portal 2
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These Portal 2 thigh-high bootie socks will kill you with cuteness
Have you seen these things? You may have, once, but most likely your brain's cuteness centers automatically short-circuited and you blacked out, banged your head against the hard wood of your desk, accidentally unplugged your computer's power cord and eventually woke up, dazed, drooling and slightly dumber, with no recollection of these adorable Portal 2 Long Fall booties from J!NX. Prepare yourself this time, and to guarantee you don't forget them, go ahead and buy a pair. At $10, go ahead and buy five pairs, and wear them all at once, for padding when you look down, realize how cute your lower body is, and you short-circuit, black out and fall. Depending on your height and where you're standing at the time -- 6'4", on top of Mount Rushmore -- that could be a long fall.
Steam Trading steams out of beta in a cloud of, er, water vapor
Steam Trading's emerged from the hot wet clouds of beta after more than a million in-game items were swapped in the first month of testing. Purchased in-game objects can now be bartered between all players of Team Fortress 2, Portal 2 or Spiral Knights and more games will be supported soon. The bigger news is that you can also exchange Steam gifts and extra copies of games you've got -- such as that spare edition of Half-Life 2 that you downloaded with the Orange Box bundle -- as long as they're unplayed. Hey, cash it in and go buy your avatar something nice.
Dan Trachtenberg talks the past and future of Portal: No Escape
Things we knew about Dan Trachtenberg's astounding live-action short film, Portal: No Escape: It's fantastic. Trachtenberg did a fabulous job directing it. It's really fantastic. And that was about it, until now. Trachtenberg opened up about casting, filming, the special effects and amount of time it took to make No Escape in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, and it seems like a modern-day short-film fairy tale. Things we know about Trachtenberg's Portal: No Escape now: Trachtenberg used Twitter to track down his production team, hiring people from New York to the Netherlands to work on the special effects. Danielle Rayne, the film's protagonist (we'll call her Chell), plays Sarah Connor in the live-action T2 experience at Universal Studios. Trachtenberg fell in love with Joss Whedon. Er, Whedon's motto: "You take people, you put them in peril, you find out what they're made of." He plans on making feature films and more Portal films, but not necessarily in that order or entirely separately.
Super Mario Bros. Portal is totally a thing that is happening
You know how we've all seen Mario with a Portal gun before? Well, somebody is actually trying to make that into a game we can not only watch, but play! It's called Mari0 and is currently in development for OSX, Windows and Linux at two-man team Stab Yourself. Mari0 will sport not only the original Super Mario Bros. levels, but also all of the Lost levels -- plus in-game downloadable map packs, a level editor and simultaneous multiplayer for co-operative portal slinging. Seriously, read that sentence again and then click this link. Like many (if not all!) of you are, we're behind this project entirely. Let's just hope we can all snag it before Nintendo's lawyers shut it down.
Proposing with portals: how really romantic gamers pop the question
Unless you proposed from orbit, chances are your marriage request was not nearly as elaborate as Gary Hudston's. And, perhaps outside of 2008's homebrew Bejeweled proposal, no where near as geeky either. Hudston hired a skilled developer to create series of custom levels for Portal 2 that his potential betrothed would have to play through. When it heard about his apparently not so secret project, Valve even helped him secure Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS, to record original audio. You can check out the hilarious and heartwarming video after the break or just play through the levels yourself by downloading them at the source link. Sadly, unless you happen to be the future Mrs. Hudston, you'll be no closer to marrying yourself off after solving its puzzles.
Portal live-action film is pretty much the best live-action film
We must say, if you're currently working on a live-action film based on Portal, just stop right now. Stop what you're doing and watch Portal: No Escape, because this is how it's done.
Bastion's Rucks has a problem with Cave Johnson
Rucks, a.k.a. the narrator from Bastion, is a learned man, capable of technological wizardry and spinning a good tale. He's not the only one of his kind, though, as proven by this video in which Rucks takes none other than Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson to task.
