Technician Online

Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: Science & Tech

Media Credit: Tyler Arehart

The Orange Box
*****
Developer: Valve Corp.
Genre: First-person shooter
Release date: Oct. 10
Rating: T-M
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (Dec. 11)

If you took five video games -- one honored classic, two plot-extending sequels, one modern refinement of online teamwork and one mind-bending novelty -- and you put them all in a box, what color would it be?

Game developers at Valve say orange.

The Orange Box is a compilation of games that Valve released for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. It includes Half-Life 2 (2004), HL2: Episode One (2006) and introduces HL2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal.

The most innovative of the bunch is Portal, a game that invites players to solve puzzles with the help of some fantasy physics.

Players are given a device that can create two distinct ends of a "portal," which acts like a teleporter or wormhole you can see through. The player could place one portal point on the wall and the other on the floor, then jump down the hole and fall out the wall.

It feels like jumping through a mirror into the backwards world beyond, but players must realize they are really still in the same room.

The process can be confusing, but that's the point.

Portal presents a whole new way of perceiving spaces and approaching problems.

Portal is played from the first-person perspective and leverages the physics and art assets of the Half-Life 2 engine. It's great fun, a great challenge and the smart humor is a big plus.

The game is unfortunately short, but you can extend the magic by imagining what you would do with portals in real life.

Another offering from The Orange Box is Team Fortress 2. It is a competitive online shooter where two teams compete for territory, or strive to capture the other's "intelligence."

Players choose specific roles such as soldier or engineer so they can apply the right tools and weaponry to the task at hand.

TF2 is a sequel, of course, and it has done a very good job of refining the way that diverse character roles lead to teamwork. Heavy gunners pair with medics, engineers cover the snipers and demolition men cover the retreat of speedy scouts.

The game has a very cartoony look and feel to it, and the atmosphere is tongue-in-cheek, but there seems to be an intelligent purpose to its every aspect. There are many little examples too trivial to mention, but they give the overall impression that the developers behind TF2 knew exactly what they were doing.

Continued...

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