The Orange Box – PS3 – Preview

E3 2007 Preview

Valve’s Half-Life series has been a mega success
on PCs for well over a decade now. The sequel made huge waves when it released a
few years ago, offering groundbreaking gameplay and a wonderful story, done in
the same vein as the wildly popular original game. Now, the classic Half-Life 2
is getting ready for release on next-gen consoles, but the experience won’t be
just a lame port of a game that just about everyone and their dog has already
played. Instead, the next-gen package of the game (called The Orange Box) will
offer not just the original Half-Life 2, but also both entries of the series’
episodic content (Half-Life 2: Episode One and Two), Team Fortress 2, and
Portal, a unique action puzzler game. The game is a tremendous deal for console
gamers, making it a must-have for those who haven’t played through the PC
version.

The newest element in The Orange Box is Half-Life
2: Episode Two. Episode Two will be 30 percent longer than Episode One, and
serves to bridge the gap between the first and third episodes. The short area
demoed at E3 had Gordon and Alex leaving City 17 and heading through a forested
area not unlike the Washington forests (it helps that Valve is based just
outside of Seattle). You drive down a forest path in a modified muscle car/dune
buggy until you get to a radio tower that needs you to activate its power. Using
the gravity gun, you plug the cords back into their outlets and activate the
lights.


Half-Life 2: Episode Two: The Orange Box Xbox 360 screenshots

At this point in the demo, we were ambushed by
the new enemy featured in Episode Two, the Hunters. The hunters are really
smart, really tough and really deadly. They shoot blue-green blasts at you and
can drain a lot of damage quite quickly. The best way to get rid of them is by
using a combo of environmental assaults (ie using the grav gun to chuck
explosive barrels at them) and shotgun blasts.

Team Fortress 2 will also be offered in the
bundle. This update of the classic multiplayer game has a cartoony look that
gamers will have already noticed from the screenshots released, and will add
some new features to the game’s dynamic. For example, the medic class now has
the ability to make other players invulnerable for a ten second period, and will
often be a class that is capable of turning the tides of a match all on their
own. The game will also have a taunt system, where each of the nine different
classes will have three different weapon-specific taunts to piss off the other
team.

Lastly, is Portal, an action-puzzle game that has
you creating portals in order to pass from one point to another. You have a
portal gun capable of creating holes in the universe, and by following the clues
given in the stage, you can progress to the end and move on the next objective.
The game will feature 24 levels, growing in complexity and difficulty as they
move on.

The Orange Box is a tremendous deal for console
gamers, offering one of the best action games ever, a stellar multiplayer
element, and ton of great elements all in one box.


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