting effects for Episode One, motion blur for Episode Two) to increase gameplay.

When I loaded up Portal I had only the vaguest idea of what to expect. The game is admittedly hard to grasp at first and requires you to think puzzles out using Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics and a little bit of brain juice all mixed in. The game begins with the protaginist, a female in an orange jumpsuit, being forced to complete a number of puzzles for the test facility's computer using a hand-held portal generating device. One can cross chasms by blasting an entry hole in the wall next to you and an exit hole in the wall across the chasm and simply cross it by walking through the portal. Each test gets harder, and it becomes apparent as things move along that the computer running the tests (and you) is more than a little deranged. As this game is set in the Half-Life universe I look forward to seeing how the plot of this game fits in with that of the larger title.

Lastly we come to Team Fortress 2. I must admit that I have loved Team Fortress since it's inception and have played it religiously since 1998 on the PC. This game spent the better part of 7 years in development limbo and those of us among the originals fans were pretty skeptical that the game would ever be released at all, but the finished product is here and is an absolute blast. Players can pick one of among nine classes to play, from the lightly armed but fast moving Scout, to the lumbering two-legged tank Heavy. There are only 6 maps included in the game, which is a downside, but the maps themselves are quite solid and the game dynamic is unique. The game itself is done in a style reminiscent of "The Incredibles" and this lends some rather comedic elements to the overall experience. The game is entirely Capture the Flag (CTF) so don't expect to go into Deathmatch as it was never designed to do this.

There are some minor points I must mention about Orange Box though. For starters the Half-Life games are really dark. I've had the benefit of having played this on the PC and the lighting is pretty ho-hum on the Xbox version. Case in point, even with the brightness on the game turned up you can still barely see in even dusk conditions, let alone the details on your weapons. The caveat here is that if you turn the brightness up *too* much then you end up getting flooded with bright light when you enter better lit areas, resulting in a weird glaucoma-style whiteout. Expect to have your HEV suit light on *a lot*. In addition the surface textures aren't quite as crisp as I what I was accustomed to with my previous experiences on the PC, although this didn't detract from the game that much.

I also felt it something of a disservice to 360 owners that as big as the game release was Valve kind of dropped you into the *middle* of the story, without the courtesy of even giving the new HL player an overview of what's happened thus far. The events of Half Life, HL: Opposing Force, and HL: Blue Shift are all integral to the storyline, and taking someone completely new to the story and simply dropping them off halfway through it seemed a puzzling choice. As they'd gone as far as making a game release this big how difficult would it have been to at least add HL 1:Source into the mix? Granted, it's an eyesore by today's standards, but still.

With TFC2 I don't have complaints, more like concerns. In the PC world you have literally thousands of custom player-made maps, as well as numerous Valve releases, and I'm wondering if players will be able to play classic Valve TFC maps like "Rock" and "Hunted". I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to accomplish, but all in all it was a befuddling thing to place such a great, solid game into the mix with only 6 maps. And I'm wondering if they plan to eventually add class-specific grenades as those would most certainly enhance the gameplay.

Still the game package itself is fantastic and it's clear that a lot of love was poured into their production and subsequent carryover to the 360. I'm impressed enough with the 360's performance with these games that even an old, grizzled PC gamer like myself is giving it a serious second look. Cannot recommend Orange Box enough! Now if only they had a mouse/keyboard setup for old PC diehards like me to play with. :)

Reviving a classic, mostly on target with this release

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 17
Date: October 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I will start off by saying that I already owned the Half-Life 2 portion of this on PC - and that as far as the single-player game goes, the controls translate *very* well onto the console, which is one of the main concerns I had about it. Achievements breathe whole new life into the experience, and the addition of Episode 2 gives you around 30 hours or more of the Half Life storyline. Half-Life 2 is already a classic, and is an excellent follow up to the first one.

The only negatives I have to offer in regard to this are minor. Half Life 2 Death Match is omitted. Also - mods, game modes, etc. created using the Source engine will always tend to favor the PC. This is one of the few IPs that still has an active mod community - so it is worth having on the PC. Achievements and the controls more than make up for these shortcomings if you are interested in the Half-Life 2 story itself however.

Portal is... interesting, but the single-player only offering leaves me wishing it could have a multi-player component. It is a good puzzle game however, and will leave you scratching your head at some points wondering how to pull something off.

Team Fortress 2... I remember playing the mod from the original Half-Life. For the most part this is a faithful transition - and I really enjoy the game modes and the way that the classes balance and play. It feels both new and familiar at the same time. As the only online offering of the package - this is an excellent way to spend 15 - 20 minutes at a time blasting other players in a cartoony fashion.

That being said - this is also a weak point in the Orange Box arsenal. X-Box Live, and the reason I started purchasing more games for the console, is supposed to be a "seamless" experience. I should be able to select a group of friends, launch into a game, and go. Connecting to the same server as your friends on Team Fortress 2 is a hassle. You have to coordinate via the microphone and hope that the same servers come up on your list when you click "find servers" at the same time.

Joining in progress is not always an option, because servers fill up quickly. As in Halo 3 - I would like the ability to launch with my friends at once, or join servers as a group.

Once you get into a game however, it is an absolute blast. The online connecting issues are the only reason why I would give this package 4 instead of 5 stars. If the hassle of joining a game weren't there - this would be 5-star material. As-is, it is easier to join the same server using Steam on the PC.

