Nvidia Shield to get Valve’s Half-Life 2 soon, Portal going live on May 12

Nvidia’s Shield gaming platform is about to get one of the best first-person shooters of all times, according to a not-so subtle hint by the graphics card giant.

A lime green crowbar found its way into David Ruddock’s (From Android Police) mailbox with a single line, “What would Gordon do?” Gordon is in reference to the iconic physicist, Gordon Freeman, who’s the main protagonist in Valve’s Half-Life franchise. The crowbar also carried the Half-Life 2 and the Shield logo, which is as good as confirmation that the game will be coming to Nvidia’s handheld platform soon. It’s not clear yet if the game will be exclusively available for the Shield through Nvidia’s TegraZone app at launch and later, make its way to the Play Store.

Portal, another highly popular title from Valve, will also be coming to the Nvidia Shield on May 12 according to Polygon . This first-person puzzle game which involves creating portals to get to youe goal and a psychotic artificial intelligence, who’s trying to kill you, is based on the same source engine as Half-Life 2. It was only a matter of time till Valve ported their other popular titles as well. The reason Half-Life 2 is such a big deal is because it joins the ranks of some of the all-time great PC titles to grace the Android platform. Some of the big games in the past include Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, San Andreas and Max Payne.

The Nvidia Shield is the company’s first attempt at a handheld gaming console. It was primarily used as a platform to showcase the power of their Tegra 4 chipset and runs on stock Android. The device consists of a Xbox 360-like controller with a screen mounted on the front. Currently, the Shield is only available in the US and Canada for $199 (aprrox Rs 12,000). With a host of exciting titles in the pipeline and a ton of existing games already optimised for it, it might not be a bad time to pick one up.