Portal Message Board older than one year ago

It’s out! It’s here! If you a) loved Portal 2 and want more and b) were one of the lunatics who claimed it was only five minutes long or c) felt it didn’t get as hardcore as it might have done, you may in one or all of those cases be very pleased to hear that the official modkit has been released – a flurry of fan-made extra game content hopefully awaits. (more…)

You know, we thought we were pretty talented when we built a papercraft Weighted Companion Cube. Sure, we never actually finished it, but that one corner looked great. Imagine our dismay, nay, our horror at glimpsing the homemade Portal turret seen above. Created by one Ryan Palser, the turret is a marvel of ingenuity, standing over three feet tall and observing all through its laser-infused eye. The damned thing even packs a motion sensor and spouts its iconic catchphrases when someone approaches.

In short, Mr. Palser, you have crushed our creative impulses as easily as we crushed our poorly constructed paper Companion Cube. Congratulations. Those whose creative dreams are not easily squelched can view exhaustively detailed build photos on Mr. Palser's flickr page.

#thisisatriumph Complete with a red laser eye and motion-sensing sound bytes, video game replica prop master Ryan Palser's latest creation is only one assload of bullets away from being a really bad idea. More »

Well, this perhaps goes some way towards making up for the whole over-priced robot hats thingy. The first full-on DLC for Valve’s lovely Portal 2 will be free (on all platforms), and promises “new test chambers for players, leaderboards, challenge mode for single and multiplayer modes, and more.” That news again: free. The list of planned content also suggests there’ll be something a little more challenging than in the main game (the arguable ease and signposting of which we had a slight but affectionate moan about in our verdict yesterday), and a chance to really push Portal 2′s crazy physics as far as they’ll go.

A smart move in terms of goodwill generation, I suspect, and hopefully it’ll be top-notch content too. No exact release date yet, but it’s “this Summer”. Doesn’t Summer start on Monday? Maybe it will be Monday! (It won’t be Monday).

Things that are good + LEGO = Happiness. It’s a sum we were all taught in school, and it’s as true today as it ever was. So when a clever person, Catsy [CSF], builds a customised GLaDOS and Chell out of LEGO, I’m so sold. Have a look at a couple of the splendid results below.

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#portal2 The elaborate augmented reality game that served as a viral marketing device for Portal 2's release was not entirely devised by Valve. In fact, the developers of the 13 games of the "Potato Sack," the group of indie games central to the ARG's final resolution, say they were involved in the scheme's design from the beginning, with quite a bit of creative freedom over how it all played out. More »

#video If the new Mortal Kombat ever makes its way to the PC—and Valve's Steam service, specifically—we hope the team at Netherrealm Studios gets permission from Valve to include Portal star Chell as an exclusive character. This video proves that a Portal gun is perfect for creatively killing your enemies. More »

Okay, what. All this diligent, web-wide meta-potato-harvesting to apparently get Portal 2 unlocked early, and now something’s gone all weird, just when the end was in sight. The GLaDOS@home site is showing the work so far seeming being undone at a rate of knots. We don’t know why, we don’t know the result. But we damned well hope people haven’t spent money on a collection of indie games purely because they thought it would win them early access to Portal 2 that they now may not get.

On the other hand 1) the site now lists ’9 test subjects’ as having been found and 2) the chaps on the ValveARG site are claiming the G-Man can be seen in the background… No. C’mon. We’re being gamed, right?

While the GLaDOS@Home distributed potato-collecting event is still ongoing, hints are emerging that there may be even more to come following its conclusion. Portal 2 being released early is the plan, but could there be something more?

The latest Steamcast (an unofficial fan radio show) apparently aired with a brief Morse Code signal playing over the chatter, which the hosts claim to have been unaware of. You can hear it for yourself below and ponder upon its authenticity, but if it’s real this is what it says:” it’s not over the others have been compromised.”

