Note: This story has now been updated. Gamespot and Bluesnews have both now reported the release date as Fall 2007 and not the Winter.
Thanks to Voodoo Extreme for the scoop and shock.
Electronic Arts, the world's leading interactive entertainment company, and Valve, the award-winning studio behind the blockbuster franchises Half-Life and Counter-Strike, today announced the naming and product configurations The Black Box and The Orange Box, two of the most anticipated action game offerings shipping worldwide in Fall 2007.
The Black Box will ship for the PC, and includes Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box will ship for the PC, PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, and Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system, and includes all the content of The Black Box, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.
Innovative games included in The Black Box and The Orange Box include:
View: Original Story @ Voodoo Extreme
Link: Gamespot Story
Link: Bluesnews Story
Thanks to Voodoo Extreme for the scoop and shock.
Electronic Arts, the world's leading interactive entertainment company, and Valve, the award-winning studio behind the blockbuster franchises Half-Life and Counter-Strike, today announced the naming and product configurations The Black Box and The Orange Box, two of the most anticipated action game offerings shipping worldwide in Fall 2007.
The Black Box will ship for the PC, and includes Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box will ship for the PC, PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, and Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system, and includes all the content of The Black Box, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.
Innovative games included in The Black Box and The Orange Box include:
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two -- the second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17.
- Portal -- a pioneering type of single player action game that rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment - much like how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun reinvented the way gamers interact with objects in the game.
- Team Fortress 2 -- an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games. The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.
View: Original Story @ Voodoo Extreme Link: Gamespot Story Link: Bluesnews Story"In less than 18 months, we've shipped 10 new products to retail outlets with EA Partners," said Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve. "The Black Box and The Orange Box represent a new approach to publishing multiple products, on multiple platforms and we know through our experience that no organization in the industry is better equipped to successfully launch new product types on multiple platforms than EA Partners."
"Valve is one of the world's premiere independent developers and EA Partners is thrilled to help them bring the groundbreaking action games in The Orange Box and The Black Box to market as their publishing partner," said David DeMartini, vice president and general manager of EA Partners.
The Black Box and The Orange Box are targeted for release in Fall 2007.
agreed.
surely it was first supposed to be out winter 06? lol.
I haven't even played episode 1 yet. What the hell is up with all the delays anyway? I mean, aren't they just creating maps and what not. How long can that possibly take?!?
And I'm sure the delay has to do with the console versions. I can almost promise that one.
And I'm sure the delay has to do with the console versions. I can almost promise that one.
if thats the case, why not just release the PC version before the console one? Its not like valve hasn't done that before lol (hence why the console version get all the previous HL game with episode 2 lol)
well its because they have signed contracts with Microsoft and Sony promising to release it all at the same time...
If the console ports are involved its likely that in focusing on them development on the PC front was slowed and as such none of the versions are complete.
Anyway, looking forward for the next episode. But the wait is killing me
If Episode 2 finally comes out and it's only 6 hours long like Episode 1, we will witness the biggest spike in mental instabality our species has ever seen as HL fans around the world go insane with rage. It'll be like Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later, but with less zombies. It's gonna be great.
What worries me is that they're saying Winter 2007 NOW, when it's still Winter 2006! So pretty much they're saying that it's going to take a year from this point, plus all of the time they've had up until now (what is it, 8 months? Something like that) since Episode 1 was released. I thought they said that each episode would come out about 3 months after each other, not 18 months. Kind of defeats the purpose of Episodic content, they may as well have not bothered with Episode 1 and 2 and just made a proper expansion.
By the time they finish it all, they would have been better off doing a fully fledged HL3 as HL2 will look old, tho they can upgrade the source engine more or less all the time.
But considering the whole idea was that we would get content more quickly than waiting for a full game it doesn't really seem to be working.
The same thing happened with HL2 and it turned out very well polished at launch, except for a few hiccups that were fixed pretty quickly.
Not trying to be too much of a nit picker, but you just made one of the grammatical errors that ****es me off the most. The phrase you were looking for is "for all intents and purposes"
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_&#...e_purposes'
It's a common mistake however. They do sound similar. The difference in meaning, however, is large.
"For all intensive purposes" would mean "for stressing the reason"
"For all intents & purposes" would mean "for all pratical reasons"
Very different meanings
Also while HL2 was built on a new engine so was HL2: Ep1. Also follows that HL2: Ep2 is built on a new one as well. Now you can argue that for Eps 1 & 2 that it's not a completely new engine, but each new game does contain updates to the Source Engine, so it's not just new maps & textures, but new physics and abilities built in to each new part of the game.
Modifying a game engine to do new things isn't as easy as building an engine with that capability in mind. That's why estimates change. It is also why they are called an estimate
3 episodes are planned for now. so 2 more left.
Man this sucks. I want to get my hands on Portal
the PC version should be far supiror
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