Valve dishes out a whole lot of Half-Life goodness

In a recent conference held by EA at Redwood City, Valve’s head honcho Gabe Newell opened up a can of Half Life with a whole lot of announcements that took the crowd by storm, the first bieng the availability of HL2: Episode 2 on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The console version of Episode 2 will ship with the original HL2 and HL2: EP1 as well. If you though that was good news, brace yourself for this. Remember Team Fortress? Yeah, that’s now going to ship with EP2 and here’s the official word from gamespot.com: Team Fortress 2 is back and will be included with Episode Two, and it looks like nothing else on the market. Newell explained that Valve wanted to make this action game distinct, so the graphics look like a Pixar animated movie. To reinforce this, the various character classes in the game look like cartoon caricatures. These include the Medic with the huge needle or the Demoman with the sticks of explosives. Other classes include the Heavy, the Spy, the Scout, the Engineer, the Sniper, the Soldier, and the Pyro. Wait, wait it’s not over yet. Here’s a list of stuff you could expect in the coming months: A new “cinematic physics” system for the Source engine, courtesy of WETA (LOTR trilogy) A new particle system and better foliage for Source A new game called Portal that’ll combine Prey’s disorienting portal-travel with the Gravity Gun (keep them barf bags ready people). This game will ship with Episode 2.