Controller1.com’s top games of this past year.
Sleeper of the Year (aka The game that came out of nowhere, the one you expected to ignore but couldn’t because of the great word of mouth)
RED FACTION: GUERRILLA. Volition and THQ’s third RF game came out of nowhere to be one hell of a blast of supercharged entertainment. Sure, Volition misunderstood the difference between easy and insane. But the core mechanics of the game and the freedom you had to progress meant few stumbling blocks to gaming nirvana. I have no idea what the story was about so let’s assume it’s rather ordinary and skip to the good bits: blowing things up. I can’t name a game where destruction has been done better.
Runner Up: Borderlands
Overhyped Game of the Year (AKA The game that was expected to make coffee, bend time and rule all but in the end was a bit meh)
KILLZONE 2. Sony and Guerrilla Game’s follow up to the justifiably ignored Killzone was meant to be many things. Here’s what it was and wasn’t.
IT WAS: A decent FPS, put together well and looked beautiful.
IT WASN’T: a system seller, or a particularly great game.
Year of PS3 got off to a false start and was almost disqualified from the race with KZ2.
Runner up: Scribblenaughts
Most Disappointing Game (AKA Games with buzz and hope that just didn’t deliver)
Wolfenstein Coulda, should but didna. Wolfenstein squandered the hope that long term fans had for a worthwhile follow up to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. What they got was a good single player that seemed to need a teeny bit more polish and content and a terrrrrrrrrible multiplayer. Do you get this game? Do you like MP more than SP? Flip a coin.
Runner Up: Modern Warfare 2
MOST IMPROVED (AKA They fixed the shit in the first one that was busted)
Assassin’s Creed II. Oh Lord is it ever so much better than the first game. In every single way, this game is more fun than the original. The content is better organised so that the game is not “here are 10 things you can do, go do each of them 500 times.” The whole concept is still a bit silly and Kristen Bell’s character looks like she had a lip transplant from the original Kryten but overall any game that has Uncharted Guy doing voices is good.
Runner Up: Uncharted 2
BEST DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT: SHADOW COMPLEX
BF1943, GTA episodes and Trials were there but Shadow Complex was by far the best DL only game released in 2009. A Metroidvania that’s probably more palatable to a modern audience (since it has Uncharted Guy doing voices, of course), the game managed to astound, entertain, stir up controversy and offer a good few hours of gameplay.
Runner Up: Halo 3 ODST (no, not really, but it should have been)
Best Game Only on Wii: NEW SUPER MARIO BROTHERS WII
OK, so it was really only one of two Wii games I bought this year. But it was the one I didn’t sell (HotD: Overkill). It’s frustrating as all fuck, has a save system that’s as pointless as the one in Dead Rising and I’m not playing it right now. Why am I not playing this right now? I don’t know.
Best Game Only on PS3: UNCHARTED 2
Sony had two really good games this year. Uncharted 2 and Infamous. Infamous is blown out of the water by Uncharted 2. Uncharted 2 is the quintessential adventure game. Whereas the first game promised platforming but delivered a gears of War Clone, the sequel mixes things up so successfully that you never realise when the game is going to go from one style to another. yes, you know at least once per chapter there will be something you’re standing in collapsing around you leaving you hanging from one arm but that’s beside the point.
Best Game Only on Xbox 360: SHADOW COMPLEX The 360 almost had a gap year with the only big exclusives being Forza 3 (which a LOT of people love and recognise as the driving game of 2009 to play), Halo 3: ODST which really was just a bit too much recycling with such a short single player campaign.
Best Game Only on PC- this is the year 2009.
Best Game on Everything: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. IW may have pissed off as many people as they please with MW2. There’s the story that eschews any semblance of realism for moments of turkey-slapping-a-sleeping-lion thrills, OTT Multiplayer perks and combos, poor matchmaking and the various PC issues that made the game into a must play for many into a meh for some.
Best Pissing Away Goodwill. TIE: Infinity Ward and Activision.
