Like this, but with less athletic ability.

What if by some dark, unspeakable magics contractual obligations ceased to exist and every game developer in the industry was suddenly free to work with whomever he or she pleased? What if the stars aligned and money wasn’t an issue and a development “dream team” descended from the heavens? What would it look like? What would its name be? Could we even play one of Valizzard’s (working title) games without our minds exploding from the awesomenesss?

Before I begin this fantasy cast that will surely enrage more gamers than it satisfies, I would just like to state that I am fully aware of my personal biases; I tend to prefer First Person games of the immersive, ambient nature offered by studios like Valve; I’m also partial to Western titles in general, so there are many Japanese legends that didn’t find their way onto this list. It’s also terribly unrealistic to mash eighteen different visionaries together and expect anything cohesive to come out. Having said all that, this is the sort of thing that’s a lot of fun to imagine and I hope you enjoy my development team. And of course, I encourage everyone to share their own candidates in the comments.

Producer – Gabe Newell
We need someone to put the team together and make sure business goes smoothly, and I can’t think of a better person than the man behind the Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead franchises, just to name a few. Newell has an uncanny ability to spot fresh talent and nurture it (see: Portal, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress), and he always puts the quality of the game before profit-driven deadlines. I trust him to deftly fill out all positions that aren’t detailed in this feature. I also trust him make sure that any dream games that get developed have the best marketing and distribution services available (thanks, Steam). But do I trust him to actually ever get the thing released…?

Creative Director/Lead Writer – Ken Levine
He may be young, but with titles like Thief: The Dark Project, System Shock 2, Freedom Force, SWAT 4, and of course, BioShock to his credit, there’s simply no denying Mr. Levine’s immense talents. There are precious few developers who understand the synergistic relationship of gameplay and narrative as well as he does and even fewer who are willing to tackle the thought-provoking subject matter he has made his name on in recent years. If I could pick anyone in the industry to craft a unique, artistic, and entertaining vision, I wouldn’t think twice about giving Big Daddy Ken (I sure hope that catches on) that position of authorship.

Assistant Director – Josh Weier
After recently reading Akira Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography (totally recommend it), I’ve gained a special appreciation for an assistant director’s duties, even if Kurosawa’s realm is that of film. An AD is essentially a student that absorbs all of the director’s knowledge and wisdom while helping him or her with whatever needs to be done; an AD is just a director in waiting. So what young gun is capable enough to handle whatever Levine assigns him and bring his own ideas to the table in the process? Josh Weier, of course! You might not know his name, but you surely know his work. Hired by Valve in 2003, he’s worked on Half-Life 2, its episodic releases, and most recently, the Portal franchise. In fact, he just had the pleasure of experiencing his first Project Lead role–Portal 2. I’d say Weier has a bright future in front of him.

Lead Designer – Shigeru Miyamoto
And this is where things start to get weird. As Lead Designer, Miyamoto is responsible for developing fun and engaging gameplay systems within the universe established by the Creative Director. The problem is, the most influential man to ever work in video games is fundamentally different from just about everybody else on this list; he just isn’t that interested in telling mature stories. We hail his games as some of the best of all time, but they almost never come up as examples of “art in gaming.” But when we get right down to it, nobody comes close to Miyamoto in terms of designing pure fun. Since my ideal game is both thought-provoking and fun, I’m going to trust Miyamoto to come through yet again and do what he does best. His entire career has been defined by constant innovation, and I think that if he just gives a more serious setting a fair chance then he could not only develop fun game mechanics, but revitalize the bulletfests we’ve become accustomed to in “mature” games with something truly fresh. Shiggy’s the king, and there’s no denying that.

Lead Level Designer – Warren Spector
Once again showing that Miyamoto will be out of his comfort zone in this experiment, my Lead Level Designer gets picked specifically for his expertise in designing non-linear levels with objectives that can be solved in any number of ways. That Deus Ex design template couldn’t really be further from what Miyamoto traditionally does, but frankly, I don’t see much point in making a video game if the player’s unique position of agency isn’t taken advantage of. Interactivity should engage the mind and emotions as well as the reflexes, making a player’s freedom to approach any situation however he or she sees fit paramount.

Art Director – Tim Schafer
There are just a few extraordinary artists out there capable of designing distinct, lasting aesthetics, but there aren’t any as prolific as Schafer. His games might not always play like the cream of the crop, but everything he’s ever put his hands on comes to life with a sort of personality and individuality unheard of in our copy-cat medium. His work ranges from The Secret of Monkey Island to Grim Fandango to Brutal Legend (with much more in between), and if you’ve seen just one of those games, you know that Schafer can craft worlds with unparalleled creativity and originality. Now generally, those kinds of visual styles supplement silly or quirky narratives, but I have faith that the funny man will find the right balance of realism and fantasy for a more serious story.

