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I’ll admit it: I own four copies of Half Life 2 and bought my original copy many years ago, but it wasn’t until now that I really played it. With the Orange Box and it’s terrific value, I don’t feel I payed too much for the experience.

The first copy I bought on a whim when the game originally came out, having loved the original Half Life to death. My PC wasn’t really up to the task at that point, and neither was I with all the work and family matters I need to attend to, so it sat in my office collecting dust. When I did find the time to start gaming again, I bought an my Xbox 360 and decided that I should really get the Half Life 2 XBox version and finally give it a go, but soon heard rumblings that Valve was going to create a new version so I decided to wait for a native 360 version. That version, the Orange Box, finally came out, and while it took years to start playing, I was hooked and couldn’t stop playing it once the wrapper came off the box.

Let me get my only gripe with the series out of the way right now because it’s just a minor thing but permeates all the products included in the bundle: the loading screens. The loading screens smacks of old technology with the way they freeze the game up for 5-10 seconds at a time with no warning. Even in Episode 2, you’ll be walking through a tunnel and the game will freeze for a moment until the a loading screen pops up for 5-10 seconds to load the next level. It’s a forgivable sin, but I hope they fix it for Episode 3 and beyond.

By not playing Half Life 2 until now, I got a truly great gaming experience from start to finish. Half Life 2, which starts out slow with it’s long water level, is an awesome game and holds up well despite the fact that it’s a couple of years old. Episode 1 extends that goodness and gives you more of the same. Episode 2 seems to have taken all the good bits from the original and Episode 1, and combined them to make a roller coaster ride of goodness. Portal I blogged about before, which is also stellar. At the end of the day, it was a marathon gaming experience but well worth the time it took and I never got tired of the experience.

At this point, I can’t wait for Episode 3 and I hope Valve does a similar experience next time bundling potentially Episode 3, Portal 2 (the two stories could potentially connect at some point), and a remake of Half Life 1 to make the graphics HD quality. That would be a truly awesome deal.

If you’re keeping track at home, that’s three copies. The fourth was another Orange Box for the PC which I’m going to use the Team Fortress 2 code and give the rest to my brother in law. 4 copies seems like a lot, but it seems like a great deal to me.

I bumped into title while visiting a local game stop.  It’s really good; I’m surprised more people haven’t heard about it.

Bioshock may not be “The game of the year”, but for me, I can’t imagine any other game being better in my eyes.  From the moment you enter Rapture, you become engrossed in the game.  It has a fantastic atmosphere, a good storyline (albeit the freedom to choose between playing as a bad guy and a good guy is over-rated), and strong game play mechanics.  Some people complain it is too easy, but I found it to be tough enough to be entertaining but not too tough such that I got frustrated so that I couldn’t continue moving the story forward.  In a word, it’s awesome!

Gears of War is a “must have” if you own an Xbox 360 and an HDTV if for no other reason but to show off how impressive the the graphics can be on the Xbox 360. As far as shooters go, the game is pretty fun using a cool new cover system to hide from the bad guys, and it’s been many years all the back to Doom that I was so excited about wielding a chainsaw; the blood splattering graphics are pretty intense.

There are three negatives most reviewer have complained about in Gears of War with some validity. The single player game is pretty short, and as far as the narrative, it’s pretty weak. The last technical problem is the controls which have the A button fairly overloaded, making it a hassle when you start button mashing to get out of the way and end up crouching behind a crate because it thought you wanted to run for cover. It takes a bit to get used to and the controls could have been layed out a bit better (Rainbow Six Vegas cover system is far superior), but you end up feeling like a pro after a little time in the game.

As far as the short single player campaign, I actually thought that was a benefit for me personally. With so little time that I can devote to gaming, it was nice to be able to finish the storyline in a few nights of feverish gameplay. I like shorter games because I can feel like I can play through the game multiple times if I like it enough, but I don’t have to devote months of gaming in the process.

All in all, if you own a XBox 360 and like shooters, Gears of War should be something you own.

Links
GameRankings for Gears of War
GameFaqs for Gears of War