If you checked out yesterday's
video trailer of Portal then you will most probably agree that the growing hype surrounding Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is more than justified.
Portal, if you are not already aware, is one of the two extra games which will come bundled along with HL2: Episode 2. If you never saw the trailer, all we can say is, stop what you are doing for five minutes and go and look at it.
We think you will agree with us that the trailer pretty much confirms that truly innovative game design is far from dead and buried (as many industry cynics would have us believe).
And should you need further evidence for this, then all we would urge you to do would be to check out today's trailer of the other 'free' game which comes in the HL2: Episode 2 package - the Pixar-inspired stylistic Team Fortress 2.
Valve's Source-powered Team Fortress 2 should hopefully be available this Christmas for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 (we are trying to get confirmation on this at time of going to press) along with - wait for it - HL2 with Episodes 1 & 2 tacked on, plus the awesome-looking Portal which we showed you yesterday.
Valve's PR department is claiming that all the footage shown in this trailer was created using Source, with the depth of field and motion blur having been applied via post-processing features built into the Source engine technology. And who are we to doubt them, they've never let us down in the past.
Check the trailer right here, and keep it locked for more HL2: Episode 2 updates as soon as we get them.
MPEG4 XviD (12.0MB)
Windows Media (9.9MB)