Half Life 2 Episode 2 Due Out October 9th

Shacknews reports that Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is finally, finally, due out on the 9th of October. The game will release for the PC, 360, and PS3, and will be joined by Team Fortress 2 and the FPS/Puzzler Portal. "Today's news follows rumors originating last month that the PlayStation 3 versions of the games would be delayed into 2008. Valve's Doug Lombardi noted to Shacknews that development has been progressing well on all three platforms. Electronic Arts is distributing the games at retail as a package entitled Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, which also includes the original Half-Life 2 and last year's Half-Life 2: Episode One. It will sell for $49.99 on PC and $59.99 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Previously, the company intended to sell a slimmer package, The Black Box, which would not include Half-Life 2 or Half-Life 2: Episode One, but those plans were cancelled last month. It is expected that Steam customers will retain the option to purchase only the newly-released games."

Comments

Re:Awesome

[j235]

Get to it! See you in 2-4 hours.

Re:Just curious.

[Nos.]

We know its tough to read the article, but try reading the summary.

*yawn*?

[lawaetf1]

I love Half Life, Half Life 2, Half Life 2 - Episode One... but I have to take issue with a year and a half delay between one episode and the next. Calling it "episode two" does not make it episodic play in the sense that there is much real-life experiential continuity between the two. It has been so long now that I've somewhat forgotten how EP1 ended. Something about Alex getting killed (or was that from the preview of ep2?) and a train leaving and everything blowing up? I recall Valve saying they were developing the episodes concurrently but at $50/game and a 16 months inbetween, one may as well call them HL3 and HL4. Worse, the games are not "full" games in that they can be reasonably finished in 12-15 hours.

What made HL great is the more the story line than the software. It should not take over a year to write a new chapter and devise some new maps. If you want to create a true episodic experience, release new versions every 6-8 months with incremental improvements.

Reading this post I feel like comic book shop guy in the Simpsons. There is not an emoticon to describe how I am feeling!!