Half-Life 2: Ep Two Comes to PS3, 360

And there will be a lot of extra stuff coming along with it, including a little something called Team Fortress 2.

To paraphrase the idiom, games cannot live by digital distribution alone, and now the biggest of them all is branching out from its servers and into boxes you can pick up at a store. Good news, shooter fans, Half-Life 2: Episode Two is coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The news came at EA's lavish Summer Showcase, which is running this week in the US. Valve's outspoken commander, Gabe Newell, said that the latest of the Half-Life 2 episodic content would hit PC and the two next-gen systems simultaneously, according to a report at GameSpot.

But what if you missed out on Episode One because of your hardware inclination? No problem. According to GameSpot, the game will include all the content that's come before, essentially catching you up on the whole Half-Life 2 experience.

The timing is serendipitous. The announcement was made to bring Half-Life 2: Episode Two into stores just as Epic Games' Mark Rein, speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton this week, called digital distribution and episodic content a failed business model.

To add some heft to the package, Valve is reportedly bundling a lot of other stuff with Half-Life 2: Episode Two, including the multiplayer game Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike: Source, and a new game called Portals, which apparently uses a game equipped with a portal-maker letting you zip through levels in mind-frying fashion.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games