(Striders can sometimes seem near-impossible to overcome...)
5. It has the scariest foes you’ll ever meet
The beasties you’ll encounter in Gordon’s world are truly the stuff of nightmares. To name but a few, there are the ant-lions, giant ant-shaped killers that shriek at blood-curdling pitch as they set about chopping you up; the demonic head-crabs that attach themselves to their victims’ skulls and turn them into stumbling zombies; and then come the striders, storeys-high mechanical walkers that can lay waste to huge neighbourhoods in seconds. The odds, it seems, are not stacked in Gordon’s favour...
Verdicts on the Orange Box
Half-Life 2: Three years old but still a classic that stands up next to today’s top games; if you’ve upgraded your PC since it was first out, give it a whirl and revel in how great it still looks and how many memorably scenes come flooding back
Episode One: A worthy continuation of the series, if not quite as perfectly-paced as its predecessor. But it’s still unmissable before you move on to..
Episode Two: A return to full form, with a series of devastatingly exciting new directions, enemies and plot developments. Finish this and you’ll be itching for another episode.
Team Fortress 2: One of the best multiplayer free-for-alls you’ll play this year. It’s fun, frenetic, looks superb and has a bit of depth to it with different characters taking on particular jobs amid the carnage.
Portal: Not one for those with a short attention span, Portal is a fiendish 3d puzzle game in which you are required to escape from your surrounds (yet another menacing scientific facility) with the aid of a portal gun that fires little worm-holes onto the walls and allows you to step through. Challenging, cunning, frustrating and ingenious.
The Lost Coast: This souped-up extra-value episode got cut out of Half-Life 2 but was reinstated as a special level with particularly sublime graphics. Even more than the rest of the Orange Box, it demands a mighty PC to do it justice. Go on, cave in and upgrade your computer...
