The Orange Box Reviews
Featured Review
“The Orange Box is a damn good set of games. It gives you the best of Steam with Half-Life 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. All of the games have an equal amount of challenge in their respective areas.”
Other Reviews
“A 2007 compilation of 3 of Valve’s new releases, all too small to publish individually, each perhaps easily overshadowed by bigger releases. When teamed together, they all balance each other off to provide a rounded package of some of the most progressive game design to hit the mainstream in ages.
Puzzle adventure game Portal takes a simple, if heady, idea — magic doors that can connect two points — and extrapolates it to its logical extremes. Team Fortress 2 boils down online competitive games to their raw forms, then rebuilds from there. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 continues the epilogue to Valve’s modern masterpiece, with a few engine enhancements and improved design over the previous Episode.
Then to provide context for Episode 2 and to make the whole package feel meatier, Valve also tossed in the original Half-Life 2 and Episode 1. So in total there are five games — the original Half-Life 2, two games that build on that game’s narrative, one game that builds on its aggressive action elements, and one that builds on its contemplative problem-solving elements; three games that balance the male and female aspects, one that explores the macho, and one laced with the feminine.
At the time, a themed compilation like this was more or less unprecedented. In the years since, several more compilations have shown up in downloadable form (often over Valve’s Steam service). Yet The Orange Box still stands more or less alone as a testament to Valve’s lateral sense of design.”
I think it's Portal that really grabbed me, and I think that was my main excuse for buying the Box to start with. I've probably spent more time playing through that game, and studying it, and showing it off to people, than everything else on the disc put together.
The great thing about an anthology like this is what it opens up to the audience. I had no interest in Team Fortress 2, but since it was right there on the disc I gave it a shot. And I was really impressed with it.