Portal and the Orange Box

25 Oct 2007 11:02 (Edited: 25 Oct 2007 11:02)

After much cursing and grumbling, Valve convinced me to purchase the Orange Box recently, despite how I (and I imagine pretty much everyone else who bought it) already own HL2. The main game I was interested in was Portal, having not yet finished the main HL2 campaign (yeah I know, I'm working on it!) the episodes could wait. I would probably only be playing Team Fortress 2 at a LAN party, so I saw no need to prioritise that either. I had however, heard great things about Portal. Initially I tried playing it on a friend's account but on my PC, and it seemed to work, although after completing half the game having not heard anyone utter a single word, I thought "this can't be right", enabled subtitles, and sure enough, I'd missed a world of dialog. No matter how I adjusted things, the only thing I could get to speak was the toilet. So I reluctantly purchased the Orange Box for my own account, and despuite not downloading any files, when I opened the game, the voice was there. What's this? An Audio copy protection system now?

Anyway, only a few levels in I saw what all the fuss was about. The gameplay was great, the speech had me in fits of laughter, and all in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
A large number of people say the game was too short, to which I say, nonsense. The gameplay is solid throughout, but by the time I was a few corners from the 'boss' moment, It was time to call it quits. I think the game lasted a perfect amount of time. Long enough to satisfy, short enough not to bore.
And then there's the song at the end! The humour and execution of it all was quite frankly, genius.
More games like this please!

What also amused me about the game is the endless loops you could create with the two portal gun. That was enjoyable (and nauseating) to watch, and it became obvious why the game is used for Stress tests on PCs. Continuous endless rendering and physics calculations shoudl; stress any PC to the limit. Shouldn't it?
In all honesty, while my PC struggled at 2560x1600, at 1920x1200 max, the game ran fine, without needing to overclock my graphics card.
Hats off to the developers, the game looks good (albeit slightly simple) and is thoroughly enjoyable to play.
Now off to the bonus missions!

Oh, and I did enjoy Peggle Extreme. Is that a crime?

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User comments

by Estuansis @ 02 Jan 2008 3:55

Damnit sam! You need to finish Half Life 2!!!!

The original is [only] very good, but the Episodes are amazing!

by xChronox @ 07 Feb 2008 15:49

Heh, I'm buying the source premier pack including all the 2nd gen valve games (source engine games) and portal/tf2.

A great deal @ �40 :) + a little bit of vat about �3.

I hope you've already finished HL1 because you really should. Just playing it makes you feel legendary and gives you a nostalgic sense of when it first came out. If you really can't be bothered at some puzzles then just use

console > sv_cheats 1 >
impulse 101 (all guns + ammo + armor)
noclip (you should know this, walk through walls, enemies can't detect you I don't think. Well Nihi's portals never worked ;)
god (Lol. No explanation needed)

impulse 102 (SPAWN GIBS!)

and there are also map codes like 53a1 or something. They take you to different places you just type

map 53a1 and it will load but it will over write your save game :/.

:P ~ Tipmaster Chrono

by tripplite @ 17 Mar 2008 22:31

you bought it? ha ha ha poor soul.....

by Estuansis @ 20 May 2008 13:23

Half Life 2 is a neglected game. Those just getting into PC gaming are missing out on modern classics like Half Life 2, CS:S, Rome: Total War, Quake 4, Doom 3, and others.

by sammorris @ 27 Jun 2008 7:43

Episode Two is still one of the most beautiful PC games out there - and I can max it on a single HD3870 - 2560x1600, 4xAA, full detail, the works..
Why aren't more games like that?

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