I recently picked up Valve’s The Orange Box from Circuit City. This has to be one of the best deals I’ve ever seen. The Orange Box contains five games! The full version of Half-Life 2, the first dose of episodic content Episode 1, and the follow-up Episode 2. Team Fortress Classic is back and running on the HL2 engine, and there’s a new mind-bending puzzle game, Portal.

A major selling point for me was TF2, I had such a blast playing the old Team Fortress. This was the very first FPS (first person shooter) to introduce a class system where players can take on different roles to help their team. Previously these types of games involved players running around in death match mode, nothing special. The updated Team Fortress 2 takes advantage of all the innovations in the genre and adds serious style for a well polished, super fun game. Players can assume the role of the slow moving Heavy Weapons Guy or the ultra speedy Scout. You can stealth around as a Spy, or go all out as a Pyro. No matter what your style of play, there will be a class that you’ll like. Check out the full list of classes here.

Occasionally a game comes along and really surprises you, such is the case of the critically acclaimed Portal. One gaming blog proclaims “there are two types of people in the world, those who haven’t played Portal and those who are completely obsessed with the game”. I have to admit being in the latter group. Portal is like playing tag in a MC Escher drawing. This game sucks you in and won’t let go, even when you fail the same mission several times in a row, you can’t stop until you reach the goal. If you’re dying to see what all the hype is about, check out this Flash version. Its not nearly as cool, but you get the idea of the kinds of puzzles you’ll have to solve.

This Space Invaders pumpkin is great, almost as good as the Gears of War pumpkin KG and I carved. Steve and Melissa did a pretty decent job on their Zombie pumpkin as well. Third place in the contest was my brother’s “holiday” pumpkin. Actually thats not true. Aunt Sheri declared us a three-way tie. Here are all three pumpkins lit up.

Speaking of pumpkins, one of my favorite websites around this time of year is Extreme Pumpkins. They have a huge gallery of masterpiece carvings like this collection of horror villains.

There is a big UFC card this weekend in Cincinnati. Its a rematch between former Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin and the guy who pummeled him into submission and current champ Anderson Silva. Rich is a beloved former champ who will be trying to reclaim former glory fighting in his hometown. Kevin Iole has a great article on the lead up to the fight and Franklin’s preparation. Watching the last fight and seeing Franklin take a horrendous beating and now seeing him rematch for the belt in the city where he lives is reminiscent of a Rocky movie. This should be awesome!