I preordered The Orange Box over Steam not too long ago and scored five games for $45. Unfortunately I already had two of the five (Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One), but I’m recouping some of my expenditure by passing those two along to Omar for a small fee. He started playing Half-Life 2 last night and I think I’ve managed to get him hooked. Hey, it’s one of the greatest PC first-person shooters of all time, what can I say?
Currently contributing along with homework, studying, and other such nuisances to my not-playing of Bioshock is another one of the Orange Box components: Portal. I was intrigued when I first saw the trailer a while back, and the gameplay has definitely upheld my expectations. It is a puzzle game based around an intriguing concept—imagine being able to directly connect any two planes in space with a portal. Now imagine puzzles based around that ability, where you have to do mind-bending tasks such as jumping down to get enough velocity to travel upwards. It’s a really clever idea and well-executed on the technical level. There are many opportunities to look through one end of a portal and see what is on the other side, which means you can actually chase yourself around if you so wish, or force objects to bounce around in an infinite loop. The player is given many chances to invent clever solutions to the puzzles as many times there is more than one way to reach the goal.
I managed to beat the game in the first few days after its release and reached a very satisfying ending with a priceless song over the ending credits. There is a bit of storyline surrounding the game that ties in with the rest of the Half-Life universe, although exactly how it does so remains unclear. I’m looking forward to starting on Half-Life 2: Episode Two, seeing as I only finished Episode One a month or so ago and the story is still fresh in my mind. Alas, Bioshock, you are destined to remain on the shelf for a while longer.