H-L2 Ep. 2 Delayed

Initially announced for a release this month, Half Life 2: Episode 2 has slipped and now will release for PC, PS3 and XBox 360 this fall.

Electronic Arts and Valve also announced the naming and product configurations The Black Box and The Orange Box.

The Black Box will ship for the PC, and includes Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2. The Orange Box will ship for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and includes all the content of The Black Box, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

Innovative games included in The Black Box and The Orange Box include:

- Half-Life 2: Episode Two -- the second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17.
- Portal -- a pioneering type of single player action game that rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment - much like how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun reinvented the way gamers interact with objects in the game.
- Team Fortress 2 -- an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games. The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.

In less than 18 months, we've shipped 10 new products to retail outlets with EA Partners, said Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve. The Black Box and The Orange Box represent a new approach to publishing multiple products, on multiple platforms and we know through our experience that no organization in the industry is better equipped to successfully launch new product types on multiple platforms than EA Partners.