Yep, I’ve finally started digging into that very price-worthy Orange Box, which contains no less than five quality games AND is sold at bargain price these days. It was originally released back in 1865 but as usual I’m not afraid of oldies.

Portal: fun, original. I’m only 1/3 through (and it’s not a big game) and I’m already looking forward to playing the much expanded Portal 2.

Team Fortress 2. Fun, stylish, well-balanced despite having very different classes. Finally I’m playing a second FPS online (the first is Bad Company 1), now I have games to compare.

Of course, playing the three Half-Lives is going to be cool as well but I think that will have to wait a while.

The trailers for Team Fortress 2 are pretty funny. Here’s one:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyNuriXG3BQ]

So I’ve been playing Oblivion for a while. Second time actually, first time was last year but I couldn’t get into it. Partly, I think, because my character kind of sucked. I tried to be cleaver and make a custom-made character that was good at everything, or at least those things that interested me the most. The result was a mess, I wasn’t good enough in anything specific battle-wise so I just lost and lost.

Plus it’s a pretty deep game that takes time to get into, so when losing that initial motivation because of suckage I shelved the game for later continuation. But instead of continuing I started anew, and this time with a better character. A warrior, and I’m also committed to improving precisely the warriors aspects (mostly anyway) rather than diverting the development.

Being a warrior in this game is also good for another reason: the game is very slow. I like that, but I don’t necessarily want to make it even slower by going mage or a sneaking thief. Plus, these traits can be developed later in the game when I’m secure in my warrior-identity. Until them I’m mage- and thief-phobic.

Okay, but enough about that. What about other aspects? Well, huge game world, lots of things to do, so much that you have to avoid doing a lot of things because it would take too much time otherwise. And those are not “meaningless” things like collecting stuff only get a trophy (the game doesn’t even have trophies btw, too old). For example, I don’t do any alchemy. That involves picking plants of various kinds and combining them into potentially potent potions. And like I said I don’t yet try to develop my magical side, although this can be a huge part of the game if you go that route.

Not only is the world huge, it’s also beautiful. The graphic is good but not super, but the aesthetics is definitely great. I can understand people preferring the look of this game to the post-apocalyptic landscape of Fallout 3 (aka “Oblivion with guns”), although they’re wrong when they say the graphics is better.

There is not much to say about the battles. They’re not very demanding in terms of reaction time or anything, instead it depends a lot on the character and gear. Which is good, an RPG should depend more on the character in the game than the player playing the character. The battles are fun, and there’s an arena in which you can compete gladiator-style and rise in ranks and get some cash with each victory.

While I do like the game a lot this time around (but even now it took several hours to get into it), I still like Fallout 3 more. A least so far. A lot can be said about the similarities and differences between these two, but I think I’ll save that for another post.

I leave you with my favorite song from the game:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uCDgiRClYs]

Could also be known as The Return of the Monkey-Ninja.

This is my first game in this classic series about the vagabond prince who isn’t really a prince. In this game he hooks up with Elika to fight the good fight against an ancient evil threatening to devour the world (from beneath perhaps) and all its life, or something like that. Not the most original enemy, but it works pretty well in fairy tale game like this.

During the gameplay I had mixed feelings about this game, but what I’m left with is mostly positive. In the beginning I almost felt quitting, but the game grew on me as I became more and more effective at swinging around like a monkey-ninja, plus I gradually came to appreciate more and more the characters and the game world. Never really got the hang of the fighting though, even though it’s supposedly easy, so that was frustrating at times (but mostly not).

The game is very pretty, the music is mostly very good, the story is somewhat standard but okay, although like many other games I think it could be told more effectively, and character moving mechanics is great, it’s really satisfying pulling of a series of smooth moves, especially involving power plates (won’t explain, but youtube should have videos of this).

It’s not really my type of game, but I’m glad I played it. Surprisingly I got a couple of trophies I wouldn’t have thought in advance, including finishing the game within a certain amount of hours (although it’s 12 hours, but I’m not known for playing fast) and being saved by Elika fewer than 100 times (you fall toward your death a lot in the game, especially in the beginning).

The ending, everything that transpires after the first ending credits (so keep playing until you can’t move the character), is really powerful and surprisingly dark. Definitely a memorable gaming experience for me.

Here’s my favorite song from the game, which also happens to be played during several pretty cool sequences with power plates:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF1zaLoJkNI]