Ah.(more…)

#casemods Paying tribute to Portal, ulyssanov built himself this custom PC case based on the game that goes above and beyond mere tribute. One could almost say it was a...triumph. More »

#portal2 Portal star Chell is keeping things simple for the game's sequel. Same orange jumpsuit, it's just...rolled up. This concept art for the character shows she could have looked not just different, but a lot different. More »

#art What if, instead of action figures and comic books, our favourite video games inspired classic, dog-eared works of literature instead? More »

#humor When a party's guest list includes Gordon Freeman, The Legend of Zelda's Link, and Crono from Chrono Trigger, the chances of striking up a good conversation are pretty slim, even for gaming's most appropriate party crasher. More »

#portal2 Valentine's Day may mean chocolates and flowers for most, but for Valve — and fans of its spatial puzzler Portal — it means falling through orange and blue holes and tender moments with maniacal AI overlords. More »

#pc OK, so since she IS a computer, Portal's GLaDOS wouldn't exactly need a rig of her own. If she did, though, it'd look exactly like this. More »

This is a triumph: Using the musical blocks introduced in the latest version of indie world-builder Minecraft, YouTube user Tritex989 has managed to re-create Portal's theme song, "Still Alive," in its entirety -- minus some notes and with some transposing, due to the blocks' two-octave limitation.

#clips Note blocks, which play a tone in one of two octaves, were added to Minecraft with the PC hit's update yesterday. Already someone's figured out how to make them play the introduction to the Portal theme "Still Alive." More »

#hotflashes You'd have K.O.L.M., a Flash-based, Metroid-style adventure about piecing together a sad little platforming robot. And while K.O.L.M. may feel heavily inspired by some great games, its audio-visual style helps to set this game apart. More »

You may not agree with YouTube user DemonStrate's methods, but you certainly can't argue with the results: the world record for fastest Portal playthrough. What took you hours only took him minutes -- specifically, less than ten of them. It's kinda the thing of note here.

#clips This Portal player can beat the game in less than ten minutes, with many levels flying by in mere seconds. How can a Portal speed run happen so fast? Break Portal apart at the seams, of course. More »

#column It's happened again: I spent 100 hours on Dragon Quest IX and I'm running out of things to do before I can just go beat the game. Funny thing is, I probably never will. More »

Not only could you own one of the best gaming props ever made (and an even better version of the prop, at that), but you could also help children have better lives. Can you think of a better win-win situation than that? Outside of owning a real, working Portal gun, that is.

#cosplay If you ever looked at 2009's incredible replica Portal gun and thought "ooh, I'd like that", now's your chance to put your money where your mouth is. More »

#weddings Tara and Seth are getting married. They also happen to love Portal. So they hired Gawker artist Sam Spratt to design their save-the-date for their upcoming spring wedding. More »

#screengrab Portal gags are usually overplayed, we know, but this tattoo-inspired piece was too pretty to ignore. By Jimiyo, available later today on Teefury. More »

Students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Robotics Lab have adapted an "on-screen joystick" for use on Microsoft's Surface table with Portal and Flight Simulator. The DREAM (Dynamically Resizing Ergonomic and Multi-touch) controller is activated by putting five fingers on the table. The joystick will then resize itself to the user.

The controls don't look nearly as efficient as a keyboard and mouse, or as comfortable as a gamepad, but it gives a good idea of the interface we may eventually use on the "iPad XL." Check out the video after the break for the full effect (and be prepared to mute the audio).

#clips Can touchscreen controls ever replace—or even closely match—control input from a gamepad or keyboard and mouse? This demonstration of Valve's Portal and Microsoft Flight Simulator played on Microsoft's experimental Surface platform offers hope that it might. More »

#humor You may think that both Portal and Left 4 Dead are recent games, developed for contemporary game machines. Nope. Both are actually remakes of games from the 1980s! More »

#humor Funny man David Thorne received an abnormally hefty gas bill earlier this month. He blames two portals, a PlayStation 3 and Prince Adam of Eternia. More »

Zoë Mode creative director Ste Curran has tweeted some exciting news for PC-owning puzzle game buffs: Chime, the music-driven XBLA block-dropper it created for the OneBigGame charity project, is coming to Steam next month. The game will be available on the service from September 6, and will be up for pre-order there later today.

Chime's a great puzzler as-is, but Zoë Mode is adding something extra-special for the PC release: a sixth level themed after Valve's modern classic, Portal, featuring Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive." As with the XBLA version, 5 percent of the Steam purchase price will go to charity. Sounds like a triumph for everyone.