Infinity Ward for doing the dirty on PC gamers and Activision for driving Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero into the ground. Oh, and splitting Starcraft II into three different games.
Most Improved: Sony. They cut the PS3 price from hysterical to merely funny (after three years it’s finally at the PS2 launch price), released the Slim and released Uncharted and Infamous. It still takes way too long to download and install a patch and most people still spend more on Blu Ray than they do on PS3 games, and PS3 ports are still often slightly lagging behind 360 in terms of graphics but it’s basically where it should have been three years ago. Just in time for God of War III
Most Potential for 2010: Microsoft. Really, they sold the 360 well but didn’t release that many 1st party games so you’d think game over, but then you see they have Crackdown 2, Halo Reach and Alan Wake. And then there’s Natal.
Least Potential for 2010: Wii
So we have a vitality sensor as the big piece of hardware? Really? Few games still support Motion Plus. Few gamers care and the signs are than grandma doesn’t either.
Game of the Year: Uncharted 2. Are you at all surprised? Naughty Dog redeem themselves after the disasters that were the Jak and Daxter sequels. This is the only game this year that a non-gamer will sit and watch as if it were a movie and enjoy it.
Runner Up: Modern Warfare 2.
It was a pretty good year overall. The only disappointing part of the year was the end. While we had some cracking titles such as Uncharted 2, ODST, Left 3 Dead 2, Assassin’s Creed II, MW2 and Super Mario Wii it still felt like something was missing.Oh that’s right about 2 or 3 more must-haves in the lead up to Christmas that we wouldn’t get to play till 2010 anyway. Having them all come out in the first quarter of 2010 seems to have upset the natural balance.
With the explosion of Multiplayer gaming these days, sometimes the old hands forget what it is like to be the new guy. So if you’re new to the world of online gaming, or have been away for a while, here’s what you need to know.
1. You are a n00b. Whatever you do, you are a n00b, even if you’ve been playing the game for years, you are a n00b. You are a n00b if you die a lot, a n00b if you win and a n00b and if you do anything that results in beating another player with a higher ranking fairly and squarely, you are a n00b.
See also nub, newb, noob, just got the game, huh?
2. You use hax. If you play the game using elements placed there for use by the developers of the game, you hax. If you use last stand, you are hax. If you use a scope on an AK47, you are hax. If you use anything at all other than hip firing a bolt action rifle, you are hax. See also get some skill, grow a dick, etc
3. You are cheating. If you use a rocket launcher against another player, or a grenade launcher, you are cheating. Even if they just used the same tactic against you, YOU my friend, are the cheat, you cheater. Mr Cheater C Cheaterton III (really you’re the IV, but you’re such a cheater).
4. You are gay. Even if you’re married with six kids and had more tail than everyone else in the game (which wouldn’t need to be all that much), you are gay. See also: gh3y, WoW
5. You are of colour, Mr Albino from Sweden
6. You are lagging. Even though you’re not. See glitching
7. You are glitching. Despite the fact that network communication iver the internet is quite a complicated and marvelous thing, you are the reason the connection is poor and that they are losing. See also lagging
8. You are camping. This means you have found a quiet spot to fire off a sniper rifle and that your opponents are too lazy to come around behind you to take you out.
9. Bullshit. Whenever someone thinks they are better than you and you kill them, it is obviously bullshit. See also: hax, n00b, lagging, glitching
10. You should develop an interest in the thoughts of 12 year old children. Otherwise you will fail to appreciate the rich social commentary that is only possible from players of this age. Children say the darnest things such as “fuck you, you black jew fag hax nub lagger.” It’s so cute. They think they’re people.
11. If the child in question is headset enabled, you are in for a treat. Not only will you get an aural Live Journal update, but you may also experience the joy that is the favourite music of this child either through an MP3 playing while the child plays, or if you’re really lucky, a live rendition of said child’s favourite song or songs (though it’s usually just the same song over and over again. Actually it’s usually only the first verse over and over).
