Half-Life 2 and Portal out now for Nvidia Shield

Nvidia’s portable console, Shield, has been struggling ever since it’s launch, but a couple of games might change the way gamers perceive it. The company received a while back the go ahead from Valve to port Half-Life 2 AND the original Portal to it’s handheld device, and today every Shield user can buy the games and play them no matter where they are.

You’d think that this means that Half-Life 2 and Portal are now available for the Android platform, but sadly, it is not the case. Nvidia handled the ports and made it so you can only run them on their own hardware, much like the case of console exclusive games. Shield owners who don’t want to pay extra, can already play the two games and many more thanks to the game streaming capabilities from a local or remote PC, but that feature is dependent on some form of network connection (local or wide).

What’s weird is the fact that the original announcement only included Portal coming to the Shield, and both companies were silent about adding Half-Life 2 to the mix. Although Portal was one of the most successful games that Valve released in recent memory, but announcing that its most beloved title, Half-Life 2, was coming to the console would have made more waves and get the attention of more gamers.

As it stands, it’s a great thing that you can take some of the best video games in history with you on the go, but it’s sad that they’re limited to the Shield, a platform that sold so few units to count. Maybe sometime in the future the game will be able to escape the clutches of Nvidia and roam free on every Android device, with support for third party game pads, of course. Touch interfaces and first person shooters don’t mix very well.

The games are available in the Google Play Store for 9.99 $ each, and the Shield is available at 199 $ for a limited time, after which 50 $ will be added to the price.