Alright! Getting closer and closer to release.
Portal 2 – Investment Opportunity Video #2 and #3, Russian Limited Editions, GameStop Ads, and More
News & Rumors
First off, Valve put some of the more notable Portal 2 PAX East previews and hands-ons in this lovely Portal 2 Steam Group announcement.
Trust us, if we would have known they’d do this, there’s a small chance (okay, maybe it’s a slightly bigger chance) we probably wouldn’t have covered it in the first place. Like how Breen could have had Overwatch have a break if he would have known Gordon would take a Stalker pod ride up to Breen’s office.
This week’s Investment Opportunity Video is called “Turrets”. Check it out.
How will the parents get back in? And surely a baby blue color would suit that particular turret better.
In any case, moving on to late news, after EA Germany released the German version of the second Investment Video prematurely last week, Valve released video #2: Robots!
Yes, robots. Automatons, androids, mechanical men, machines, bionic people or just plain bots, whatever you like to call them, it’s all about robots.
Here’s the video in all its glory:
Notice how a shot of ATLAS wearing GameStop’s Rollcage Skin and subsequently hitting himself several times with a frying pan is synchronized with Cave Johnson saying: “Fire the people who made those robots!”. I detect subliminal messaging!
And I’m good at detecting it. The seven men in overcosts are trying to get me, and brainwash me.
But back to the video. Well done, Valve! This looks to be the best Investment Opportunity video so far.
Speaking of GameStop… we talked about their “Rollcage” pre-order exclusive bonus skins a while ago, but following GameStop tradition, they’ve released a horrid commercial for these skins! Yaaaay. Let’s check it out.
Blargh. The skin isn’t that bad, but the commercial really is. We’re still befuddled as to why these skins aren’t available on Steam.
Speaking of pointless pre-order exclusives, remember the Cube Edition? Exclusive to EB Games in Australia?
Yes, you guessed it! Time for more special editions only those other guys can get.
Russian gamers will receive two Portal 2 limited editions. Totally not joking, guys.
Let’s talk about the so-called “Dark Edition” first. Look at the face of evil. Well, more like the cover art of evil, or something.
The Dark Edition’s cover sports a lovely “3D” insert. Our online translator called it “Stereo”. Good thing it’s not Mono or Surround or something.
This insert can be removed from the box and placed on any surface, because the back of the insert is sticky! Yaaaaaay.
It also features some sort of puzzle. See that little white square in the corner, on the box? That’s the puzzle, or as our translator called it: the “pyatnashki”, which sounds like a BIONICLE villain. Grrrr.
It also includes 3 stickers! One shows a test subject being hit by a High-Energy Pellet, or Dark Energy Orb. Another features an Aperture Science Turret opening fire on another hapless test subject. And the last one shows a Weighted Storage Cube falling on yet another hapless test subject’s head.
A bonus DVD is also included, featuring the original Portal and “bonus materials”, such as art, screenshots and videos. Some unique skins for the coop bots are also included, or as the site calls them: “ULC”.
And here is the Light Edition.
Lenticular insert. Just as before, the back of it is sticky, so you can stick it to any surface. Yaaaaay!
Also included is a button with a diameter 0f 78mm. Lovely Russian writing on there, though I’m not sure it’s very classy.
The Light Edition also sports three exclusive stickers, one showing a test subject drowning in toxic waste, another showing a test subject leaning over… something, and the last showing a lovely slice of cake.
And just like the Dark Edition, a bonus DVD is also included, and some unique coop bot skins.
http://gamemag.ru/news/portal-2-dva-rossiyskih-izdaniya-62924
Interview time.
IGN spoke to Erik and Chet about Portal 2’s story. Tons of spoilers here, so you shouldn’t check it out unless you really want more info. Here it is.
IGN didn’t do the interview, however. Funambulism did, and they have the uncut interview at their site. I say uncut because this has actually has major story spoilers, and when I say story spoilers, I don’t mean funny details about the beginning of the game. An actual plot twist is revealed here. If you really want to, you can check the interview out here.
Game Rant also spoke to Erik Wolpaw about Portal 2. Not a very spoilerific article, so it seems mostly safe.
Some interesting tidbits:
GR: Are we going see any hints about Half-Life 3 in Portal 2?
EW: That would be spoilerish.
GR: Well, I had to ask (laughter).
EW: If that even exists.
