Half-Life 2: The Orange Box

This is by far one of the best gaming purchases I've made. The 3 Half-Life 2 games alone are worth it, Team Fortress 2 and Portal are the icing on the cake. Portal is shaping up to be one of the best games out this year, and Half-Life 2 Episode 2 will continue on the superb gameplay of half-life 2 and Episode 1. Team Fortress 2 is one of the best damn multiplayer games I've played this year, and it makes this package the best thing to buy. If you buy one PC game a year, BUY THIS.

This is a must buy for anyone who is even remotely into FPS games

Half life 2, episode one and episode two, a great story line with loads of action and many different things to do (setup turrets to defend areas, gravity gun to lift and throw objects and fight and control cool alien bugs)

Team Fortress 2, I wasn’t really into the original but this remake is extremely well balanced and loads of fun contains many of the original maps and the graphics and comic style really make this game great

Portal, this game is just amazing, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t play it wicked funny fast paced action, all based around a portal creating gun that works perfectly

All up this is something to buy, and remember if you already own half life two or episode one you have the option to “gift” them to other people who may not, a very nice feature from Valve

First up, Gameplanet gives quick and reliable service.
As of today for me GP have replaced the bricks n mortar stores, which usually overprice by $10–20.

Secondly, the Orange box is probably the only essential purchase of this year. There is a huge amount of content in this volume. I hope other publishers notice that gamers enjoy variety, imagination, and like anyone more product per $/kg.
While TF2 has received the hype, it was Portal that first grabbed me becasue of its puzzle-box aspect. Both TF2 and Portal will have long lives as users develop maps and mods. I can also report that online play of TF2 is lagless, which is a relief after playing BF2 on Vista64.

Omigod, what a game to own, proud owner of the new orange box. I have only played episode 1 and tf2, just wanting to play it in sequence. So far i am very impressed with what i got. My graphics card didn't quite take it so i got another one quite promptly. It was worth it now i see all of half life world in all it's HD glory ;) Fantastic game, worth while purchase.

I bought this primarily for Episode 1 and 2, but I played HL 2 again and it's even better the second time around. These are some seriously well made games. The graphics are outstanding, and they run well on my machine, which is something of a novelty for me. I'm used to having to turn down the details in order to get decent performance even though my machine exceeds the recommended specs of most games. I've played newer games who's graphics compare to HL 2 and they don't run nearly as well. Can someone explain that to me?

What's more it's perfectly stable. It never hangs. It never crashes. There don't seem to be any bugs anywhere. This proves that games can be made to a high standard, which is another novelty for me in this day of unfinished, buggy PC games, and why I'm switching to Xbox.

The games themselves are awesome. I especially liked Episode 2. Alyx tags along through most of Episode 1 and 2 but I find I quite liked that after I got used to it. There's nice little touches here and there, like the amusing quips Alyx makes, and the banter between some of the rebels and scientists. Terrific voice acting and writing throughout. And I love the art design and the cool post apocalypse look.

My only major gripe is the whole Steam business, and for some reason the games insist on refreshing at 60hz, which is intolerable. I tried adding -refresh 85 on the command line and in the launch options. I even set the refresh rate to override in my graphic card's properties, but no joy. This spoiled the games a bit for me, which is a shame because they were otherwise just a joy to play.

Roll on Episode 3.