We want to marry this Portal 2 proposal
It's hard to imagine there are still people out there cramming engagement rings into dinner rolls in the hopes that future Mrs. Boring can open it at dinner and agree to a life full of carefully planned monotony. There are people out there doing that right this very moment. But see, then there are people out there setting the bar in the most fantastic ways. One such individual is Gary Hudston, who proposed to his now-fiance Stephanie by commissioning a series of custom Portal 2 levels. On top of that, he even got Ellen Mclain, the voice of GLaDOS herself, to pitch in some custom audio. Truly, he worked hard to unlock that "Got Engaged" achievement. We just wish we could've seen Stephanie react to the whole thing, if only to see what deserves so much effort and love -- not that it's that big a deal to us. We're a pretty cool blog with lots of prospects. In fact, just the other day somebody proposed to us via a custom Doom 3 level! Yeah, you're totally jealous, aren't you? Of course you are.
This is not a test: Portal turrets light up Bastion via Steam
If the humble hack 'n slash game Bastion needed one thing to take it from great to awesome, it was more Portal turrets. In a quest exclusive to the Steam version of Bastion, The Kid uses a Gel Cannister marked with the Aperture Science logo that contains "a viscous substance of unknown origin" to portal friendly sentry turrets into battle. The result is pretty glorious, as you can see in the video above. If it's any consolation, the turret at the end seems just as confused about its existence in Bastion as we were, but it's not nearly as giddy with excitement. [Thanks for the video, Michael!]
Portal 2 DLC coming in mid-September
Good news: the Portal 2 DLC hasn't been delayed. Instead of moving it out of its "summer" release window, Valve is releasing the DLC as late in that window as possible. Speaking to Kotaku at Gamescom, Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi said that the DLC, which includes new maps, leaderboards, and challenge modes, will be released in mid-September. That's "still technically summer," he noted. If you're upset about this DLC arriving later than you expected it to, but still within its stated release window, let us remind you: this is more Portal 2, that Valve is giving you for free. "Thank you" is pretty much the only appropriate response to that.
It's what's inside that counts: Wheatley puppet edition
After seeing something completely astounding, our first instinct is to rip it apart to see just how its innards work in such graceful harmony with each other. Thankfully, the amazing Wheatley-puppet creator Jennifer Sorrell is giving us an inside look at her personality sphere with in-progress photos, descriptions of materials and process, and humble assertions (lies) that her Wheatley didn't turn out to be perfect. Wheatley was Sorrell's first foray into puppetry, but we're guessing it's not her last. Check out the complete behind-the-scenes build on her cosplay blog, and request she make a 1-1-scale puppet of GLaDOS next. The office has been looking pretty bare recently.
This Portal 2 Wheatley puppet is the best thing you'll see today
We're not shy about this proclamation: This Portal 2 Wheatley puppet, by deviantART user TRP-Chan, is the best thing you'll see today. Not the best video game puppet, or best YouTube video you'll see today. We mean the best thing! Birth of your first child? Sorry kid, but you're taking second place today. Getting married? Sorry husband/wife, but your anniversary will be permanently marred by memories of this puppet. We're also going to take this opportunity to predict that Valve is going to reward the artist with a trip to Valve HQ because, well ... look at it.
Steam Trading beta lets you exchange in-game items for games
It may still be known officially as "Steam," but after this week's announcement of the Steam Trading beta, we're referring to the service's virtual world as "Bartertown." As of today, Steam users can opt-in to the "Steam Trading" beta program, giving them the opportunity to trade Team Fortress 2 items and Steam gifts with other Steam users. For now, the only game that supports the trading of items is Team Fortress 2, but Valve says support for Portal 2 will arrive "reasonably soon," and that it plans on offering support for "several third-party games in the next few months." Interested parties can participate by simply heading into the Steam client settings and selecting the option to opt-in to the Steam Trading beta. As participants ourselves, for the next 12 hours we'll be accepting any and all copies of full games for a very special, one-of-a-kind Team Fortress 2 hat, hand-selected by the Joystiq staff member of your choice*. *Choice is limited to Joystiq staff members available at time of trade. Joystiq reserves the right to refuse choice based on a variety of factors, but mostly whim.
