For those who don't know yet, Valve is releasing Half-Life 2: Episode Two by the 4th Trimester of 2006 and with it comes Team Fortress 2 and Portal. If the price for Episode Two is the same as for Episode One ($20) then it will be worth those $20 (which unfortunately wasn't the case with EP1).

As you know Prey introduced us the 'portal' gameplay concept, and now Valve is 'taking' that concept and creating a whole new game based on it, with some cool improvements.

Portal is a kind of puzzle action game built under the Source engine that will permit us to use portals to solve the numerous complex levels that we will have to complete. The new thing here is that we will be able to create these portals 'on the fly' with a 'Portal gun' and we can create them on any wall, floor or ceiling to be able to reach our objective. If that sounds too simple, keep in mind that there are numerous challenge levels, where we have to think and, at the same time, keep the fast-paced gamestyle of the game (which include turrets, traps, moving walls, etc), while other levels will require us to manipulate objects through portals and move them around to be able to achieve our objective.

Well, to resume it, if you haven't seen it already, check the Portal trailer here, and give your oppinion. (If you only watch the first 24 seconds, you will get the wrong idea of the game . Try to watch it all before giving your oppinion)

I haven't had a chance to check out the 'Portal' concept yet but I just wanted to mention that I'm absolutely stoked for Team Fortress 2 to come out.

From the trailers that I've seen so far, that game should be a heck of a lot of fun. The Pixar-esk look, the gameplay retained from the original Team Fortress Classic, and not to mention the original classes, should be a new flavour in the world of first person shooters. I also think that the super unrealism will make the game even more fun to play.

When I first saw the trailer, I was excited like a kid on Christmas Eve.

yea, i cant wait for hl2:ep2 to be release. hl is one of my favourite game series, and i think on most gaming sites they gave it too low rating, as if they were forgeting this is only 1/3 of a game, since there will be 3 chapters....

for portal...cant wait to get my hands on it..