The Orange Box

Five Valve Games in One Orange Box

Valve's Orange Box delivers five separate titles for the price of one. Included in the package are Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. This generous move on Valve's part not only delivered three hotly anticipated new titles to established fans (HL2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2), but made the previous Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 available for the first time on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well.

Half-Life 2 tells the continuing story of heroic scientist Gordon Freeman as he battles the invading forces of the Combine in an effort to free a dystopian future Earth from enslavement. It takes place in and around a mysterious city named "City 17", presumed to be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Portal is a comedic puzzle-based first person shooter that surprised many with the originality of its physics-based puzzles and quality of its writing and storytelling. Valve has confirmed that Portal will become a franchise. Team Fortress 2 is a deep team-and-class-oriented first-person shooter that uses a stylized, cartoon-like visual style reminiscent of Pixar's The Incredibles. Team Fortress 2 was released as the sequel to Team Fortress Classic, which was originally a Quake mod that found a rise in popularity in the '90s.

Included Games

The different games offers special types of gameplay, so chances are there will be something in The Orange Box that suits your taste.

Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 tells the story of Gordon Freeman after the events in Half-Life. He journeys through City 17, The Sandtraps, Nova Prospekt and the Citadel alongside the Rebels who are in need of the freedom they lost years before to the Combine. Half-Life 2 was the first game to be created using the Source Engine and was highly praised for the way Valve implemented the use of physics through puzzles and various other methods.

Half-Life 2: Episode One

Episode One continues to tell the story of Gordon Freeman with his partner Alyx Vance, while they try to prolong the time of the Citadel exploding so they can escape City 17 safely. The game starts off mere minutes after Half-Life 2 ends.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Episode Two continues to tell the story of both Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance as they continue their journey to destroying the Combine. This takes them out of City 17, and just in time to see the Citadel blow. The player is set with the task of racing to White Forest to deliver an important package in their war against the Combine. Half-Life 2: Episode Two was praised for bringing new non-linear levels to the series, in which the player could tackle a situation from any angle.

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 is the successor to the original Team Fortress. It is a multiplayer-only, team-based shooter and features nine very different playable classes which all have different abilities strengths/weaknesses and abilities. The game features cel-shaded cartoon visuals, which are instantly recognizable. The game offer a variety of different game modes including Capture the Flag and Control Points. Free DLC through Steam for the PC version has kept the game fresh through the past few years. These updates include items that are unlocked after gaining a certain number of Steam achievements, crafting them or via random drop.

Portal

Portal is a revolutionary FPS/puzzle game that has you operating a portal gun. Two portals can be created, one blue and one orange, and each can be activated by the different triggers. You are a test subject at a company called Aperture Science where a rogue AI robot named GLaDOS guides you through 19 different test chambers with the promise of cake at the end. There are also 6 different "advanced" test chambers which are more difficult. A number of chambers also contain turrets, both with gunfire and rockets, that try to thwart you in your attempt to clear the test chambers. The credits of this game are well-known for the credits song, Still Alive. The game is often considered the best part of The Orange Box, earning countless awards and even spawning a fan following for an inanimate object, the Weighted Companion Cube, and started the internet meme 'The Cake is a lie'. A modified version with some community-made challenge missions came out on the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA).

Peggle Extreme: Trial Version

Peggle Extreme is a special Orange Box themed version of Peggle Deluxe, which comes bundles with the PC version of The Orange Box.

Other Notes

Xbox 360 Game Installation

The Orange Box requires 4.7GB (with the newest update it only requires 3.9GB) of space to install on an Xbox 360 HDD.

Captioning

This game has full english subtitles.

Soundtrack

The Soundtrack for The Orange Box was mostly composed by Valve Employees and also featured a bonus song by Johnathan Coulton. The soundtrack was released via Amazon and the Valve Store and also came free in MP3 format when users bought Audiosurf on Steam.