The Orange Box

The Orange Box is a 2007 compilation developed by Valve consisting of Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The premise is simple: five games in a single compilation. And the selection of games; they're well picked.
 * 2) * If you want to get some action and storytelling, you might want to play Half-Life 2 and its episodes.
 * 3) * If you like puzzles, then Portal can be a nice pick.
 * 4) * If you want to play with somebody else online, and like cartoony graphics, you may enjoy Team Fortress 2.
 * 5) The gameplay is well-designed.
 * 6) The graphics are great, even by today's standards. In fact, the developers even made a new branch for Source to give the games better looking graphics.
 * 7) Mod support on PC is quite good too. You can make a Team Fortress 2 map using the tools that Valve gave away via Source SDK and share it with somebody. Even better, Source SDK even supports other Source games.
 * 8) The Xbox 360 ports are well done, and instead of being cut-down like what Valve did with Half-Life 2 for the original Xbox, the games include the complete maps, although there's some minimal downgrades. Despite this, the ports are still great.
 * 9) Team Fortress 2 continued to get updates, and is probably the most popular game in the compilation.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The PlayStation 3 version suffers from several issues:
 * 2) * Severe frame-rate issues, with Half-Life 2: Episode Two running at an average of 22 frames per second.
 * 3) * Long load times.
 * 4) * Low-resolution textures throughout.
 * 5) * Team Fortress 2 has a severe game-breaking bug that was patched out of the Xbox 360 version but was never fixed in this version. More famously known as the duck-and-jump glitch, when an Engineer pulls off this glitch he can build buildings outside of the map and place a sentry behind a wall, making it indestructible.
 * 6) * The games look blurry due to the anti-aliasing techniques used.
 * 7) The console versions didn't get a new update after 2009, and their framerates are locked to 30 FPS. Despite that, the console versions still run at 720p with little problems.

Reception
The Orange Box was received with "universal acclaim", according to Metacritic, with the Windows and Xbox 360 versions getting a 96/100, while the PlayStation 3 version had "generally favorable" reviews, getting a 89/100.

Videos
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