The Orange Box

By Sandor Hugert

This is one of the best games of the year.  It’s also one of the best deals of the year as it includes five games for a price of just one game, which is $60.  The five games are Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode 1, Half Life 2 Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.  Now on the XBOX 360, you tend to experience lots of lag on Team Fortress 2, but when there isn’t any lag then the game is a lot of fun.  Team Fortress 2 is really not the best online death match game that you should be playing right now though as Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 both have better online modes and more maps to play at.  Half Life 2 as everybody knows is one of the best games ever made just like the first Half Life.  Half Life 2 has just about everything a person looks for in a first person shooter:  good story, great guns, lots of enemies, lots of interesting puzzles, and even vehicles to drive.  The only thing that doesn’t work well in the game is that your character, Gordon Freeman, never talks in the game even though the characters around you are having conversations with you.  The graphics also seem a little outdated, but you can’t blame them as Half Life 2 came out three years ago on the PC.  The game overall though really doesn’t have bad graphics, as it seems like they have updated the graphics for the consoles to make it look more clean and crisp.  The two episodes after Half Life 2 are also very fun, but they are pretty short.  Portal is a great puzzle game, but nothing more than that as it only takes like an hour or two to beat it.   For a price of $60, you still must pick this game up as it is one of the best deals in gaming history just like it says on the back of the box.  Make sure to go and buy this game in your local video game store.

Score:  8 out of 10