Valve announces winners of Portal 2 music video contest
In a somber counterpoint to all those cheery Portal tributes out there, Valve asked fans to create music videos for The National's "Exile, Vilify", a spooky little number that you'll find hidden near Portal 2's third test chamber. We've embedded the winner for you above, but we have to admit we're partial to a late entry that was sent to us. As you'll see below the jump, Hae-Joon Lee's attempt may be bleak, but the way it intertwines with Chell's journey is the sort of thing that sticks with you. Don't miss it.
Mega Man with a Portal Gun proves that there are better realities than this one
As if we needed any more daily reminders that this dimension isn't the best of all possible dimensions, Dorkly has decided to drive that fact home by granting us a window into a world where Mega Man and Aperture Science coexist. Come, pine with us for what can never be.
Portal 2 drops to $30 on Steam, bundled with Portal 1 for $35
You'd think universal praise would be good enough to sell Portal 2, but apparently it's just not enough for Valve. The company has dropped the PC and Mac versions of the humorous puzzler down to a wallet-friendly $30. You can even pack in the original Portal – Joystiq's favorite game of 2007 – for another five bucks. Don't just buy it for yourself. Buy it for science.
Weekend Sale Roundup: Origin and Direct2Drive
For a lot of people, Friday means pay-day, which means a weekend full of extravagant spending: a little boutique shopping, perhaps a night at da club, etc. If you're like us though, and the majority of your pay checks are followed by staying in rather than going out, fear not. Huge weekend sales mean you can still feel like a big spender without having to blow an entire check, all from the comfort of your own home. Origin's $5 PC offerings are back, along with a slew of fairly-recent console titles like Dead Space 2 and Portal 2 for 40 percent off. Both sales run until August 9, and every console game purchased comes with a complimentary PC copy of Need for Speed Shift. Direct2Drive, not to be left out of the fun, has both Bulletstorm and Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition marked down to $11.95 a piece. No sale expiration date is listed for either title, which could mean that both are ending right this very second, the thought of which instills a primal fear directly into the shopping cortex of your brain.
EA sees dip in physical sales for Q1 2012, increase in digital
Thanks to a somewhat limited release line-up which included Portal 2, Alice: Madness Returns, Shadows of the Damned and Darkspore, EA saw sales in its packaged goods division slip during the first quarter of its 2012 fiscal year. The four titles (among other back catalog releases) raked in a net non-GAAP revenue of $195 million, a decrease from the $298 million packaged games pulled in during the same period last year. However, a steady increase in digital sales softened the blow to the company's bottom line, pulling in a total non-GAAP revenue of $524 million, down from $539 million from last year's first quarter. EA's counting on both digital sales and packaged goods (supported by big-name releases like Battlefield 3 and the back-on-track Madden 12) to continue to grow as the year goes forward, and has increased its net revenue guidance for the entire fiscal year by nearly $100 million.
10 secrets GLaDOS didn't tell you in Portal 2
You solved all the normal puzzles in Portal 2, which is good for a human test subject. But you want to be great, don't you? You want to be the best tester at Aperture. You want GLaDOS to love you like your mom never did. Don't you? CVG is here to help with 10 secrets to impress in Portal 2.
Link to the Past with a Portal Gun is better than without a portal gun
As if we needed more proof that everything is better with a portal gun, the boys at Dorkly put one in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and the results are awesome. Any weapon that allows chickens to do the dirty work for you is a good weapon. But really, name one thing that wouldn't be better with a portal gun. We dare you. Heavy construction sites don't count. Neither do fault lines. Or volcano cores. Fine, name four things. We dare you.