12. Fuck IWNet. See also Fuck Kotick, Fuck Activision, Fuck Infinity Ward and Fuck Bowling up his Fat Pipe.
So there you have it. The reasons why I never plugged in my headset to my consoles or PC, the reasons to keep out of team chat and the reasons why single player games will never die.
So I live in Australia. It’s a nice place. It’s warm most of the year. The people are nice (mostly). We are a fairly laid back lot. We also have a very strong public ‘nanny’ streak running through society where people not only suggest how you should live but legislate that you do so. We also have a strong anti-authoritarian streak. Example: By law, we have cigarette packets that the health warnings covering most of the package and usually with charming photos of organs diseased by heavy smoking. So entrepreneurs sell ‘jacket-packets’ so that you don’t have to be reminded about what you’re doing to yourself. Gambling at poker machines (slot machines/ Fruit machines) is a national epidemic since state governments, craving the revenue, legalised their use in clubs (veteran’s clubs, sports clubs, etc). People leaving their children in a locked cars in the parking lot while they blow their welfare checks in the club made for big headlines so all advertisments for gambling establishments have “Gamble responsibly” written as a tag. We also have a left-wing government who want to impose a filter over all internet traffic to keep out the undesirable stuff. All of it.
Australia is one of the few places in the world where we have a unified ratings system. Everything, from movies, to DVD’s, to television programs, to videogames, is classified by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (which is funny because books don’t have ratings on them). G rating is for everyone. PG is Parental Guidance. M is for mature (think PG13 or T rating), MA15+ is for adults over 15 years of age (so most R rated movies form the US), R rating for harder material (really horrific movies, soft core porn, and funnily enough, old movies like the Godfather that were classified years before MA15+ was introduced more recently). And X which is hardcore porn and only available in-store or via mail order from stores in the Territories (there are six states and two territories which have some vague differences in how they are run).
Every country has a ratings stem and all of them have their ‘push-button’ issues which cause them to wield the banhammer. In the UK, there’s something in the laws between an 18 and an R based on the angle of the erection. Scandinavian countries banned the Empire Strikes Back back in 1980 because of the violence. The US network TV has restrictions that gimp it compared to cable shows, etc. In Australia, linking sex and violence will get you banned faster than a fanboy troll on NPD day. And anything real-world seems to get their goat up
For some reason, the R rating doesn’t extend to games. Fallout 3 was initially refused classification because your character could get positive benefits from taking Morphine. Change the name and voila- everyone’s cool again. GTAIII was released and the banned when the media hyped the fact you could have sex with a prostitute and then beat her up to get your money back and the game was promptly banned and pulled from the shelves. The same thing happened with GTA San Andreas after the Hot Coffee. Marc Ecko’s Getting Up is still banned because of the graffiti aspect (though Jet Grind Radio got through fine). And Dead Rising- a game where you could do some rather vile things to the Zombies, got through no problem. Silent Hill Homecoming and FEAR 2 were originally Refused Classification, but were resubmitted and passed. GTA IV was never Refused Classification, but Take 2, who have many run-ins with the OFLC over the years on GTA and Manhunt games, decided to go straight to gimping for their big 2008 title. But then the PC version was passed no problem so somewhere along the way the game was quietly patched to bring the game into line with the rest of the world. L4D2 was submitted three times. The original version was sumbitted, RC‘ed, appealed and RC‘ed again and then the gimped version passed.
So last night I played the gimped demo on 360. There are other places on the net where you can see the differences but basically, the minute you kill a zombie, they fade away. They don’t even hit the ground most of the time. If get a machete and slice at a zombie, they will have disappeared from view before you have even finished your swipe animation. The net result is the game isn’t just censored, it’s actually unplayable. I am not a gore hound, in fact gore actually turns me off faster than bald Britney cosplay. But the way Valve have toned down the game to get it through isn’t particularly inventive or worthy.
So that point of Australians working around the barrier comes into play. You can fairly easily hack the demo (on PC) so that the game is the same as most of the rest of the world. It’s fairly forgone conclusion that the full version will also be able to circumvent the gimping by some kind of space-magic fuelled de-gimpification process. At least on PC.
