Reviews / Notes / Sadness

So much to cover, so little time to talk. I'll squeeze out as much as I can.

The Orange Box Review

You can go to plenty of real, commercial, or outright sleezy websites to get a decent review of Valve Software's The Orange Box, but I'm going to cover just my quick views of the game(s).

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

I wasn't won over by Episode Two until the very end. Don't get me wrong, it is the strongest game in this package, and a much-needed follow-up to Episode One, but with Episode Two diving into the underground spaces of antlions very early on, I found myself losing interest in the awkwardly-paced exploratory missions of the game. My interest perked up right after the antlion tunnels: a knuckle-busting, brain-tingling, trigger-happy, guitar-crunching antlion battle proves the value of Episode Two: the tides have turned for the Combine, and Gordon and company are ready to strike back.

Indeed, storytelling has always been Half-Life's strongest selling point, but Episode Two takes it to such a new level that my jaw sat draped on the floor as the closing scenes of the game faded from my screen. By the end of Episode Two, I felt an unexplainable attachment to the characters. Some are mean-spirited, some are sad, some are egotistical, and a few even bite the dust, proving in Episode Two that Valve has done for games what movies have done for decades: create real, honest emotion.

New enemies turn into awesome adversaries (Combine hunters), and the final battle sequence is a gaming delight. My only real complaint(s) about Episode Two? A somewhat slow start and far-too short overall length (I clocked in at just under six hours). If nothing else, Episode Three can't come soon enough.

Portal

I jumped into Portal right after installing all three games on my PC, and I'm glad I did. Portal is embarrassingly short (I beat it on my first play-through in just about two hours), but was insanely fun for every one of those one-hundred and twenty minutes. The portal mechanic, while perhaps simple by concept, redefines moving about first-person, 3D environments.

Portal may be short, but with a large modding community (and Valve's support), I'm sure plenty of Portal maps will be had around the Internet by this time next year. As a concept, Portal succeeds in every regard, but as a game it fails for being so short. If the game design concepts of Portal are implemented in future Valve Products down the line, we should be in for a nice gaming surprise.

Finally, Portal drops a few hints as to its place in the Half-Life universe, and thanks to a brief interlude in Epidsode Two, it's obvious that Portal and Episode Three might just play hand-in-hand somehow. Brilliant, I say.

Team Fortress 2

I spent many years, beginning in 1999 or so, playing Team Fortress, then Day of Defeat, then Counter-Strike. As my multiplayer gaming tastes matured over the years, Team Fortress was the first game to leave my hard drive.

Team Fortress 2 is fun. I've only spent a few hours logged on so far, but I'm enjoying the game. The class-based gameplay is strong: each class is certainly tailored to a specific task, and I've always played on a few unbalanced teams, and the results aren't pretty. I also have a favorite class (the Spy) and a favorite map (2Fort, updated of course). The graphics are as pretty as anyone else will tell you, and I find the action well-paced and worth sticking with for some time to come.

With that, I'll wrap up my Orange Box review. I'll be spending a lot of time this winter break blowing the hell out of people in Team Fortress 2 and designing my own Portal maps. I'll publish the best of them on Critically Correct.

In random news, I'm starving for New King right now. I've been wanting to go since late last week, but I either haven't had time or the people I'm with don't want to go (tired of it!?!?). Which is why tonight kind of sucks: I had cold potatoes and a can of Pepsi for dinner (it did fill me up), while someone is enjoying delicious New King, a fact I didn't learn until after I ate. Ah well.

Anywho, I'm off to work in the morning, then hanging around BG to get some things done (car wash, Grounds, and perhaps working out) before venturing out for bonerless wings or chinese food.

B3 out.