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I bought The Orange Box the minute it was available on Steam, having gorged myself on the Team Fortress 2 beta for some time beforehand. After delightfully romping through the most fun physics simulator on Earth and continuing my practice of acupuncture, I felt I had gotten the most out of the Box.

See, I had played Half Life 2 before, but never felt the desire to pay $10-20 for Episode 1. And honestly, I was just damn tired of killing headcrab zombies.

But I decided the other day that if I was going to sit around and accomplish nothing by playing games, then dagnabbit, I would at least beat some of the many single player games I've yet to complete (see my profile for the full list).

WARNING! Mild Spoilers to follow! 

Episode 1 was all right but not particularly compelling.  So, apparently I didn't really destroy the Citadel, Alyx didn't really die, and I don't get to keep the UBERGRAVITY GUN. Fair enough. But why should I be forced to fight dozens of Zombie Headcrabs in the dark for 3 hours? And why is the final boss of the game an easily-defeated Strider, when I killed tons of Striders in HL2? Lame.

Episode 2, on the other hand, is a masterpiece so far. The story is engaging, the level design seems a lot less forced, and the graphical updates to the lighting and motion blur effects are astounding. I have taken literally hundreds of screenshots simply because I was blown away with how good shadows and draw distance looked in many areas. The use of outdoor environments is superb and the game does a perfect job of letting you know you are about to get your ass kicked, hard.

I haven't beaten Episode 2 yet, so please no spoilers beyond the Radio Tower complex. All I can say is that I can't wait to start waiting for Episode 3! 

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