I don't see the big deal

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 28 / 62
Date: October 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love videogames and I love first person shooters but I honestly can see what the big deal about this game is. I find the actual Half Life 2 (first out of 5 games) to be way too long. The hoverboat level and the dune buggy level just seem to go on forever... The game isn't too difficult it just seems like once the creators come up with something new they like to ride it to death. I would have enjoyed more story then doing the same exact thing for over an hour. The giant strider level becomes irritatingly long as well. Dr. Freeman isn't exactly a developed character.. he doesn't talk and we don't actually see him other then the picture on the box... wow what an interesting fellow. Did I mention how annoying it is when your troops constantly block your path and even sometimes trap you to the point where you have to blow yourself up or load last save. Yeah i'll be trading this one in sooner than expected. I don't like giving bad reviews, but i just think the half-life franchise needs some work. At least Team Fortress is fun to play though. If you enjoy long games that tend to get repetitive then you'll love this bundle as it would take a long time to complete

Team Fortress 2 does not have splitscreen!!!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: January 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Overall I think this is a great game. Five games for the price of one all in one nice package. On the off hand I really believe the people who ported this game to the consoles really screwed up. Team Fortress 2 is basically useless without splitscreen. Why would you have a console game without splitscreen. Thats like saying oh you can play halo with 2+ players but only over xbox live. Too bad. hahha.

FPS on console not for everyone

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've been waiting for Team Fortress 2 for about 10 years. Hard to believe it's been that long. That's a lot of expectation. Fortunately Valve knows how to deliver (slowly). Its fun, challenging and funny. TF2 happens to come bundled with a lot of stuff. Portal is the best puzzle game I've played all year. The dialog had me rolling on the floor while the level design kept me scratching my head. The advanced and challenge levels provided great replay value. Beyond that you get the entire Half-Life 2 canon. This is the only FPS that has a story worth a damn.
My only complaints are with the setup. I'm a mouse/keyboard FPS player. Playing with a 360 controller is kind of like making me play with my feet. I know what is supposed to happen, but I can't quite convince my body to do it. The control scheme is well designed. None of this awkward, "now lets see,to operate this critical machine that completely blocks progress in the game it was right trigger, right shoulder, click left stick" nonsense. If you don't already play FPS on console, buy the PC version. It's much easier to control. My other complaint is also not an issue on the PC. To play TF2 online you have to have a LIVE Gold membership. Thanks MS, but after spending $600 on the console I'm not interested in paying you $7 per month to use it.
I cannot recommend this game enough. However, the PC version is a much better value.

Excellent game, but a bit too short

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Here are pros and cons of Half Life 2 Eposode 2

PROS:
- Slightly better graphics than in HL2. Since HL2 already has decent graphics, you will not be dissapointed
- Many easy to medium difficulty puzzles sprinkled throughout the game. I really like that feature because it breaks the "run and shoot" routine
- A couple of new interesting enemies with good AI
- Interesting storyline
- More cool objects to throw with the gravity gun

CONS:
- Pretty short. I am not a quick player, but it only took me a few days to finish it (about 1/3 of HL2)
- Still pretty linear for most of the game. I.e. you have to follow a specific path, and there is no way to sneak up on your enemies. I personally don't see it as much of a problem though
- Even with the new enemies and the new things to throw, it's still very similar to the original HL2

Together with Portal and the other excellent games in the package, the Orange Box makes a great buy.

Portal is one of the best gaming experiences ever.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

five games in one is a no brainer; especially if they all come from Valve. HL:2 is requarded by the video gamer community as one of the best FPS games ever made, plus you get it's expansions episodes one and two.
The only negative thing I can say about Portal is that is was too short; but then, twenty hours of portal would not be enough. This is seriously some of the best hours I have ever had gaming on a console.
Team Fortress Two is a ton of fun to play on Live. The art direction and animation of this game really make it stand out from anything else on a console, and will provide you with plenty of hours of pure gaming goodness.

Buy this game NOW.

Everything is better with bacon...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Much to the chagrin of Paula Deen, this game cannot be improved with the addition of butter. The Orange Box includes fresh, new flavors along with a few old favorites. None of them are artificial or watered down.

Half-Life 2 is a nicely crusted rye, beautifully marbled and toasted to perfection. Moist, never dry, and good enough to eat on its own. We all know it, most of us have had it before, and few of us dislike it. It's not totally like the pumpernickel that came before it, but most agree that it's better. It was so good to start with, no one had to jazz it up for the new crowd.

Episode 1 is a pretty decent sauerkraut, and truly reflects the point. I mean, I like it. It's good. It's not perfect, but the sandwich isn't as good without it. It's salty and sour with just a hint of sweetness, improves and aids the overall taste and moisture of the meat and condiments, and really tells you just what kind of sammy this is. It can be had on its own, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Episode 2 is the premium cheese that you spent ten minutes deciding on. It had to be just right, and when you took bite one, you knew it was. This could be consumed alone, right out of the package, and no one has to tell you what the brand is. I'd eat blocks of Episode 2, it's almost as good as the bread. It really cuts down on the acidity of Episode 1 and would make a killer grilled-cheese with Half-Life 2. It really ties the sandwich together.

Portal is the best meat you've had in ages. You know you ordered top-shelf pastrami, but you weren't expecting it to be this good. It's so good, you need another just like it, maybe sneak a few on the side. If no one is watching, might as well just grab a handful and stuff it into your mouth. It just goes too quickly.

Finally, bring the whole thing together with a great beer. Team Fortress 2 is the Sam Adams of video games. Maybe it isn't good for all occasions, but that doesn't stop you from ordering it everywhere. It goes great with this fine Reuben, washing it down and capping off this already satisfying meal.

Sure, bacon would have been nice. Fries or chips would have been better. Maybe the cook could have finished it a bit quicker, or the waitress could have been a bit more prompt with your refills, but it's still awesome. All I know is that if Episode 3 lives up to the expectations, it will be worth the wait for the sides.

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