Blog / Random thoughts and musings.
Game review: The Orange Box – Half Life 2
As I mentioned not too long ago, The Orange Box is actually five games on one disc. I’ve recently finished Half Life 2, and was thoroughly pleased with it.
This is a first-person shooter game, but with a much more developed story than most, and enough differing elements of gameplay (sneaking, shooting, driving, boating, etc.) and different environments that it never gets boring or repetitive. The length of the game was quite satisfying also — it was a much longer game than I expected. The game is completely linear, but I don’t mind that at all.
There isn’t much that’s groundbreaking to talk about, except for the “gravity gun” which is one of the many weapons (or items) available in the game. This gun manipulates gravity to let you pull items in from far away, carry them, and launch them away from you (presumably at targets… barrels of fuel are particularly useful). It’s a nice twist and adds a new style of gameplay I haven’t encountered before.
The graphics and gameplay are very well done (though the airboat controls took some getting used to), as is the story and dialog. One of the best games I’ve played this year… it makes The Orange Box an even better value!
Scott G.
December 28, 2007I had two primary complaints about this otherwise well-done game: First, some of the sequences went a bit longer than necessary (thinking especially about the airboat, but other chapters as well) and the fact that it had zombies. Zombies are so cliche’! Let’s see some games with done at this high quality but with non-horrific looking alien enemies (they don’t have to look human, but no need for them to look like bugs, either) and no zombies (head crab-pwned humans, reconstituted Flood, Geth Husks, etc.).
Aaron
January 29, 2008Keep playing… it just gets better and better and better.. also, crack open Portal, if you haven’t already. I rank it as the best game I’ve ever played.