QUICK JUMP
The Orange Box
Team Fortress 2, a team-based online game, eschews the realistic look associated with most online shooting games for a cartoony look, and it works fantastically - this will be an online fun-fest that gamers will be playing for years to come.
You can play as a Spy, who can disguise himself as an opposing player, or a Pyro, who lugs around a huge flame thrower.
Or, how about the mechanic, who can build stationary gun turrets?
Playing with friends is a blast and a nice touch is that everytime you get "fragged" the game will freeze frame on the player who killed you.
Last, but definitely not least, is the puzzle game Portal. Never has a game with such a simple idea been so addictive. In fact, it proved the highlight of The Orange Box and is worth the price of admission alone, as is the humorous taunting from a computer known as GLaDOS as you progress through the chambers.
As part of a test subject with the secretive Aperture Scientific research you're armed with a gun that can fire teleportation doorways.
Working your way through 18 test chambers, you'll have to escape each chamber, having to create an open doorway nearby and an exit doorway at another part of the chamber - often in a far-reaching corner.
Often you have to fall through multiple doorways to create enough momentum to propel yourself to the exit at a higher level.
Without giving anything away, if you don't play Portal through to the end, you're missing out on one of the most humorous end credits songs I have ever heard in a video game.
The bottom line here is that for first-person shooter fans, The Orange Box is a no-brainer.
You have to buy it.
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