The Orange Box (Xbox 360)

Condition Orange: Valve faces the perils of porting PC games to the 360.
1/31/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 2

The controls in The Orange Box suffer most when it comes to Team Fortress 2. Again, this was clearly a game designed for a mouse's speed and accuracy. Team Fortress 2 is built around the interplay of distinct and easy-to-play classes, each with a very specific strength. But without a better control scheme, certain classes have an enormous advantage. The engineer can sit back and rack up kills with his automated turret while the poor sniper will have a devil of a time trying to line up a headshot. The result is a huge wrench thrown into the otherwise meticulous balancing act. If it doesn't outright break Team Fortress 2, it at least makes it a game with a whole new set of balance considerations that seem to have been lost on Valve.

What's more, the player limit is exactly half that of the PC version, which means many of the maps are underpopulated. This is particularly detrimental to the capture-the-flag map, which is easily locked down with only a few defenders. But even on the five control-point maps, there are too often too few players. This leads to some really weird match-ups that are essentially decided before they've even begun. On a PC server with 24 or 32 players, Team Fortress 2 is a wonderful exercise in surfing the swirling chaos of the bullet-riddled spaces between each team's character classes. But with 12 (the default) or 16 players it's about two teams fumbling about for the advantage in a handful of quick rock-paper-scissors encounters. What's more, the 360 version is susceptible to bad lag and dropped connections. It's no surprise that the player base on Xbox Live is small, and Team Fortress 2 isn't likely to have much staying power.

The good news is that Portal works just fine. This is a brilliant story about a girl, a rogue Artificial Intelligence, and the gun that opens doors between them. The controls don't require the speed or precision of a conventional shooter, so nothing is lost in the transition from the PC. And since this is easily one of the year's best games, it's reason enough to get The Orange Box. It might be a short, but it packs into its four hours some wondrous, brain-bending puzzles and one of the most satisfying and memorable conclusions to grace any videogame.

But other than Portal, it's almost as if Valve was trying to make a case for shooters staying on the PC, where we can play them with keyboards and mice. There are certainly shooters that work with a gamepad, but they're either built for it, or carefully adapted. Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 are neither. Fortunately, the sheer quantity of content and the quality of Valve's games ultimately redeem The Orange Box. It's just a shame that it's not better suited to the Xbox 360.

This review was based on a retail copy provided by the publisher.