I cracked open "The Orange Box" last night (for my 360)... The first thing I did was jump into Portal.  At first, it didn't seem like much and was rather wacky.  Once I got the hang of it, though, it was a blast.  Seriously fun game -- just a shame it only took about 5 hours start to finish.  I am going back to play "expert mode" now... I generally hate puzzle/platformer types, but this provides a unique angle on the puzzle idea.

I've never played any of the previous half-life titles before.  I put in Half Life two and played a couple of hours.  So far it's really cool.

If you haven't already purchased The Orange Box, I highly recommend you do so.  Portal is almost worth the price of admission all by itself...

Dude ... check out my review on my gaming blog ...

http://www.dukecitygamerz.com

And yeah, the game rocks ... welcome to the club!

Yeah, the entire orange box is my complete life right now. I'm only not playing it because I am at school... It seriously has everything, Team Fortress covers multiplayer amazingly, Half Life 2 is like an entire world itself, almost never ending, and Portal.... Not only is it one of the most absolutely enjoyable games ever, it has an absoluytely amazing song at the end of it. Even after you beat the 5 hours the advanced stages will keep you at it for a few more.

Orange box is one of the best deals in recent gaming history.

All 5 games are real gems, try some of the time trials in Portal they really good.
You start seeing exactly how blind you were by the second puzzle :)

BTW, that catchy little tune in the end is freakin funny -- as are so many of the comments from the computerized voice.

My fav was the one near the end where she was talking about turning back and remembering all the fun times talking like a teenager. And then you were like... And I was like... and it was so funny...

I'm curious if there have been any games like this previously. I was particularly fond of how the portal works in that you can see yourself on the other side depending on how you work the portal and such. Calculating all the angles, directions, and such in-game must have been an interesting challenge for the developers to be sure they didn't leave any areas that the user could trap themselves or throw the game off in some wacky way.

the only game I've heard of that is like portal is Narbacular Drop which was what inspired/turned into Portal.

The GLaDOS is the star of Portal for me, really really funny, I have the mp3 of that song.

I tried hard to trap myself but the game always gives you a way out :P

There is a commentary mode in the game - one part explains how they had to rework all the physics within the portals "bubble of influence" so that the game didn't slow down.

Yeah, OB is one of the best gaming deals of this year, five games for the price of one... And they are all good? How often does that happen?

Weighted Companion Cube ftw.

I have 80 hours in TF2, from when I started playing on Sept. 17 until now...it's such an addicting game...sooo great.

And yes, Portal is great, and HL2: Ep2 was epic.