digitalemur: a yellow coreopsis or tickseed flower on green background (Default)
[personal profile] digitalemur
Back in August when I heard that Jonathan Coulton had released a song for the credits of some Half-Life 2 mod, I listened to it, did not understand it, and liked it anyway. It was crankily nutty in a way that fit my mood WAY TOO WELL at the time.

Still kinda fits.

Yesterday [livejournal.com profile] sstrickl showed me Portal.

Holy crap.

HOLY CRAP.

I was in love after about 5 minutes.

And now I understand the song! (Okay, I had to look up the reference to Black Mesa, but otherwise.)

So if you know somebody who has Portal, and you have a little time to spend watching them play or playing it yourself, it's a short game and it's probably the best watching-someone-play experience I've had.

Don't be too disturbed when I pick lines from that song for my new journal titles. Because it's been 6 months now. And I'm Still Alive. And there is science to do. And the cake is a lie.

Hey look, GLaDOS has a MySpace page! (And there's a very nice little explanatory video there too.)

Update: 5 minutes later, James IMs me. He has a Weighted Companion Cube as his icon. He hasn't read this, he's just had that icon for a while now. Holy crap. He points out that the Portal people also wrote Psychonauts. This makes so much sense! So Psychonauts fans? You should play Portal. Portal fans? You should play Psychonauts. I will just watch and squee. They should mix the two! I know bacon cake sounds like a bad idea but how bad could it be?

Date: 2008-01-07 04:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amethyst73.livejournal.com
Every once in a blue moon, I become sad that I own a Mac instead of a PC.

Portal makes me sad that way.

(I suppose I could go out and acquire an XBox360 just to play Portal...)

Date: 2008-01-07 04:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] digitalemur.livejournal.com
[livejournal.com profile] sstrickl acquired a 360 just to play Portal. You're a grownup, you can do it too if you want! The game is also expensive because it's packaged with other mods. But man, it is PRETTY.

You could also get a 360 in order to play Viva Pinata and Beautiful Katamari! Both are marvelous.

Date: 2008-01-07 04:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] holmes-iv.livejournal.com
And Guitar Hero 3!!!!

Date: 2008-01-07 05:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] grnarmadillo.livejournal.com
I got the Orange Box primarily cause I wanted to finally get to play Portal (though I've never actually played HL2, and it got good enough reviews that I should probably try it sometime). It was well worth it. GLaDOS is hands down the best original video game character in years. When I was a kid, money was more valuable than time, and I would have been ticked to pay for a game that can be beaten in a (lengthy) evening, but nowadays I'm happy to actually get to the payoff in a reasonable amount of time (unlike the most recent Final Fantasy, which I actually never finished).

As to the song, well, it's everywhere, and it's spectacular. :) VGCats made an animated video for Still Alive (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/extras/stillalive.php) (spoilers I suppose), though Jonathan Coulton's version (http://youtube.com/watch?v=bWUcVj31QaM) isn't bad. (Note: Watching the videos probably get the song stuck in your head.)

Anyways, look at me still talking when there's science to do.... :)

Date: 2008-01-07 05:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] digitalemur.livejournal.com
Just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake!

Date: 2008-01-07 06:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] digitalemur.livejournal.com
In the VGCats video the little stylized person is using a woefully ineffective method of throwing stuff into the incinerator. You're supposed to put them by the incinerator, go press the button, and then shoot holes under the item and above the incinerator so it just falls in! Saves so much time!

Date: 2008-01-07 06:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sstrickl.livejournal.com
Well, you do use that method when euthanizing... the... oh, I can't finish, it's so terrible :(

Date: 2008-01-07 06:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] grnarmadillo.livejournal.com
Huh, I didn't think of using portals to drop stuff in. I'd just leave the stuff by the incinerator and portal back over after pushing the button. Guess what the devs say in the commentary is true - it IS hard to convince players to look upwards to see that yes, there's a portalable ceiling there.

That's the beauty of this game, you never know when there's some clever solution you've missed. :)

Date: 2008-01-07 06:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sstrickl.livejournal.com
Well, I don't know whether there's one in the euthanization area -- there probably is, but I also fall back onto carrying the cube to the furnace, especially given the time limit involved (though portals are always faster than carrying!). I'd imagine there isn't just to make it that much more traumatic -- after all, if you could use portals, you could avoid watching the cube falling to its demise :(

Date: 2008-01-08 01:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] digitalemur.livejournal.com
I think the incinerator for euthanizing the you-know-what had a high and rather obscured ceiling over it, so it wasn't an option to do it there. But man in the final battle [livejournal.com profile] sstrickl got pretty effective at placing a thingie, going over to press the button, and then portaling the thingie into the incinerator!

Date: 2008-01-08 02:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] digitalemur.livejournal.com
In general, the sheer number of clever solutions possible is kinda scary!

Date: 2008-01-07 06:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] a-dodecahedron.livejournal.com
Now you're thinking with Portals!

Squee. My brother has had the Orange Box for a while, but hasn't played Portal yet. (!!!) I told him to play it immediately. Me, I'm going to buy it as soon as I have a spiffy enough computer.

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digitalemur: a yellow coreopsis or tickseed flower on green background (Default)
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