The Orange Box.
Valve's latest release gets Reviewinated.
Now that I've played through all the Orange Box games and spent at least an hour with each class inTF2, I can use the Reviewinator™ to let you know what to think.
Review for Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Overall rating: 9.71
Content summary:
Everyone's favorite mute theoretical physicist with a surprising aptitude for firearms. (weight 5): 10
Everyone's favorite scientist's daughter with funky hair and a surprising aptitude for firearms. (weight 5): 10
Everyone's favorite giant mechanical "dog" with... OMFG DID YOU JUST SEE HIM TEAR THAT STRIDER APART?! (weight 5): 10
Immersion (weight 5): 10
One more piece of the Free Man story. (weight 5): 10
Most awesome epic climactic ending action sequence, involving you, striders, giant sticky bombs, and a gravity gun. (weight 5): 10
Sense that, in the end, it plays just like HL2 and Episode 1 without breaking any new ground or doing anything particularly innovative, which is okay because HL2 and Episode 1 were awesome and more of an awesome thing is still awesome, but it would still be nice to see them innovate on what's already a terrific formula. (weight 5): 8
Review for Team Fortress 2
Overall rating: 9.08
Content summary:
"Oh, they're gonna have to glue you back together. IN HELL!" I.e., gibs galore. (weight 5): 10
"I'm gonna beat you like a rented mule, boy." I.e. sitting back and playing guitar while your gun turret racks up the kills. (weight 5): 10
"AH-HAHAHAHA! CRY SOME MORE, BABIES!" I.e., mowing down waves of enemies with a gatling gun. (weight 5): 10
"All I can tell you about this next procedure is that it will be EXCRUTIATING!" I.e., putting an uberheal on a Heavy and tagging along as he mows down the opposition. (weight 5): 10
"Mumblemumblemumble." I.e., LIGHTING EVERYONE ON FIRE! AH-HAHAHA! (weight 5): 10
"Your heads a freakin' bat magnet." I.e., running up behind the other guy and clubbing him to near-death before he turns and one-shots you because the scout is the worst. class. ever. (weight 5): 5
"Thanks for standin' still, mate!" I.e., getting 12 headshots and 3 dominations in a row. Also, BOOM, HEADSHOT! (weight 5): 10
"If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!" I.e., gibs raining from the skies after you clear out the engineer, his turret, the sniper, the Heavy, and the medic healing the heavy with a few well-placed rockets. (weight 5): 10
"Ugh, I got blood on my suit." I.e., getting the enemy medic to heal you to full health, then backstabbing him. Hehe, sucker. (weight 5): 10
Um, more than 6 maps would be nice. (weight 3): 5
The fact that, in the end, it is still a multi-player-only game and that means *sigh* playing with other people. (weight 1): 5
(Go here for audio clips of most of the taunts.)
(Go here for important tactical information on how to play. Brought to you by the deranged minds of Penny Arcade, which, as always, comes with a strong language warning.)
Review for Portal
Overall rating: 10.00
Content summary:
Deranged, bipolar, passive-aggressive psychotic computer. Which is hilarious. (weight 5): 10
Cake (weight 5): 10
The cake is a lie! (weight 5): 10
Aw, aren't you the cutest little gun turret that's ever tried to smear my guts across the wall. (weight 5): 10
I less-than-three weighted companion cube! (weight 5): 10
Catchiest. Song. Ever. (weight 5): 10
Oh yeah. The portal gun, intriguing puzzles, and all that. (weight 5): 10
It's only three hours long, at best, but strangely, that does not diminish the game in the slightest (weight 0): 5
By the way, check out my new favorite reviewer's review of the Orange Box (language warning).
Showing posts with label Orange Box. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orange Box. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Portal.
So it goes something like this. You have a gun. It shoots portals. Two, to be precise. A blue one and an orange one. They stick on walls. They connect to each other such that anything that goes in one emerges from the other. The game consists of solving puzzles by using portals to move yourself and objects to locations you could not otherwise get to. And it's a lot of fun.
And the game actually does have a somewhat interesting plot. In typical Valve fashion, you discover as you go, with nothing being explicitly stated, but instead discovered. You gather that you are a test subject at Aperture Laboratories science labs. There are no other people in the game. Instead, your only company (aside from the "companion cube") is the voice of a computer, which guides you through the tests. As the game goes on you gradually realize the computer is psychotic. Hilariously so. The computer tells you there are 19 tests you need to complete, and after you finish them, "you will be baked and there will be cake." The computer leads you on through the tests with the promise of cake when, after completing the 19th test, you are standing on a moving platform, slowly lowering into a vast pit of flames. The computer assures you that the Aperture Laboratories portal gun is resilient in temperatures up to 4000 kelvin, and kindly asks you to remain on the platform so you can receive your cake.
Of course, you mount your escape using the portal gun and eventually end up in the bowels of Aperture Laboratories, which upsets the computer greatly. It keeps, politely, asking you to come back to get your cake. It tells you to hurry. "Someone cut the cake. I told them not to, but there might not be any left." Eventually, it gets upset and tells you that you don't get any cake because you won't go back. Finally you wend your way through the depths and emerge at the central control room where the computer resides. While it is talking to you, a large spherical section of the computer falls of. It insists that the part that fell off wasn't important and you wouldn't be interested in it. Naturally, you destroy it. Then the computer tells you that it was the morality module that "they" installed to keep it from trying to kill them with a neurotoxin after the last time it tried to kill them all with a neurotoxin. The computer then begins a countdown to the release of the gas, and begins launching rockets at you. You use the portals to steer the rockets back at the computer, knocking off more modules and destroying them. As the modules are destroyed, the computer begins to lose functionality, saying things like "2+2=10. In base 4, I am functioning perfectly."