All I can say is, I hope the Aussie media can keep their hands off MW2. Oops, spoke too soon.
The recent E3 show revealed the existence of several games to be released later in 2009. One of these was the sequel to 2008’s smash hit PC/ Xbox 360 shooter, Left 4 Dead.
Rather than fans of the original jumping for joy at the prospect of a full-blown sequel (these are Valve fans- they’re used to a more deliberate timeline for releases), the many fans of L4D are in fact running a petition to focus their anger on what they see is Valve’s ditching of L4D1 so soon after release.
There are two ways you can look at this…
The first way is how the fans are seeing this. LFD is not even cold in its undead grave, with only a few minor DLC releases and here’s Valve trotting a full (priced) sequel in a year. It means they’re either pulling an EA/Activision and moving to yearly updates to franchises- which rarely has an upside to quality whilst at the same time inducing gamer fatigue faster- and going from the altruistic company that many PC gamers imagine Valve to be into another money hungry company.
It took 10 years to go from Team Fortress to TF2. In 2009, we are still waiting for HL2: Episode 3 (more than 18 months after episode 2). TF2 is still getting updates (free ones) two years after release). Hell, even Day of Defeat is still getting updates alongside TF2. So people feel Valve will abandon the free stuff and long term support of their titles.
The other beef is the splitting of the community between those playing L4D and LFD2. One thing online games need in order to thrive is a lot of people. Its what makes TF2 memes more recognisable than Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. Well, if you split the L4D community between those playing the sequel and those playing the original- they will have less people to play with. The problem with that argument is L4D is not a game that requires a lot of people to play, and in a smaller, more dedicated gaming community, you’re more likely to find people more serious gamers, better games, etc. Did TF2 players start a petition of the original L4D pilfering their player base?
The other way you can look at this is : COOL! More LFD! Yippee!
If it were an Activision title, I would be worried about the quality. I still have enough trust in Valve that L4D2 will be worth the price.
Read C1.com’s review of Left 4 Dead
Focus Test for L4D
I don’t usually have much of an up-to-date PC gaming machine. Over the last few years, I’ve only really had a work PC that was semi recent. My latest work PC is a screamer with a 1GB videocard, that also thankfully restarts itself when some new games get busy and has firewalls blocking everything but WoW, CoD4 and Steam. So I’ve been playing Day of Defeat Source, which is a remake of the original DoD. I hear there’s another graphical revamp of DoD (though I’m not sure if its official or unofficial) in the works.
Reviewed on PC. Developed and published by Valve
The original Day of Defeat was a free WWII mod for Half Life and after Counterstrike was one of the few mods to be successful enough to be bought up by the makers of the originating game (as happened with Counterstrike and Left 4 Dead). In 2005, the game was ported with semi upgraded graphics to the Source Engine, though with only 4 maps at launch though others were added intermittently. At some point, spurned on by the success of Team Fortress 2, DoD: S received a mini makeover with a film grain effect and killcams straight out of TF2 (yes Call of Duty did them first but these are literally the same as TF2’s down to the sound effects and the ability to take screenshots). Now you have nemeses and can gain revenge on those who kill you too much.
The game is a really simple class-based game with two teams (one German, one American). Most maps are simple capture the flag deals, but with a very fast paced capturing system compared to the eternity it takes to capture a control point in a Battlefield game. Other maps involve demolishing enemy installations (tanks, anti aircraft guns, etc) but basically its a “shoot and respawn until the map runs out of time” game. There’s a simple, yet deep game here that’s been keeping a loyal band of people still playing in this PC shooter environment ruled by the trio of CoD4, TF2 and L4D. People use grenade launchers and there’s no nasty n00btube comments like there would be in CoD4.
