The Orange Box—featuring Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal, as well as the complete Half-Life 2 experience to date—is now available for pre-purchase via Steam. Pre-purchase The Orange Box before the October 10 release to save 10% off the regular price and get exclusive access to the Team Fortress 2 beta on September 17.

The Orange Box, penned by IGN.com as “the package which could legitimately be called the deal of the century,” 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. Customers who already own these titles will have the ability to conveniently “gift” them to a friend upon official release of The Orange Box.

Starting Monday, September 17, those who pre-purchase The Orange Box via Steam can download and activate the beta release of Team Fortress 2 (TF2). This year’s most anticipated online action game, TF2 delivers new game types, a signature art style powered by Valve’s next generation animation technology, persistent player statistics, and more.

As a special bonus, those who pre-purchase The Orange Box via Steam will also receive a copy of Peggle Extreme. PopCap and Valve have teamed up to create a special edition of the game cited by MSNBC as one of the “Top 5 Most Addicting Games of All Time.” This first ever collaboration is themed around content from Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal which will positively result in Extreme Fever.
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is now available on Steam.

Offering a unique combination of First-Person Shooter (FPS) and Survival-Horror action, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl gives gamers unprecedented freedom to explore the devastated exclusion zone that surrounds the Chernobyl power plant following a second apocalyptic explosion.
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Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (Stainless Steel Studios/Activision) is now available on Steam. Save 10% when you buy before September 6.

Empires: Dawn of the Modern World represents the only truly global historical RTS where you control unique civilizations across a timeline that spans from the Middle Ages to World War II.
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Safecracker: The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure (Kheops Studio/The Adventure Company) is now available on Steam.

As an expert safecracker, you are hired by the wealthy family of a recently deceased to search his mansion for his last will and testament. You must use your expertise, wits, and puzzle solving skills to crack 35 safes using hints scattered throughout his mansion.
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Tripwire Interactive today released its next update pack for Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, the award-winning WWII online action game. The update includes a new map, a new vehicle and some major graphical enhancements to the game and is available to owners of the game for free through Steam. To give gamers a chance to try the updated version, Tripwire is offering a five-day freeplay period, August 29-September 3, as well as a 20% discount for new purchasers.

The new map – Krivoi Rog – gives players the largest tank slugfest to date, with 16 square kilometers of terrain, 3000 meter viewable range and up to 50 players. This map also features the new vehicle – the German Panzer IV G, providing the German players with some additional fire-power for the mid-war period.

In addition to the new map and vehicle, Tripwire has created an all-new adaptive bloom system for the game’s graphics, making the bloom crystal-clear even at low resolutions. For further eye-candy, Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering settings are now configurable in-game.

There are plenty more changes, updates and bug fixes in the update. Read the full changelog on the game page for details.

Tripwire also announces a six day freeplay period, this Wednesday through Monday. Anyone who does not have Red Orchestra can play the full game completely free for six full days. Simply download the game from Steam and start playing-the freeplay period starts at 1pm on Wednesday, August 29 and runs through 1 pm PST on Monday, September 3. Those who purchase Red Orchestra via Steam before September 5 will receive 20% off the regular price.
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Three new installments in the multi-award-winning Total War franchise (The Creative Assembly/Sega) are now on Steam.

Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms, the official expansion to last year’s award-winning Medieval II: Total War, is the most content-rich expansion ever produced for a Total War game. Kingdoms presents players with all-new territories to explore, troops to command, and enemies to conquer.

Rome: Total War™ is an epic-scale strategy game that invites you to experience the grandeur, glory and brutality that was ancient Rome. Rome: Total War – Gold includes Barbarian Invasion, the first official expansion pack.

Also available is the Rome: Total War – Complete Pack, which includes Rome: Total War – Gold and Rome: Total War – Alexander, the second official expansion pack – together for one low price. This add-on pack casts players as one of history’s most brilliant generals, Alexander the Great, handing them the opportunity to replicate his all-conquering achievements and tactical genius on the battlefield.

Note: Games are not available outside North and South America.
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Capcom’s Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, the final chapter in the Onimusha Trilogy, is now available on Steam.

Onimusha 3: Demon Siege is a fighting game that lets you control the fate of Samanosuke and a new hero, French military officer Jacques Blanc. Both men must journey from 16th Century Japan to modern day Paris and back to defeat the evil Nobunaga and his hordes of darkness.
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BioShock, the genetically-enhanced shooter from 2K Games, is now available. The game is activated and ready to play for those who pre-purchased and pre-loaded the game.

BioShock is one of the most critically-acclaimed games in years, with a 97% average Metacritic rating. Players enter the game as a castaway in Rapture, an underwater utopia torn apart by civil war. Caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically modified “splicers” and deadly security systems, players have to come to grips with a deadly, mysterious world filled with powerful technology and fascinating characters. No encounter ever plays out the same and no two gamers will play BioShock the same way.

Play the demo to sample the engrossing gameplay and narrative set in a vividly illustrated Art Deco underwater world.

BioShock will be available via Steam and at retail in Europe on August 24.
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Update: Before you download this demo, take a look at the 2k Forums. I installed it and wish I had not.

 The demo for BioShock, the genetically-enhanced shooter from 2K Games, is now available on Steam.

BioShock will be available via Steam and at retail on August 21 in the U.S. and August 24 in Europe. For more information or to pre-purchase BioShock, click here.
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Updates to the Steam Client have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Steam Client

• Added support for Bioshock

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Attack on Pearl Harbor, a high-speed WWII air combat action game from cdv Software Entertainment USA and Legendo Entertainment, is now on Steam. The game offers players four campaigns packed with a wide variety of missions to keep pilots glued to their seats as they fend off waves of enemy aircraft or perform bombing runs on key land targets and enemy ships. Attack on Pearl Harbor is 10% off through August 27.
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BioShock, the genetically-enhanced shooter from 2K Games, is available for pre-purchase on Steam starting today. When you pre-purchase BioShock, you can pre-load the game to your desktop and start playing the moment the game is available.

BioShock will be available via Steam and at retail on August 21 in the U.S. and August 24 in Europe. For more information or to pre-purchase BioShock, click here.
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Capcom has released a host of free new features for Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, including four new multiplayer maps, a chat system, and DirectX 10 enhancements. The update will be applied automatically when you restart your Steam client.

The update includes:

• Four new multiplayer maps. Map Pack #2 includes Battleground (an abandoned town scattered with rubble from ruined buildings), Lost Technology (a tribute to 8-bit games), Ruins, (ancient ruins set amidst a lush jungle), and Ice Drop (a glacier with plenty of peaks, nooks, and crannies)
• DirectX 10 enhancements. Specialized DirectX 10 Geometry Shaders improve overall visual quality through better depth of field effects and improved motion blurring and fur shading.
• Chat system. A new chat feature includes four default messages that can be sent to other players from the game lobby or while playing.

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