For people who have been waiting for Half-life 2: Episode 2 to be released, you may now pre-purchase the Orange Box package on Steam. The Orange Box contains Half-life 2, HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Portal, and the long awaited Team Fortress 2 (and you thought Duke Nukem Forever would be out first, eh?). Pre-purchasing the Orange Box allows you to pre-load the HL2 content to your computer and be ready to play when it is released on October 10, 2007. You are also allowed to participate in the TF2 beta starting Monday, September 17th. Individually these games are $130US, but the Orange Box price with pre-purchase discount is only $45US. If you haven’t yet jumped on the Half-life bandwagon yet, other Half-life 2 packages with Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and all of the original Half-life releases are available too.

Also guaranteed to delight TFC aficionados is the release of Fortress Forever, a free Team Fortress Classic mod for Half-life 2. The updated look-and-feel of HL2 with the very familiar classes and maps of TFC make FF impossible for nostalgic TFC gamers–such as myself–to resist. (I think the Half-life deathmatch servers are going to be very quiet from now on.) You can download Fortress Forever from FilePlanet. And if you can’t remember the last time that you updated your ATI or nVidia graphics card drivers, it’s time.

If you see DarthDemo on a FF or TF2 server, be sure to say “Hi!” and I’ll be happy to frag ya! ;)