It doesn’t hurt that the Source-engined version of this game is over four years old and will run on almost any PC still in circulation. On a modern machine it looks ok but you may be missing the graphical OMFG you get with Crysis. Call of Duty 1 and 2 were bigger sales successes yet I can’t find a game on my ISP’s servers. There’s that typical Valve feel to the way it works and sounds, with the nasty touch that when you lose a round, the winners have about 10-15 seconds where they can kill any enemies still alive with impunity. Ouch!
So here’s the question- why has there never been a sequel to this and why not a console port? CoD WaW’s success proves there’s still a large market for good shooters, even WWII ones. I guess the new Wolfenstein will just have that Nazi-hunting FPS market to itself this year.
Clint plays L4D for the first time, Cam bitches about a new videogame for neither the first or last time while George *facepalms*
Reviewed on PC. Also on Xbox 360. Developed by Valve. Retail versions published by EA
Left 4 Dead is Valve’s latest First Person shooter, based mainly around online cooperative play. L4D has also managed to at least partially bury the meme-cow (a cash cow for memes) that was TF2, at least in the short term. So what is it about this game that’s got everyone excited?
So the conceit is that each of the four stories are their own survival horror movie. Four survivors- Francis- the tough biker, Louis the office worker, Zoe the spunky chick and Bill, the old fart ex marine. Those are my descriptions based on playing the game so forgive me if they misrepresent the ‘canon.’ The four of you basically go from point A to point B Starting and ending each level in a new safehouse. And along the way there are zombies. Like everywhere. There are the common or garden zombies who just move towards you, sometimes slowly, other times rushing at you, often in numbers. And there are the specials.
There’s Boomer, a giant fat bile factory, who, if you get too close, will vomit on you and have hordes of zombies rushing you. Then there’s smoker, with his enormous tongue; Hunters who’ll jump you and pound the crap out of you; and tanks, who are basically big motherfuckers. There’s also the witch, but DON’T DISTURB THE WITCH YOU TARD!
That makes it sound simplistic but its actually a blast to play, easily the best Valve MP game in ages. You can play either by yourself which is underrated and an enormous amount of fun, and are able to select any chapter in any of the campaigns (of course there are no checkpoints within any of the chapters, so if you die you start again). Or you can play with three others, each of you taking on one of the four characters (one of each BTW). You need to work together, if someone runs off and gets cornered, they will need to be rescued. You can of course heal yourself or heal you teammates and they can of course heal you if they feel like it. But Multiplayer does highlight one thing, the AI in this game is very good (even on single player).
This is down to the much vaunted AI director. This will spawn enemies at just the right time and in just the right places. No two playthroughs of this game will ever bee the same and for that reason I recommend playing the single player through by yourself at some point. When you play with people, they’re selfish with health packs, shoot you by mistake and run off by themselves and get killed- which is a pain since that leaves more infected for you to deal with. There’s also a versus mode where four humans can go against four players on the zombie team. The zombies are weak but respawn and can choose exactly where they will lie in wait for their human opponents.
The graphics are pretty decent for a source based game. It doesn’t look ugly per se, it just looks a little underwhelming compared to even some the best console games, let alone high end PC’s. Sound is fantastic, from the music, the voiceover work to the punchy effects.
Left 4 Dead looks like a poor value proposition when you compare it to Team Fortress 2, but it actually offers so much more, not least is a very good single player mode. It’s memes are also not as moronic and insular meaning this is a fun game for everyone to get right into. Everyone loves zombies right?
Controller1.com rating 3/3
Left 4 Dead left me non-plussed a few weeks ago when I last wrote about it. I have kept at it a little longer- still in the single player mode. I’m finding it a lot more fun than the Singple player of some other PC FPS’s I’ve played in my time. So much that I think the single player is a greatly overlooked part of the game. I’m not even sure I really want to play multiplayer all that much.
Years ago, my first taste of PC multiplayer was the coop mode Terrorist Hunt on Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. I had skipped Quake, Unreal and BF 1942 for various reasons but I got heavily hooked on that MP game for months on end, playing at night on our work LAN. We played the games maps as well as custom maps and we never played adversarial modes. Why? Because my friend who mostly hosted hated playing against other people. This was before co-op was a major selling feature of most shooters. He probably would have loved left for dead. I don’t know I’ve not seen him in a while since he’s gone off games.
