There's little dispute that The Orange Box has been one of 2007's most eagerly anticipated titles. It's one of our highest-rated games this year for PC and Xbox 360, thanks to the craftsmanship of both Valve's storytelling and the developer's technical prowess. It's indisputably one of the best package deals you'll get this year. On PS3, however, Valve has turned the reins over to a UK-based branch of EA, which has translated Valve's magic to the Cell processor. The best thing that we can say about EA's port of The Orange Box is that EA has managed to get this fine compilation to run on the PS3. The catch is that it seems to run and trip over its virtual shoelaces along the way.

Long Live the Free Man!

The Orange Box's first offering is Half-Life 2. Without giving away too many spoilers, you'll be taking on the role of scientist Gordon Freeman, who awakens a few decades after the first game's events and finds himself in City 17, a totalitarian urban center run by Dr. Breen, humanity's puppet leader. The real leaders are the Combine, an alien race that has subdued humanity and plundered the Earth. Gordon is immediately welcomed to the resistance effort by other scientists, including Dr. Kleiner and Dr. Eli Vance. Eli's daughter Alyx accompanies you off and on throughout your adventures, and also harbors a crush on Gordon. The action will extend beyond the first game's ending with Episode One, in which you and Alyx will fight to escape City 17. In Episode Two, you'll find yourselves on the outskirts of the city, with a crucial mission on your hands.

HL2 has seen a major visual facelift since the 2005 Xbox port, with greater detail and various updates for HD-generation consoles. In an exclusive touch for the platform, PS3 owners can quicksave at any point in the game. It really comes in handy during crucial moments in which you'd have to backtrack on the 360 version. Unfortunately, it seems implemented as a balancing measure. The load times don't seem too optimized for Sony's hardware. Loading is significantly longer than in the 360 version, so you'll need to hold down the Start button quite a bit. Also, near the end of Half-Life 2 our save file corrupted, which made us exceptionally unhappy.

Although the 360 version runs at up to 1080p with plenty of visual setting options to tweak, EA UK's port runs at 720p native and doesn't feature the visual accoutrements of its counterpart. Like the other console game, it runs at 30 frames per second. Well, ideally. The 360 version had some occasional framerate hiccups, but the PS3 version has those plus many more. It's impossible to discuss this game without mentioning these issues, especially now that we've had time to explore the entire package.

Route Kanal, the first vehicle-based level, has some framerate dips, especially at the end of the chapter. In Episode One, there's an ugly sequence near the end of the game in which the framerate dips to headache levels. Episode Two has some nasty moments at the beginning of the game and hiccups in certain points throughout. In spite of that, though, Valve's storytelling and immersion are phenomenal enough to overcome these technical problems, myriad as they are. It seems that EA UK, rather than optimizing the game for PS3, simply got it to run on the hardware.


It's really the gameplay and narrative that make Half-Life 2 shine. While you'll never feel completely confident that you know everything going on within the storyline, Valve's approach to both narrative and design is quite unique. At times you'll be presented with a puzzle, and while it might seem a tad confusing, things always seem to fall together after a minute or so of searching. It's a refreshing change from the copy/paste level design of some other shooters. The narrative itself, while not always lucid, is always compelling, and you'll find that the battles, from the Combine Citadel in the first game, to claustrophobic shootouts in a dark garage in the first episode, to the grand finale of the latest episode, will leave you both exhilarated and in search of compatriots who've shared similar experiences. In short, Half-Life 2 and its two episodes will give you over twenty hours of phenomenal storytelling and gameplay despite the technical shortcomings of these PS3 ports.