Erm, you're giving me what I already have....
The first thing you need to know is that The Orange Box isn’t just Episode Two of Half Life 2. There’s much more in there than that. You get Half Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. So if you’ve never played Half Life 2, you’re going to be well served as here it is for you in the latest incarnation with the tweaked and honed Source engine giving you its al (depending on the system you’re running it on).But for those of us who know one end of a gravity gun from another, the deal isn’t quite so good. We’ve already got Half Life 2 and probably Episode One as well… so that’s a big chunk of the possible gaming time gone. In defence of The Orange Box, when you load it up either through Steam or from a retail off the shelf boxed version, Steam does recognise which games you have already and allows you to give them away as gifts, so there is a way of perhaps flogging those gifts on and recouping some of your cash.
Click for larger imageBut I do have to ask why The Orange Box is only available in the one ‘all or nothing’ version. Surely if all my games have to be registered through Steam, Steam can see what I already own and then just drop the price of The Orange Box accordingly, giving me only what I don’t have? The more cynical amongst us might suggest that this is just a money making ploy and the gift offer is an attempt to get more users signing up to Steam with the lure of a free game from their mates… but I’ll leave you to decide that one for yourselves.
So, reservations about the bundle itself aside, what have we got in The Orange Box that’s new? Well of course there’s Half Life 2: Episode Two, the next episode in the saga of Gordon Freeman and his pals in their struggle against the Combine. Then we have Portal which is essentially a puzzle/platform game which truly stretches the boundaries of gameplay. Then there’s Team Fortress 2, the latest version of Valve's class based team shooter.
So let’s spend a page looking at each one.
