During Electronic Arts' financial conference call today, company execs stated that they plan to release all of the new games in Valve's Orange Box collection (Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal) as separate retail games for the PC. The three games will ship to stores for the PC sometime before the end of March; no prices for the games were announced. Of course, Steam owners can already pay and download those three games as separate products.
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Eurogamer Said: Valve has said it will definitely be making more Portal, confirming plans to add significantly more than just "a bunch of new puzzles".

Speaking to Eurogamer, spokesperson Doug Lombardi said it was less a matter of if and more a matter of what and when.

"There'll be more Portal, for sure. But the details of that, to be honest, we're still working out," he said.

"The only smart thing we did for Portal was to hire those seven kids and give them the support they needed to make the game."

Unsurprisingly Valve is reluctant to be rushed by a release schedule. It's adopting the same policy for Half-Life 2 finale Episode Three.

"Gordon is our number one guy," said Lombardi. "In Episode One I think we left people with some big questions. After Episode Two people saw it was going somewhere.

"With Episode Three we want to live up to the promise of where we are taking things to; there's a lot of work being done to make sure we deliver on that promise."

He added, "Exact details on what's next for Gordon are a way off; probably months not weeks."
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15th Jan, 2007 The end credits of a game are usually by far the worst part. We're not talking about the game's ending here. Those can be spectacular. No, what we mean is the actual credits themselves. Not only are they the visual death toll of another game over, but all they offer you in consolation is the boring visage of a lot of names scrolling up the screen. And these days it's a lot of names. Back in the 8-bit home computer days we usually got away with one guy's signature on a title ... » Read More

Developers Valve and hardware creator Nvidia have announced a new promotional partnership, including an offer for a free "extended" Portal demo entitled First Slice exclusively available for PC users with GeForce hardware.

Valve says that its regular Steam Hardware Survey shows that the GeForce graphics hardware is used more than any others, and that the deal is intended to "further support this popular PC gaming configuration."
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Jan 9, 2008 If you've got a Steam account and an NVIDIA GeForce card, you can grab a special version of the popular first-person puzzler, Portal. By special, we mean that it's just an extended demo. Still, it's an extended demo for one of the best games of 2008. So if you haven't already figured out why the cake is a lie and want to see why everyone's been gushing about this unique title, you should stop reading and download Portal: First Slice for free by clicking ... » Read More

As if The Orange Box weren't already the best value in gaming, those who have yet to make the $50 plunge can get an even better deal through Valve's Steam service. For a mere $75 gamers can purchase Orange Box and 19 additional titles.

If you already have The Orange Box then you can still get some more Half-Life goodness by downloading the game's main tune, "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coultan at Amazon.com. The entire album is discounted by about $2, available at Amazon for $7.99.
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Kotaku announces the winners of Reader's Choice GOTY for the DS, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, XBLA, PSN, and Overall. (Mon Dec 31 2007)
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Kotaku's Brian Crecente writes:

"Our first-ever Game of the Year awards was a pretty straight forward deal. I asked all of the writers to submit a list of three games for each category and the three that showed up most in each category made it as a finalist. Once we had the list of finalists I asked each writer to go through and order the finalists and then tallied the vote. The one with the most points was named Game of the Year, the runner-up was named Not Quite Game of the Year. The game with the most votes for Worst Game of the Year received that dubious honor."

Super Mario Galaxy won Kotaku's Overall Game of the Year award. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune came as second, it won the Not Quite Game of the Year award. (Kotaku posted the overall results as a separate post, see the link at the Alternative Sources below for more details.)
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ActionTrip's 2007 Game of the Year voting poll registered 10673 participants. 1809 registered users voted for Call of Duty 4, 1279 for Halo 3, 1192 for Assassin's Creed, 837 for "None of the Above", 716 for BioShock, 710 for Crysis, 627 for The Orange Box, and so on. The rest of the results can be viewed in ActionTrip's voting poll section.

