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Rating:  -
Dear reader, you need this game.
Do you need it for TF2? No, not really. TF2 is a fairly amusing online FPS, generally a worthy successor to Team Fortress for Quakeworld. But, really, I was tired of that game nearly a decade ago, and TF2 does little to rekindle my interest.
Do you need it for HL2? Maybe. I haven't even played it yet. I thought Half Life was a fairly decent PC game in its day, but nothing about the sequel (either episode!) has me excited. Still, it's nice that they give you this.
No, you do not need these things. The game you need is Portal, which is the best single player game in recent memory.
Setup - you're in a lab. You have a portal gun. You can create 2 portals - blue and orange - using this gun, and entering one portal will send you out the other portal (conserving any momentum you may have). You can stick these portals on many (but not all) surfaces throughout the game to progress through various experiments and traps.
That's it. That's the whole game. One gun. Two portals.
The concept is dead simple, but the puzzles can be deceptively complex. It's not rocket surgery, but sometimes you'll sit staring at a puzzle for a few seconds only to have a light go off in your head. When you're done, you have this moment of triumph, smugly thinking about how clever you just were.
Of course, you're not really the clever one here. Everybody who plays Portal feels the same way. Portal is the clever one.
Portal's smart simplicity goes beyond the gameplay, with an equally simple story that's told in a fascinating fashion. GladOS - your computerized captor - taunts you over the intercom the whole way, slowly revealing its psychopathic nature and ultimately pleading with you and promising you delicious cake. Even the end sequence is pure genius, as the credits roll in beautiful retro style, complete with the voice of GladOS taunting you in song.
Portal is not a long game. In fact, it's a really short game. But at $30, it makes the Orange Box the best value in gaming.
Buy it.
Rating: -
$30 is all I paid and it was worth evry penny.
Portal is a fun 1st person puzzle game. It's the reason I bought Orange Box. Team Fortress 2 is such an improvment on the 1st one! It's incredible fun. I'm not much in to Half Life 2 single player, but Ep 1 and Ep 2 do add more content to the wonderful Half Life 2 game. I already had Hald Life 2, so I was able to give the extra copy to a friend so they can enjoy the game as well! I really liked that, as I didn't want to waste money on a game I already had.
I don't see any reason not to buy Orange Box. You even get Peggle Extreme which is a HL themed (demo) version of Peggle. I liked it so much that I bought Peggle Deluxe from STEAM.
Rating:  -
The game is very fun. But I don't like the Steam program. It has some positves but overall I found Steam to be troublesome and unhelpful. For example I finished the game and no longer want to play it in any way. I am unable to sell or trade it because of its registration process. Additionally Steam runs in the background and has given my unwanted pop-ups.
Rating: -
AMAZON RULES THEY SAVED ME 10 BUCKS BECAUSE I BOUGHT IT CHEAPER ON AMAZON THAN ON STEAM PLUS THE GAME GOT TO ME IN 1 WEEK!!!
Rating: -
Just in case you've been living in a cave for the last year, or were somehow (possibly by your own choice) unable to purchase The Orange Box by Valve, do yourself a favor and buy it.
I actually planned to buy the collection of five (six - if you include Peggle from Steam) games when it first arrived last year, but was continually distracted up until two weeks ago, when I finally bought it at a local store. I say this without any pretention: It is, by far, the best gaming purchase I have made in at least 5 years. Bar-none.
The original Half-Life follows the amazingly mute scientist Gordan Freeman as he basically unleashes hell on Earth. Half-Life 2 is set a good while after the initial series, and doesn't disappoint in the least. A few characters are added - old colleagues from Black Mesa, a robot DOG, and Alyx Vance (your very attractive female co-protagonist).
As with the original Half-Life, the game itself is composed of basically two things: Puzzles, and Shoot 'Em Up type battles, but they're done so well that I often found myself staring in admiration after I had figured out what the heck to do or actually feeling an adrenaline rush after some of the more active battles. There are, as always, numerous guides online if you really get stuck, but I was only seriously stuck once or twice and had to consult the darn things (and was never stuck in Episode 1 or Episode 2).
I won't spoil the storyline. It's good stuff, and often better, with greater depth in writing and plot, than many of the RPG's I've played in the last few years. The acting (both voice and 3D-modeling) are superb, with the tiniest nuances paid attention that I found incredibly immersive (particularly facial expressions). It doesn't take long before you really start to care for the characters involved, and at one point I found myself shouting, "Get your hands off her you damn zombie!" without realizing it was out-loud.
Team Fortress 2 is easily some of the most fun I've had in a multiplayer FPS in a long while. It's very stylistic, doesn't take itself seriously, and the only flaw I can think of with it is the lack of maps currently available (but it is being remedied). The play is excellent, and each class is useful without being absolutely necessary.
I have yet to play Portal, as I've been saving it for the weekend so I can get it all in one go, but it's difficult to imagine it being better than Episode 2. If it is, I may just end up mailing myself to Valve in a Cupid suit.
If you're not convinced yet that buying this is a good thing (perhaps not for your health, but for your soul), I'm not sure what I could say. The Orange Box has been, by far, the most fun I've had on my PC in ages. I'm already contemplating playing through Episode 2 again, despite finishing it at 1:02 AM this morning.
The only thing stopping me, is knowing that we probably won't have Episode 3 (and the final one in this story arc) until Q1 2009, and that knowledge is now palpably painful from the suspense.
Enjoy!
EDIT (09/13/2008): By now I've played through Portal, and (as predicted), played through HL2 again for the heck of it.
Portal really is everything everyone is saying it is. It is dark humor wrapped up in a Rubix cube and I loved every second of the game. I haven't been forced to actually think during a game like in a long while. The levels were perfectly moderated on difficulty, never being exceedingly hard or impossible, but merely requiring momentary contemplation.
Overall, Portal was an incredibly fun romp, whose only fault is that it is so short (~3 hours).
However, there is hope: Episode 2 almost blatantly states that Episode 3 will contain Aperture (the company that creates the weapon in Portal) technology.
Bring it on!
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