Oh. My. God.
You do know what day tomorrow is, don't you?
Why, it's Portal 2 day! :D
Have you been doing your homework in readiness? Have you been duly replaying one of the most significant video games of the past decade? Come on: it'll only take you a couple of hours. Lay off your latest rewatch of Beyond Reanimator tonight and get reacquainted with GLaDOS and Chell!
If you're up for a few new challenges to ease your your puzzle-solvin' noggin into the mind-bending of Portal 2 proper, you can download Portal: Still Alive on XBLA for thirteen new challenge rooms in exchange for a few puny spacebucks.
If that's not enough to satisfy you, or else you're too cheap, or just can't be arsed, well. There's this, too. Portal 2: Lab Rat is a short comic book which serves to bridge the gap between the events of Portal 2 and its storied predecessor. It's by Powers co-creator Michael Avon Oeming and it's really quite good. Fascinating - and funny, that too.
Oh, and free as a bird over on IGN right now.
Wait, you want more?
Well, I guess. Here's a neat Quick Look at Portal 2 from the folks at Valve and Giant Bomb, for instance. It's a good laugh, if a little spoilery.
For myself, I've done all of the above this past week. I've replayed Portal, read the comic book, watched the Quick Look. I've even gone above and beyond. Here, for instance, is my coffee mug, as of this morning:
Let us all eat cake once more! Or else be cruelly deprived of cake by an adorable yet unabashedly evil AI whose promises us cake though in truth he means us ill! :)
So, do you think Portal 2 will live up to the huge success of the little game that could? The game that gave us companion cubes, the song "Still Alive" and the long-con of the cake?
Me? I really think it might. I have faith in these Valve folks. They tend not to release anything till it's good and cooked... golden-brown like demerara sugar... on a cake.
I've played for about 3 hours, and it's amazing. It's like Portal but bigger and better in basically every way.
ReplyDeleteI like Portal. I like bigger and better. So why can I not play till tomorrow? :(
ReplyDeleteBah. Who'd want to live in Britain, eh?
Hey Niall how is Crysis 2? Story - by Richard Morgan - any good? Considering his novels I am expecting good things....
ReplyDeleteMarduk - Crysis 2 was pretty awesome. But uh, not because of the story, such as it was. That bit was gibberish. But the game: great! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to have a full-fledged review of Crysis 2 up sometime next week, but that's assuming I don't get altogether distracted by Portal 2 and Embassytown. Which I very probably will, if I'm honest. Still. Sometime soon...
Thanks Niall. I am surprised, but not surprised if you know what I mean. I expected better in that respect, especially since Morgan trashed the storylines of games like Halo. And now for the game where he penned the story... hmmm. But yeah I played the multiplayer demo and it did seem pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to Portal 2 as well. Although I am still playing Reach! Got it's claws in me it has