I’m currently on the last mission of the Airport level (or the third of four campaigns). Even though its the equivalent of playing BF1942 with bots, its still a highly agreeable single player game. But even though I love PC multiplayer shooters, well CoD at least, I don’t know if I will want to play much more multi of this. Something about Valve games that attracts the rather unforgiving hardcore. In SP, if you shoot your team mates by accident, you get a warning. In MP, if you shoot your teammates you get a smack on the head. One of the single best features of CoD WaW is the one-level zombie mode that is unlocked once you beat single player. I hope Treyarch can turn that success into something a little meatier in future iterations or even DLC.
Fallout 3 is one of those games that you know will just eat your time. I’ve been slack and am still only three hours in but I’ve only had time to play the game on weekends recently so my progress is slower than a Trabant on an economy run. I’m liking it far more than Oblivion. I made it 10 hours into oblivion before losing interest but I hate later had pangs of regret in selling it. Actually wait, I gave it to Clint and he wiped his ass on it, or something. Or he got a dirty disc error. Something like that. I like the setting but obviously in a game that can take 100+ hours, I’m only going to see a limited version of all the game has to offer. And that’s OK. I need an ending to games and if one isn’t in sight, boredom takes over, quality or no. Probably F3’s shooter presentation is what is making it more palatable to player over something set in another fantasy realm. F3 is SF which has always been more my cup of tea. Irish Breakfast, if I’m not mistaken. Mine’s strong with milk, no sugar.
Lastly I played a teensy bit of Rock Band ACDC. For various reasons, including a ridiculously cheap price tag (not RRP), I bought thsi rather than the full version. I am disappointed that you can’t use it to buy DLC, but it is weird for someone who’s played Guitar ero for so long to suddenly play exactly the same game with such a different look- despite it being exactly the same.
Reviewed on Xbox 360 and PC. Also on PS3
Developed by Valve (PS3 version by EA). Published by Valve (PC via Steam) and EA (Xbox 360, PS3)
Half Life 2
Working my way through The Orange Box, as you do, I thought I would collect some thoughts on HL2’s campaign, which is the only part of the Orange Box I had played previously. It’s also the longest part of the
Orange Box, unless for some strange reason you’re still playing Team Fortress 2.
Half Life 2 tells the story of Gordon Freeman when he arrives in City 17. Between Half Life 1 and 2, there have been a fair few unexplained events happening off-screen. Earth has now been taken over by the
Combine, who exert their control through a traitorous human. Gordon takes charge of the resistance, get a girlfriend and shows Bioshock (Bioshock? Bioshock?!) still has a way to go in unseating Half Life 2.
It’s funny that in an industry where every successful and original game is copied relentlessly that no one has really tried to do the type of story and varied gameplay, and really no one who’s tried has
got it right, with the exception of Bioshock (Bioshock? Bioshock?!). This thing just doesn’t feel all that dated.
Graphics hold up very well on 360 and the sterling audio work carries over with nary a glitch. The game runs smoothly on 360, load times aren’t excessive and the controller works well. It took me about 14-15
hours to play though the second time, maybe a bit longer – its hard to estimate re-tries, and even on its own would have been worth the price of admission.
The weapons are all interesting takes on the standard FPS fare, though you have some oddities such as the crossbow being the only long range weapon and the Combine rifle. Sometimes it feels as though your
character is a bit too large for the corridors he’s traversing but on the whole, a very entertaining experience.
Half Life 2 is one of those games you have to have in your collection, either on PC or on Xbox 360. There’s also an Xbox 1 version from a few years back, but like the frame-rate optional PS3 version of Orange box, this is best avoided.
C1 Rating: 3/3
Episode One
Well, almost through the Orange Box, Meh-pisode One is the least interesting single player element in the Orange Box.
