Team Fortress 2 is alive! And it is coming soon! And more!

I'm not going to bother summing this up. I am actually so excited that I can hardly type right now. To make a long story short, Gabe Newell, our god and savior for PC gaming was giving his little PR announcements at EA's Summer Press event today when he dropped not just one or two huge surprises, but a third absolutely humongous bombshell: Team Fortress 2 is coming.

First bombshell: Half-Life 2 Episode 2 will ship simultaneously on the PC, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Plus, it wouldn't exactly make much sense to just dump Episode 2 on console users in the middle of the story, so Gabe Newell announced that Xbox 360 and PS3 users will get the entire HL2 back story in one shot. That's right, you will get not only Episode 2, but Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 as well in one shiny package.

Second bombshell: Gabe announced that all versions of Half-Life 2 Episode 2 will ship with a brand new single player game entitled "Portals". Portals is a source based puzzle game, that uses the gravity gun to create "Prey" like portals. A video was shown of Portals (in the vein of a training video for someone joining a powerful corporation in the HL2 universe) explaining the game to the enthralled crowd. The video shows a diagram and explains that as an employee of this company, you may have to find the emergency exit to a certain room. However, there are often obstacles in your way, like a gaping chasm. No problem, because all you need to use is your Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device to create dimensional doorways that let you mess with reality. For example, if there's gaping chasm between you and your objective, just shoot a portal on the far side of the room, then shoot a portal open on your side, then enter the portal. You'll instantly transport from one side of the room to the next by walking through the portal (you'll even see yourself going through the portal).

Third bombshell (and the biggest tyvm): Team Fortress 2 lives! Yes! All these years of waiting have paid off folks. Because not only do we get Team Fortress 2 after about 7 years of delay, but we get what looks to be a terrific, fun and imaginative implementation of Team Fortress 2. The game, obviously using the Source Engine, looks like a "Pixar animated movie" with exaggerated and cartoonish class caricatures. The Medic for example, his needle that infects the opposite team, well it's huge now. All the classes we love are back, the Demoman (with sticks of explosives to boot), the Spy, the Heavy, the Sniper, the Scout, the Engineer and of course the rocket loving Soldier. Gabe Newell stated that the goal with Team Fortress 2 was to create the "best looking and best playing class based multiplayer game". Well, if anyone can pull it off, it's Valve and Mr. Newell.

That's about it for now. Gabe Newell said Valve would release more information on all of this straight through to the Fall. Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is supposed to be out sometime later this year. Let's just hope there are no delays with this one.