I would say the Orange Box, because it's five of the most brilliant games in one package. You have Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2, a series which was groundbreaking in the FPS scene. You have Portal, one of the most intriguing and funniest single player games around. And finally, you have Team Fortress 2, the most brilliant, teamwork based MMOFPS ever made.
I would prefer none of them. Most I haven't played, Spore has horrible replayability, WoW sucks the internet bandwidth up and Sims...well...I actually don't know...
Spore, while amusing, isn't a terribly satisfying game. It's a fantastic display of what you can do with a system designed to share user created content - which is what it was supposed to be originally; not a game.
World of Warcraft, while fun - suffers from the same problem every MMO does. You play the game, you hit the level cap, and then you do the same boring thing over & over & over again.
Crysis was entertaining for about half the game. Once it hit the action segments & took away the fun of the jungle, it became seriously boring.
Everquest - same explanation as World of Warcraft; only, it's not as good an MMO, so it gets boring long before you hit the level cap.
Company of Heroes would have been my first pick; unfortunately, the game has been patched to death & the two forces lost the unique flavour they had on release. German units were powerful, allied units were plentiful. Now they're too much the same, and the game focuses more on what the units are, rather then what you do with them while they're in combat. If I wanted to crank out unit after unit after unit and send them at the enemy without paying attention to the combat, I'd still be playing starcraft.
The Sims 2 is fun. For a little while. Until you have that moment while you're playing when you realize you've created yourself... working at the job you work at.. sitting in front of your computer playing video games for entertainment.. with the same kind of stuff in your house/apartment that you actually have. Then it's just depressing.
Gears of War... well.. was.. mediocre. There was nothing special about it. It was very well delivered.. but too 'safe' a product. It wasn't reaching for anything, and for that.. it's just not important.
The Orange Box, is still not all that great, but is the best choice.
Half Life 2, episode 2. I don't think valve have figured out story-telling yet, and it's getting a little old. The gameplay was fun, but they need to get something else in there to keep players interested.
Team Fortress 2 was a huge disappointment. Now, a lot of people would disagree, but most of those people never played TF for Quake, and TFC for Half Life 1. It's the same game. There are a couple of changes, but really... it's the exact same game. I was hoping for something.. epic - and it was just the same product.
Portal. That was the best out of the bunch, and why I picked the Orange Box. New, inventive, cool gameplay, it was funny & clever, and very creative.
definitely the orange box. Just for portal alone (because we all know we can't stop until we run out of cake) and then you also throw in the half life's and Team Fortress 2. spore comes in as a close second to the extreme originality and the ability to just do so much with it.
hate them all. Rather play Runescape cuz it's free.
cheapskate.
it's a tough decision between gears of war and the orange box. i'd have to say gears of war for it's addictive and realistic gameplay. but the orange box is amazing.