GR: (laughter).
EW: Just like Portal 1, it does take place in the Half-Life universe, so Portal had some kind of subtle, in-joke, sort of connection to the Half-Life universe, and there will be more of those in Portal 2 for sure.
GR: From the design standpoint of Portal 2, were you are thinking in your mind, “if we were going to make a Half-Life 3, how would Portal 2 tie into that main story line?”
EW: Yes, to a certain extent, you don’t want to do something that is going to screw up Half-Life 3. So I can tell you that Chell is not going to blow up the Earth by the end of Portal 2. You want to leave something there.
But having said that, we do the linkage and do some references but we kind of considered, at least Portal writers do, [that] if you think of it as the X-Files, Half-Life is the ongoing serious story with the characters of X-Files. Then X-Files would have these absurd one-off episodes. Portal is a self-contained thing and that’s the Aperture Funhouse of Science, you know?
Interesting to see actual Valve employees referring to the next Half-Life game as Half-Life 3.
GR: What kind of DLC can we expect for Portal 2?
EW: I think we, fingers crossed, I hope we’ve been saying this, we do have DLC coming out but just haven’t given any details. We’re not ready to talk about it yet.
GR: Without giving anything away, can you tell us whether Stephen Wheatley or J.K. Simmons provided any voice work for the planned DLC?
EW: Well, there are some spoilers there. We knew we were making DLC, so we did record with an eye towards the DLC.
Oh, snap! So it’ll be more than advanced chambers? Nice.
The full interview is here.
PC Gamer also got the chance to play the first minutes of Portal 2. Again, spoilers for the beginning of the game, so watch out. You can find it here.
And PSM3 spoke to Alesia Gildewell, an actress and producer who you may know as the model used for Chell and Zoey. The interview is actually quite interesting and doesn’t focus just on Portal 2. We recommend it. Here it is.
And Gaming Angels also spoke to Erik and Chet, but their site appears to be down. From what we’ve heard, the interview does have some spoilers, so if you’re going to keep an eye on it, watch out. Check it out here.
Sadly, that’s about all we’ve got in our large basket of Portal 2-related news for now.
Stay tuned, as we’re sure we’re far from the end, and launch is still a short while away.
Thanks for reading!
хорошее начало
Hey did anyone notice that in the Investment Opportunity Video #3 right after Cave Johnson says ‘Desert’ the turret says “We’re different”?
i think it says ‘i am different’
It says “I’m different”.
about that edition
first of all, they’re not ‘special’, they’re common, mean they gonna cost as much as usuall and there wont’be any other versions (that’s cool 🙂 )
‘pyatnashki’ is Fifteen puzzle game, so called by russian, becouse ‘pyatna~’ mean 15
‘Lovely Russian writing’ (why button, that’s like badge) says ‘Experimental of the month’
about ‘ULC’, i dont know what is it too, but want to learn (maybe same skins, which are for GameStop preorders i dunno)
sry for my english
No problem about your English at all, and thank you very much for the information!
Hey! You forgot the best part, both editions will cost only 549 Russian rubles! (this is about 20 dollars!!!) Now that’s is REALLY cool 😉
Горжусь Россией!
Really? That’s impressive.
If it’s anymore expensive that that everyone will just pirate it… I was lucky enough to sneak by an Orange Box for 20$ from there, right before they imposed the Russian-only region restrictions…
Btw: you might wanna check this website out, all he news about HL and VALVe, and they are pretty fast to release them
http://www.hl-inside.ru
Damn it no edit button:
Interesting note from that site I pointed you at. According to the onsite poll, 24% of people said that they will pirate it anyways xD
Only games that i don’t wanna pirate are by VALVe, other companies often makes me regret about buying game
*cough* Crysis 2, Bulletstorm, Dragon Age 2 etc, etc… *cough*
I started in that way too, In my country the piratery pays very well since all the legit products are higly priced, if you got a legit game you are either a fan or a collector :b
If we where a more populated country probably Valve would pay as more attention. :/
That’s not really impressive since 549 Russian Rubles is the basic price for a full-length game there.
In Russia, everything is cheaper.
Of course it’s impressive. It’s 20 dollars for a collector’s edition.
its 20 dollars yes, but compare that to the salary in the US (wherever you live) and Russia. In Russia the salary is 750$ per month in AVERAGE, so bringing it to the price in US or Canada it would be about the same price