I finished it in about 3 hours (probably 4 with restarts) so its not a very long experience, but it really is ho-hum compared to the brilliance in evidence throughout the rest of The Orange Box.
Meh-pisode One carries on from the rather unusual ending of HL2. You and Alyx Vance have to RE-ENTER the Citadel (which has all these things that weren’t there before). At least here you get to spend alot more time with Alyx Vance, who clearly has the hots for Gordon Freeman. It is an expansion pack since there are all of two new character models (one of which, the Stalker does almost nothing thataffects gameplay) So Gordon and Alyx go through an underground car park, Gordon and Alyx go through a disused Hospital, yada, yada, yada. Nothing to see here. Move along. So why play it?
Well, I hear Episode Two is the dogs balls. It’s supposed to be fantastic, even more fantastic than HL2. So even through I read that Meh-pisode One was ordinary, I knew I’d have to sit through it in order to ‘get’ Ep 2.
So it wasn’t bad, but I had never played it, I would never had missed
it. It’s like most PC expansions packs, you really can’t see the point.
C1 Rating 1/3
Episode Two
Well, I have finally finished going though everything in the Orange Box, and believe me by the time you’ve played through all of Portal, TF2, Half Life 2, Episode and Episode Two, you certainly feel as if
you’ve gotten your money’s worth…
So Episode Two is about 4-5 hours of gameplay continuing on from the end of the rather ordinary Episode One. Episode Two is much better, with the sense of deja vu you get playing through some sorta familiar level types is less than Ep 1.You have a level in a mine infested by Ant Lions, with a new variant
that spits acid at you and luminescent Ant Lion Grubs which restore one point of health everytime you step on one. Then there’s a new car to drive and the Magnusson devices at the climax. So its more of the
same with some tweaks but there’s enough of an improvement over Episode One that playing through this if you have Orange Box is a must.
Graphics are still decent, slightly better than the earlier installments and framerate never misses a beat. Sound is still great with the voice acting being a particular highlight. The ending battle is somewhat more intense than anything outside of TF2, and it almost goes on for too long but once you have a stratgey
in place, it’s not as daunting as it appears at the start of the battle. I found the difficulty levels throughout to be better than Half Life 2 or Episode One so it wasn’t too easy or too hard, just
right.
So, would I play Episode Three? Well, that depends on how is made available to 360 or PS3 users since I don’t want to end up buying the game on Orange Box again (I have already bought Half Life 2 when it
came out and TF2 on PC as well). If I can just buy one part at a reasonable price (by reasonable I don’t mean the ridiculous prices on Steam where all of Orange Box on PC is $50 but TF2 on its own is $30)
and on console, I might give it ago. At the moment, I am a bit Sourced out and will take a long break from HL2-based games for quite a while (unless Day of Defeat for Xbox LIVE is announced).
C1 Rating: 3/3
PORTAL
Portal started off as a HL2 mod that become a phenomenon in its own right. a short 306 hour puzzle game played in first person mode, Portal has several things going for it. Unique gameplay that’s going to be hard to replicate without being so obviously a clone; a presentation that will never be matched for originality, humour and creepiness- a veritable meme factory; and that song.
The 360 version of Portal as part of the Orange Box is great. Its a short review for a short game. You just need to play Portal. rent orange box, or just by the PC version on its own but go out and get this now.
Team Fortress 2
Lastly, my least favourite part of the Orange Box. Its my least favouite but its not bad, it just doesn’t click with me like it does for so many who believe it to be Jesus’ son. TF2 is a class based team game based around capturing control points(battlefield), or collecting intelligence (capture the flag) and similar gameplay types (since this review was originally written in late 2007, other modes have been added and are not reviewed here).
Its one of the games you either get it or you don’t. The ones that do love this to the point where WoW was just a footnote in videogaming history. Its obviously a very well put together and quality game that I totally don’t get despite owning the PC and 360 version (the 360 version of TF2 is the only unplayable part of orange box on 360,)
C1 Rating: 1/3
overall Orange Box: rating 3/3
