Valve has released the Orange Box package for preorder on Steam.
$44.95 gets you 5 games, plus an extra little PopCap game called Peggle.

Details-
The Orange Box features three highly-awaited new games by Valve: Half-Life® 2: Episode Two, the second installment in the Half-Life 2 episodic trilogy; Team Fortress® 2, the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map; and Portal, the game that blends puzzles, first person action, and adventure gaming to produce an experience like no other.

To bring gamers up to date with the Half-Life 2 universe, The Orange Box also includes Half-Life 2, the best-selling and highest-rated action game series of all time, and the episodic debut Half-Life® 2: Episode One.

If you already own HL2 and HL2:Ep1, you will be able to "gift" these games to anyone you wish.

Free Update Offers New Community Features for Connecting Gamers

June 20, 2007 -- This summer Valve will ship a major update to its online gaming platform Steam, introducing an advanced set of community features to more than 13 million gamers around the world.

Beginning in July, Steam users can set up their own personal Steam pages and profiles, create and join groups, schedule games with friends, review who they've played with, see how well everyone played, chat with groups, chat via voice, and more. These new community services and features can be used with all Steam games, which include new releases and classic titles from leading publishers and independent developers.

Hookedgamers.com has a short new preview of Episode 2 with some shiny new screenshots.
New vehicles, new monsters, and finally we get out of that darn city!
Too bad it'll be at least September before we can play it.

And of course shipping along with Ep2 will be long (long long long) awaited Team Fortress 2! Hop on over to IGN for a look at the new graphic style and some thoughts on gameplay.

The Tech Report has a nice article testing 15 Core 2 and Athlon 64 CPUs "...in the form of a broad-based comparison of the latest processors from AMD and Intel, ranging from well under $200 to a cool grand, from two slow CPU cores to four fast ones, from the lowly Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and Core 2 Duo E6300 to the astounding Athlon 64 FX-74 and Core 2 Extreme QX6700."

Add 18 different programs for benchmarking and you've got good info for anyone looking to build a new gaming rig.

For more details about the LAN visit exilecomputergaming.com

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