I got The Orange Box mostly because I wanted to play the Half-Life 2 games, but everyone kept going on and on about this game Portal. Friday I fired it up, and now I see what the hype is all about.
Take a first-person shooter control scheme and environment, only don't make it about shooting. Instead, you open two sides of a portal that you, objects, energy bubbles and go through. The goal is to do the right combination of things to move stuff, push switches, get on elevators, etc., to get out of the level. It's addictive like crack.
Diana decided to give it a try too. She's had a hard time with all of the video games she's tried on the 360, and I think I figured out why. While game nerds have been used to it since the N64, she's never played anything with analog sticks before. She's used to one level of stick movement, on or off, while the analog sticks offer a range of motion and control. For example, when she was turning in Portal, she was pushing the stick all the way right or left, and missing where she wanted to point herself. Once she started using the more subtle partial joystick push, she got it. I'm sure she'll get used to it overtime.
We also busted out the DDR, because I need to do anything physical at this point, and she's not getting as much tennis time as she'd like. I still credit (blame?) Kara with getting me into that damn game back in 2003 or something. It's very crack like too.