Valve does it again, gameplay standards just broke through the roof even just halfway through episode 2!
Even though Half Life 2 has a few years on its back, it's still a classic that any self-proclaimed PC gamer should have heard of at the very least. It's still great and there's a lot of hours to spend in this game and it's the longest game in the orange box. Players that already own this game gets a free gift card which they can give out to one of their friends or something else.
Half Life 2 Episode 1:
sadly, no box full of goodies comes without some sort of candy that is going to waste and isn't going to be consumed in just as great amounts as the others. The game is, in short, unsatisfactory and leaves me with a feeling of 'Is that it?' which is enforced by the very short playtime that it offers. Even though its short and all, I still prefer it over many of the other games that I own simply because the AI is somewhat decent and the animations are good too but most important of all, you get to oogle Alyx for two to three hours.
Half Life 2 Episode 2:
Half Life 2 is usually known to be straight-to-the-point and without and awful lot of dialogue and plot, well, episode 2 changes that completely in a way that keeps the story interesting without taking up an awful lot of time all at once. I enjoyed racing around on the countryside with Alyx and the car itself was rather pimped out while some of the puzzles seemed illogical or simply too easy to figure out while others made me consider myself as slightly retarded for not checking the room for a shorter wire before using the one that was sitting in the plug. The hunters are challenging and fun to fight due to their look and it's satisfying to bring down every single one of them and eventually throw logs, full of their own deadly weapon, back at their faces to unlock one of the many ahievements that this game offers. In contrast to other FPS games, episode 2 offers a highly dramatic storyline with lots of awesome sequences where you simply sit back and enjoy the view such as watching dog tearing out the guts of a strider all of the sudden.
Also, the voice acting from Alyx, Eli, the vortigaunts and especially Gman is spectacular, every word that you hear from Gman is printed onto your mind for the next half an hour. Also, the many developer's commentaries is a goldmine in itself.
Yet the game is really great, it still has a few bugs all around it. The ruined citadel looks rather awful even at the highest detail settings and isn't a pretty sight at all but I guess that's what it takes to keep the game running smoothly.
Also, the first few chapters where you're constantly surrounded by antlions seems kind of boring at first but Valve seems to straighten this out about half an hour before you exit the caves and set off to white forest.
Portal:
Portal is a mindbender in all aspects, the level design/puzzles is marvelous and the sense of humor that roams throughout the game has made me smile more than once. The physics that is used only rarely shows weaknesses even if you try to **** it up by purpose. Sadly, the game lacks very hard puzzles apart from the few advanced levels that is basically just a redesign of the previous levels with a small touches to make it even harder by limiting your options. The replay value is rather high despite the short amount of time it takes to complete the game. This is mostly due to the many challenges, the achievements and the developer's commentaries which is all rather interesting. Only bad thing I can say is that the game is rather short and you're left with an unquenched thirst once the game is completed. I am personally hoping for hundreds of great puzzles from the fans and eventually a second game if Valve can come up with more great gameplay.
Team fortress 2:
Team fortress 2 has been in development ever since Team fortress classic was released about eight or nine years ago. The game has is outstanding when speaking of graphics, however this feature is nerfed due to the fact that many gamers won't be able to enjoy the game due to the fact that not everyone is in the possession of a PC dedicated to gaming. But even on the lowest settings, TF2 delivers good gameplay that'll keep you glued to your monitor as long as there's people on the server you're playing on. The many classes offers variety and lots of tactical gameplay into the game. The characteristic classes also makes the game more intense since its very easy to differ class from class and team from team due to the distinctive colors and shapes of the classes. Also, the game is slightly humoristic in various ways, the characters, the funny comments that the players can shout out and other various things. Yet the humor can be a bit too much at some points and it occasionally makes you starve for something a bit more serious, luckily, we've got lots of other games for that.