DAAMIT repeats Half-Life voucher kerfuffle with Radeon HD

LAST TIME WE had a hotly-anticipated and much-delayed Radeon release, roundabout the days of the 9800, ATI bundled vouchers for Half-Life 2 with its graphics cards, paying a sweet amount of money for the exclusive rights to do so.

This, unfortunately, slightly backfired on the guys from Canada who, despite being merely a stone's throw over the border from the Seattle-based Valve software, failed to spot that the game was going to be delayed by over a year.

This didn't work out quite so bad for consumers, who did eventually get their free copies of Half Life 2, but it did cause consternation amongst the press who, shipped out to Radeon launch parties on the promise of HL2 code, returned with nothing more than a mediocre goodie bag.

But we digress. The news today is that, just as we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our forefathers, the new DAAMIT is set to bundle another Half Life 2 voucher with its new Radeon cards.

The voucher, which AIBs can bundle into their cards for a few bucks, will get the buyer a free copy of Half Life 2 Black Box, which includes Half Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and puzzle-shooter Portal. That's forty bucks worth of gaming goodness, and it should be available towards the tail end of the year.

If nothing else, it does provide the barest justification for picking up a Radeon HD 2900 XT. µ