¿ People's Choice: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
¿ Runners-up: Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box

¿ Game of the Year (ActionTrip Staff): Portal
¿ Runners-up: Mass Effect, Halo 3, BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Witcher

¿ Best Action Game: Halo 3
¿ Runners-up: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, God of War II, BioShock, Crysis

¿ Best Strategy Game: World in Conflict
¿ Runners-up: Supreme Commander, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

¿ Best RPG: Mass Effect
¿ Runners-up: The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer

¿ Best Sports Game: FIFA 08
¿ Runners-up: SSX Blur, NHL 08, Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008

¿ Best MMOG: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
¿ Runners-up: Tabula Rasa, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

¿ Best Rhythm/Music Game: Rock Band
¿ Runners-up: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

¿ Babe of the Year: Joanna Krupa
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The Bitbag editor picks the winners for:

¿ Best 3D Action Game
¿ Best Racing Game
¿ Best RPG
¿ Best Fighter
¿ Best FPS
¿ Best Strategy Game
¿ Best Sports Game
¿ Best War Game
¿ Best Mecha Game
¿ Achievement In Excellence
¿ Best Handheld Game
¿ Best Graphics
¿ Best Sound
¿ Best Online Multiplayer
¿ Developer Of The Year
¿ Game Of The Year
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The decision is in and the staff of G4 X-Play has named its Game of the Year!
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Dec 7, 2007 [Warning: The text you are about to read contains heady intellectual discourse and is not recommended for anyone made queasy by the discussion of feminist film theory or psychoanalytical signifiers.] Since its release two months ago, Portal has met with overwhelming popular and critical success thanks to its quirky physics and dystopian humor. Yet beneath the mainstream success lies the most subversive first-person shooter (FPS) ever created. Portal is essentially a feminist ... » Read More

7th Dec, 2007 You know what its like. Youve just created a brand new videogame and you want to show it to the world. Youre proud of your creation. Its taken you months, if not years, to make and you want as many people as possible to share in your joy at its release. Itd also be nice to make a bit of extra money out of it. So you start porting it to different ... » Read More

Nov 12, 2007 Weighted Companion Cubes from Orange Box puzzler Portal will be coming to the Valve store soon. In addition, the plush Cube (which doesn't talk and won't try to stab you) will go on sale alongside a smaller pair of cubes made for hanging in your car's rear-view mirror. We need these to complete the Valve toy collection on our ... » Read More

Nov 9, 2007 We love Portal. It is, for all intents and purposes, a perfect game. Though we have to admit it is very short. However, thanks to Valve being the definition of a user-focused developer, an official Portal level-editing kit was bundled onto the web some time ago, and now there's a whole collection of user-made levels to enjoy. But where do you start? Well, we've discovered a 35-map pack (plus an extra map ) and hooked it up to FileRadar, then we've picked out the best five maps ... » Read More

Today Joystiq learned that Bethesda level designer Daryl Brigner had cranked out his own custom map for the game called "Ren Test 2."
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Rumours of Valve's mind-bending Portal game hitting Wii are not true, says the developer's marketing man, Doug Lombardi.

"It's an extremely interesting idea, but there's nothing in product - not yet, anyway," he told CVG. Notice how he didn't rule it out completely? And let's face it, it would work on Wii, just a case of getting the engine up and running.
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Oct 15, 2007 Weve all become rather enamored by Portal, which has been untangling the folds of our frontal lobes since its release last week with Valves Orange Box. While it may appear simple at first glance, Portal is jammed full of subtleties, Easter eggs, and easily repeatable tag lines that have been rapidly absorbed by the Internets collective cultural consciousness. If youve been on the wrong side of the space-time continuum for the last week and have no clue what were talking about, ... » Read More

Oct 12, 2007 Ben Richardson is Content Editor for GamesRadar UK. The Orange Box is Valve's finest hour. Five triple-A games, one package, muchos satisfaction guaranteed. But it's a special bundle for more than simply its value for money, because The Orange Box contains the world's first ever perfect game: Portal. If you've read the discussion GamesRadar had with several mag editors, you'll know how most journalists feel about 'perfect' games and 'perfect' scores. Short version - such a thing ... » Read More

Oct 11, 2007 Want to kill some time without breaking the bank? This excellent free flash game provides a 2D take on Valve's first-person puzzler, Portal. Portal: The Flash Version contains 40 levels of mind-bending puzzles and according to its authors, it has just about everything the real game does (minus the third dimension). Energy balls, cubes, turrets, and the giant crusher from the trailer all make an appearance. Click here to try out Portal: The Flash Version, and find out what we ... » Read More