A lot has been mentioned in the press regarding the PS3 version, specifically that it was not handled by Valve (the creators of the Half life universe) but more importantly by EA's own London development team.

We should thank EA to a certain degree for at least attempting to port the game to the PS3 platform in the first place, a task made more difficult by the consoles propriety hardware and lack of DirectX support that made the XBox360 version a lot easier to develop and get more playable as a result.

The PS3 version still retains the storyline characteristics of the original PC version which we will come onto into a moment, but it has a few frame rate problems that don't necessary crop up all the time during HL2, but starts to kick in with EP1 and even more so with Episode 2. More on this later....

Storyline

The Storyline is what makes the game win through - regardless of any performance issues on the PS3 version.

If you haven’t played Half Life 1 you may come a bit unstuck to a certain degree because in the beginning there are a few characters that crop up that were in the first game - but this is more nostalgic than anything else.

Valve have managed to centre the storyline around your leading character Gordon Freeman, who never speaks throughout the game but the characters around you fill in the blanks and it works wonders - especially for a First Person Shooter. We won't tell you the full story in detail as it will spoil the surprise, but its one of the reasons to soldier through until the end.

The character animation and voice over acting is superb, more so when the lovely Alyx joins in on the action, we have to admit you could quite easily fall in love with the character and Valve play on this a lot by adding a touch of Mulder and Scully tension throughout parts of the game.

The Games

Half Life 2: In this game you have to reclaim the Earth from the Alien skum that was unleashed in HL1 and even though HL2 is around three years old now it still plays ok, though we forgot how long winded some of the first few levels were, especially when you are stopping and starting on your hover craft - you will know what we mean when you play the game.

PS3: Graphics on the PC are great and the PS3 version is a closer match to this platform than any of the other games in the pack (which we would expect due to the games age).

Episode 1: This time you accompany the lovely Alyx Vance who you met in HL2 and whilst an enjoyable romp through the levels, EP1 was pretty short lived as we could get through this in around 6 hours or so.

PS3: Again the PS3 version graphically was not a bad match here to the PC version.

Episode 2: Once again this continues where EP1 left off, though for the impatient of you the game does open up with a flash back to what happened at the end of EP1, so if you don't want to play the other games you can jump straight into the action. Especially as EP2 was the best of the lot and we would say even better than HL2 and EP1 put together.

PS3: On the PS3 the graphics were a lot worse than the PC master piece (though its unfair to compare the two), everything looked grainy and not a patch on the HL2 and EP1 conversions.

Portal: is the next game up and this could easily be sold on its own, though we feel its replay value would be short lived. Essentially Portal is a puzzle game of mind bending proportions, you have to get through levels by solving problems using Portals (or later on using your own Portal gun), which allows you to transport yourself around the room, it's hard to describe and may sound a touch dull, but this is one highly addictive game.

Team Fortress 2: was the PS3's dedicated multiplayer option and was such a laugh, the game is based around a class based system, so you can take control of multiple charterers with different abilities, such as a Medic, Engineer, Heavy Weapons guy - you get the idea. And then you compete in Control Point (attack and hold all of the control points to the win the game) or CTF style matches.

The graphics are presented in a cartoon style way with loads of humour thrown in, the action is faced paced and you will wonder what the hell is going on in the first 30 minutes of play, but it made us chuckle several times when our player characters got wiped out.

We like playing as an engineer as we could build sentry guns, though being a spy or pyro guy is also funny.

Weapons

Back to the original Half Life 2 games for a second, during the game you are likely to get your hands on some standard weapons such as Pistol, machine guns (with alternative fire modes), rocket launchers etc.

But your Gravity gun, which can manipulate objects (catch or throw), is enhanced in key places to even pick up people and is one of the coolest weapons to use during the game, though for PS3 owners the frame rate problems do hinder its enjoyment to a certain degree.

You can also mount machine guns style posts and drive a few vehicles within the story’s structure.

Controls

The PC version is standard stuff really, so nothing to report here, but the PS3 controller did perform pretty well and we could could get into the action nearly as good as the PC.

Though we preferred the PC version for Team Fortress 2, as we still haven't got the hang of the PS3 controller yet, but it's what you are used to.

PS3 Performance

When we read about the PS3 performance problems in the Orange Box we had to see for ourselves if it was true and unfortunately it is, but not necessarily the end of the world as some people have mentioned.

In HL2 the frame rate drops are not as great as we feared and our first notice of the problem was when we were scampering across the roof tops at the start and on a few other occasions when panning around the screen. Strangely these issues seemed to crop up even though there was not a lot of action going on on-screen.

In EP1 the frame rate drops seemed to kick in more so when using the gravity gun to try and catch people and objects. Due to the latter we ended up being squished a few times when trying to catch steel girders on the elevator stage of the game or falling off ledges due to the shifts in performance.

This is not a major disaster but the PS3 quick save option could of been more useful here (to re-load your position after a death), but the loading times seemed to take an age and makes things even more frustrating.

The loading times also crop up during mid-game, but are not that bad, especially as the PC version also had the same problem on the original HL2 version, though not as noticeable due to hardware enhancements of the PC i.e. faster hard drives etc and the countless updates made for the game.

EP2 is where you do notice the frame drops from the very start and at times you feel like you are ice skating slowly whilst dragging a ton weight behind you. An example of classic forms of old skol lag here, something we have not seen since the days of multiplayer Doom.

Portal and Team Fortress 2 were also hit by the odd touch of lag, but still not enough to spoil our enjoyment.

However with news that EA are bringing out a patch to potentially resolve some of these problems (Bugs) it may be wiser to wait until this is released before embarking on the Half-life 2 journey, though personally we still enjoyed playing the PS3 version, for a start the graphics may not be an exact replica of the PC version but they are still good.

And it also boasts excellent value for money and we liked the ease of access to all the games from the front screen, as soon as you load the game it presents quick access to Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2.

This alone is better than the PC version that requires a Steam account and a fair amount of time to install/download all the updates that have been available for the games.