There's the odd dropped frame here and there, but then, the Xbox 360 version performed in a very similar manner - a touch of lag just before a whopper explosion kicked off, the occasional loss of smoothness as you pan around the scenery - all par for the course when playing Half-Life 2 on console. Half-Life 2 kicks off and it's virtually identical performance-wise to the Xbox 360 game, to the point where I was ready to dismiss out of hand the early reports of the PS3 version's inadequacies. But first impressions of the conversion are actually rather favourable. It's this notion of consistency that ultimately sinks the PlayStation 3 rendition of The Orange Box, because frankly there isn't any. In short, while the PC version ekes out every last frame from your graphics card, Valve has opted to make the older Half-Life 2 'feel' the same as the more visually demanding later episodes. On 360 at least, the engine's performance doesn't radically alter from game to game, with The Orange Box acquitting itself well even with the intense detail inherent in Episode Two's outdoor environments. However, it seems that Valve's aim with their console version was to produce a consistent experience across all three Half-Life games in the pack. The notion that my three-year-old PC ran the game better than the 360 (at 1920x1200 to boot) just seems wrong - I expected more from an engine that performed so well on its original platform. The Xbox 360, by contrast, is pegged at a maximum frame rate of 30 frames-per-second at 720p, without any form of anti-aliasing to smooth off the visuals. The Source Engine that powers Valve's games is simply untouchable on PC its ability to scale the 3D to match the power of the graphics hardware running it is phenomenal, to the point where even a low-power computer runs Half-Life 2 extremely well. Console CompromisesĬontrary to popular opinion, I must admit that my initial impressions of the Xbox 360 conversion of The Orange Box were not that favourable. But as regular readers of Eurogamer will know, the PS3 is often the victim of shoddy conversion work with cross-platform ports that rarely match the quality of the original Xbox 360 code, and the unfortunate reality is that the Orange Box is yet another squandered opportunity and a technical disappointment for owners of the Sony console. In short, there's no doubt that the raw DNA is all there for what could easily have been the best PlayStation 3 game of the year, and it's not as if Sony's hardware hasn't already proven its worth when it comes to first-person shooters and 3D action games: Resistance is a fine hors d'oeuvre, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a stunning technical showcase and Killzone 2 looks wonderful. The Orange Box combines one of gaming's most celebrated first-person shooters with two excellent sequels, along with one of the finest slices of online gameplay we've seen all year and a 'bonus' puzzle game that by itself would score extremely highly were it released as a standalone PSN or XBLA download. It's no exaggeration to say that Valve's work on PC and Xbox 360 is sensational, and a definite Game of the Year candidate. Suffice to say that one of the world's foremost developers doesn't have much love for Sony's latest console offering, to the point where development work for the PlayStation 3 version of the excellent Orange Box was off-loaded to a UK-based internal EA studio, working closely with Valve's original code. Valve: PS3 a "total disaster on so many levels" Valve's Gabe Newell comes down hard on PS3 Google "Valve's Gabe Newell and PS3" and you'll see why I approached this review with some trepidation.
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