Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, Portal Delayed

[Shawn Andrich]

Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, Portal Delayed

Valve has revealed that Episode Two and the included Team Fortress 2 and Portal games have been delayed from February to Summer, 2007.

Previously shooting for a February release of the hotly anticipated new content, Valve's Doug Lombardi told CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=148950] that the games have been delayed until Summer, 2007. Reasons for the delay were not given, but the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are expected to include Episode One, Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal when they ship.

Just two months after release in January of 2005, Half-Life 2 had already sold over 1.7 million units in retail sales, not including downloads through Valve's Steam service.

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[Demiurge [deprecated]]

Not really surprising. I'd like to think the real reason for the delay is work on TF2 and Portal, since Episode 2 will probably only be 5 hours of content. I'm sure it'll be worth the wait though.

 

[nbarbour]

Does anyone else get the feeling that Portal is a really bad idea? Especially if that has anything to do with delaying this whole episodic content movement, which is now practically living and dying on Valve after the Sam & Max fiasco..

 

[Goofonian]

Does anyone else get the feeling that Portal is a really bad idea? Especially if that has anything to do with delaying this whole episodic content movement, which is now practically living and dying on Valve after the Sam & Max fiasco..

What sam and max fiasco? Reviews for sam and max were generally favourable and I havent really heard anyone complaining about the episodic content. Each episode may be short by comparison to a full fledged adventure game, but telltale is committed to releasing them once a month till the season is done so its not like you really have to wait much and each episode is significantly cheaper than a whole game (even buying the whole season is cheaper than buying a full retail title and will probably in the end deliver more hours of gameplay than most games do).

Personally I reckon the success of episodic content will have more to do with companies like telltale than it will valve. In the time its taken valve to release two of the half-life episodes, they could have been well and truly on their way to producing a proper half-life three. Thats hardly what I would call episodic, its more like tiny expansions that are few and far between.

As for whether portal is a bad idea, I'm gonna have to say no. I think the game is a great idea. How many other puzzlers can you think of that use an FPS contol scheme and engine? Where valve has gone wrong here is including it as a piece of episode 2. They should have realised how successful steam has been and can be for small games and released portal (and episode two and team fortress for that matter) as a seperate item at a reduced price. Nothing stopping them from still releasing a full priced bundle at a later date.

 

[nbarbour]

You and I are saying the same thing here as far as Half Life 2 and Portal go. I'll even go so far as to say the first HL2 episode was fantastic. But with such a long period in between, what's the point? Another whole game would do just fine. Portal probably will be a blast on top of being a mind-expanding experience. It?d better distributed by Steam on its own power.

Where you're wrong is about Telltale. Favorable reviews read more like tales from banal game experiences to me. When I picked it up and played, the magic of S&M was gone. Toothless, I think was the word Jeremy Parish used. And he's right. Instant-gratification with the promise of more content to come is a great idea, but not from a developer whittled down from of a developer that lost its edge nearly a decade ago.