The Orange Box
Having had The Orange Box for around a week or two now, I pretty much played two things on that set (see my Steam profile for more details):
- Portal
- Team Fortress 2
Unfortunately, my machine kind of lags when playing both games. They are playable, but I’ve had to tone down the graphics a bit, although I was half-expecting that since I can manage playing Half-Life 2 on high graphics settings, then this should not be a problem.
Despite that, I really enjoyed both games that I have played so far. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and 2 can wait, especially since I have not actually beaten Half-Life 2 yet (lost my save file the last time I played and I was at Nova Prospekt).
Portal
So what did I think of Portal? Well, I started playing the unofficial Flash version of the game first, so pretty much, by the time I started playing the actual game, I kind of understood the game mechanics. But the game itself was quite entertaining, especially with the whole plot (yes, there’s a plot in Portal, surprisingly enough) of the game. I would not want to spoil things for people who have not played the game yet, so I will not say too much, except I miss my Weighted Companion Cube.
Team Fortress 2
A fairly entertaining game, touching up on Team Fortress Classic by quite a bit. The cartoony graphics just makes the game fun. It really is a nice change from all the serious games popping up all over the place. Sure, it is a recycled idea (class-based, get the objective teamplay), but it is a lot lighter and quite fun compared to various other things. I must admit though, the “Meet the …” trailers set the environment for fun nicely.
Like most team-based games however, finding teams that do not exactly suck, or getting yourself better at the game so you do not get owned so quickly by your opponents, is one of the things that would affect the fun factor. Hence, the Steam Community implementation makes things so much better, although more people on that list of mine need to get Team Fortress 2.
Hopefully, I can find myself playing some other games that are included in the Orange Box and finish Half-Life 2 and move onto the two trilogies. Too bad I am super busy with a bunch of other stuff.
