http://www.steampowered.com/

So I'm assuming folks will be happy to get CS 1.6, not to mention Valve is saying they will release some HL2 footage or something through it soon.

anyhow, something of more interest is you can download games and so forth from them off Valve... an official download of expansions such as Blue shift, opposing forces, etc. so if you don't have those, this would be a good way to get them off their site.

I've been using steam for a long time... what yo you mean it's "released" ?

I happened to download the original Half-Life from this yesterday. I figured I would definately have to enter a CD-Key or something before I could play it, but that wasn't the case.

Means it went public. for a while it was in it's beta state and access to it was really limited. Released as in, they are ready to use it for something worth it's purpose. HL2 material is suppose to be released through it in the coming week.

Cool. I've been using it for quite some time as well. I find cs 1.6 to be the best of many releases. I enjoy it more than 1.5 at least.

I hope we get the option of downloading HL2 through steam for a discounted price. I heard that it's proposed, and that that's the whole point of steam, but who knows if it will come at a discounted price or not (say 29.99 without a manual or CD.)

All I ever bought was the original HL. Is there an patch that will give me the updated character models or do I need to purchase one of the later games (like Blue Shift or Opposing Force)?

I got the updated character models through Blue Shift. It's a nice addon - plus the version I picked up came with Opposing force which was also fun.

they released some HL2 footage today. pretty much a high quality shot of part of the footage shown at E3. I would have hoped for new footage, but oh well.