Once you destroy the computer, you are freed from the complex and the game is over. While the credits role, the computer sings the song Dave linked above.
Like all Valve games, the story is told entirely through the first person. There are no cutscenes or other interruptions. But unlike other Valve games, you can actually see your character (if you position the portals right, you can see yourself through them). You play a woman with frizzled hair. It seems to be a rule of Valve games that all the women have to have frizzled hair.
The game has a hilarious sense of humor. The computer itself is the source of most of the entertainment, but there are other funny touches as well, such as the "companion cube" which is a box with a heart on each face. Or the gun turrets which talk to you in sweetly soothing voices while smearing your intestines across the wall behind you.
Unfortunately, the game is woefully short. You can complete the main "campaign" in just a few hours. There are some advanced challenge maps that extend the gameplay a little, but not much.
In short, you should go buy it. Right now. You can get it as part of the Orange Box, which, according to IGN, is "the package which could legitimately be called 'the deal of the century'" and since IGN says it, it must be true. I will use the Reviewinator™ to put up scores for the entire Orange Box once I've gotten some time in with Team Fortress 2. Until then, enjoy the character introduction videos for TF2. (Heavy Weapons Guy, Soldier, Engineer, Demo Man.) Also hilarious (I particularly like the Engineer).
...what Dave said. My gmail notification popped up letting me know he had made his post just when I was about to push my "Publish Post" button. I would delete mine, but I put a whole fifteen minutes into it. Great minds, and all that.
So it goes something like this. You have a gun. It shoots portals. Two, to be precise. A blue one and an orange one. They stick on walls. They connect to each other such that anything that goes in one emerges from the other. The game consists of solving puzzles by using portals to move yourself and objects to locations you could not otherwise get to. And it's a lot of fun.
And the game actually does have a somewhat interesting plot. In typical Valve fashion, you discover as you go, with nothing being explicitly stated, but instead discovered. You gather that you are a test subject at Aperture Laboratories science labs. There are no other people in the game. Instead, your only company (aside from the "companion cube") is the voice of a computer, which guides you through the tests. As the game goes on you gradually realize the computer is psychotic. Hilariously so. The computer tells you there are 19 tests you need to complete, and after you finish them, "you will be baked and there will be cake." The computer leads you on through the tests with the promise of cake when, after completing the 19th test, you are standing on a moving platform, slowly lowering into a vast pit of flames. The computer assures you that the Aperture Laboratories portal gun is resilient in temperatures up to 4000 kelvin, and kindly asks you to remain on the platform so you can receive your cake.
Of course, you mount your escape using the portal gun and eventually end up in the bowels of Aperture Laboratories, which upsets the computer greatly. It keeps, politely, asking you to come back to get your cake. It tells you to hurry. "Someone cut the cake. I told them not to, but there might not be any left." Eventually, it gets upset and tells you that you don't get any cake because you won't go back. Finally you wend your way through the depths and emerge at the central control room where the computer resides. While it is talking to you, a large spherical section of the computer falls of. It insists that the part that fell off wasn't important and you wouldn't be interested in it. Naturally, you destroy it. Then the computer tells you that it was the morality module that "they" installed to keep it from trying to kill them with a neurotoxin after the last time it tried to kill them all with a neurotoxin. The computer then begins a countdown to the release of the gas, and begins launching rockets at you. You use the portals to steer the rockets back at the computer, knocking off more modules and destroying them. As the modules are destroyed, the computer begins to lose functionality, saying things like "2+2=10. In base 4, I am functioning perfectly."
Once you destroy the computer, you are freed from the complex and the game is over. While the credits role, the computer sings the song Dave linked above.
Like all Valve games, the story is told entirely through the first person. There are no cutscenes or other interruptions. But unlike other Valve games, you can actually see your character (if you position the portals right, you can see yourself through them). You play a woman with frizzled hair. It seems to be a rule of Valve games that all the women have to have frizzled hair.
The game has a hilarious sense of humor. The computer itself is the source of most of the entertainment, but there are other funny touches as well, such as the "companion cube" which is a box with a heart on each face. Or the gun turrets which talk to you in sweetly soothing voices while smearing your intestines across the wall behind you.
Unfortunately, the game is woefully short. You can complete the main "campaign" in just a few hours. There are some advanced challenge maps that extend the gameplay a little, but not much.
In short, you should go buy it. Right now. You can get it as part of the Orange Box, which, according to IGN, is "the package which could legitimately be called 'the deal of the century'" and since IGN says it, it must be true. I will use the Reviewinator™ to put up scores for the entire Orange Box once I've gotten some time in with Team Fortress 2. Until then, enjoy the character introduction videos for TF2. (Heavy Weapons Guy, Soldier, Engineer, Demo Man.) Also hilarious (I particularly like the Engineer).
...what Dave said. My gmail notification popped up letting me know he had made his post just when I was about to push my "Publish Post" button. I would delete mine, but I put a whole fifteen minutes into it. Great minds, and all that.
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