Lead Character Artist – Yoji Shinkawa
A team of this caliber simply won’t settle for some generic space marines, so that’s why Shinkawa (of Metal Gear Solid fame) will be brought in to work with Levine and Schafer on distinct, engaging character design. A character’s appearance can reveal more about him than his dialogue in some cases, and that’s why Shinkawa’s considerable talents will be needed to truly elevate this character-driven experience.

Lead Programmer – John Carmack
The man charged with bringing Schafer’s artistic vision to life is none other than id’s John Carmack–a guy whose supernatural gift for programming has been pushing technological boundaries for over twenty years. People get real worked up over Crytek’s Crysis (and rightfully so), but pretty much every game Carmack has released in his career (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, all of their sequels, and most recently Rage) has raised the bar for graphical fidelity. In fact, he’s even pushed into the mobile game market with great success as of late, developing an adaptation of Rage that rivals the level of detail found in this console generation’s earlier games. The best part is that you know you’ll always be getting 60 frames per second with Carmack and that all of that silky smooth action is going to look beautiful in the process. The man is a technical genius.

Lead Animator – Michael Yosh
When looking back on games that have stood the test of time visually, animations might actually hold more weight than pure graphical horsepower. In order to ensure that our game has the best animations possible, Naughty Dog’s Michael Yosh will be responsible for imbuing friends and enemies’ movements with the grace only found in Uncharted games. There just aren’t any other titles out there with such attention to detail, and consequently, few characters feel as distinctly human as Nathan Drake. In a game where Levine will surely be exploring themes of humanity, that visual connection couldn’t be more important.

AI Lead – Jeff Orkin
Ah, yes: the job that’s always overlooked by gamers and developers alike. Yet some argue that artificial intelligence is the single most important aspect of making a fun, challenging game. But because so few people share this outlook, there just aren’t many examples of AI that truly grabs gamers’ attention (well, other than bad AI). The one title I can think of in all my years of gaming that really wows me with how good the AI is is Monolith Production’s F.E.A.R.. It may have released all the way back in 2005, but it’s still used as a point of reference for AI combat behavior. At the time, enemies’ ability to take cover, flank, and even make their own cover by manipulating the environment was revolutionary; the AI is so good that it fundamentally affects the gameplay. Orkin was in charge of designing that astounding AI, and he’s the man I want on my team.

Lead Audio Designer – Stefan Strandberg
This position often goes overlooked when evaluating what makes a game great, but authentic, interesting sound effects can truly suck you into a game world more than visuals when done right. Strandberg is the head audio man at development studio DICE, a team known for the exceptional aural qualities of its Battlefield games.

Composer – Marty O’Donnell
Audio designers frequently handle a game’s score as well, but there are instances of a separate composer taking charge of that responsibility. When thinking of the most memorable and effective scores in video games, only a few names consistently come to mind; Marty O’Donnell–Bungie’s musical overlord–is one of them. The Halo games have always have exciting soundtracks that compliment and amplify the action perfectly, but it’s O’Donnell’s versatility and boldness that earn him his spot on this list. Halo 3: ODST might not have set the world on fire, but its noir-inspired compositions garnered universal praise and unquestionably establish a tone that I don’t see very often in video games. I’d love to see Marty branch out even more and mix his orchestral pieces up with some more unorthodox sounds, and I think that’s just what he’ll do as a part of this team.

Voice Actors – Nolan North, Jennifer Hale
You can have the best writing in the world, but if your voice actors can’t deliver their lines with conviction then players will want to skip every conversation in the game (take a tip, Bethesda). As much as I hate to put even more voice actors out of work by placing Nolan North in the last .01% of video games he hasn’t worked on, there just isn’t anybody with as much range or talent as Mr. North (Uncharted series, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed series, just to name a few of his works). Mrs. Hale’s body of work is just as diverse, with the Metal Gear Solid and Mass Effect series headlining her many credits. If need be, these two could probably do every voice in the game without anybody noticing.

Cinematic Director – Hideo Kojima
Ideally, this game won’t have any cut-scenes to speak of. But at the same time, I think that games like Half-Life 2 may as well have cut-scenes if they’re going to lock you in a room with nothing to do while NPCs give exposition for five minutes. The best possible solution would be for everything to occur in-game, but to put Kojima in charge of giving those boring exposition segments some cinematic flair. I’d have no problem temporarily sacrificing control for the sake of a dramatic camera angle or something unexpected and awesome to happen. Nobody does cut-scenes better than Kojima, and he’s even begun to innovate in ways that merge cut-scene and gameplay (the split-screen segments in MGS4). I’m very interested to see what kinds of methods he will employ to garner some in-game drama between North and Hale.

Multiplayer Design Lead – Cliff Bleszinski
A lot of people are irked by Cliffy B’s dude-bro attitude and can’t stand the meat-heads of Gears of War. Too bad for them. Before Bleszinski became a megastar with Gears, he brought the ultra-fast, over-the-top Unreal Tournament series to prominence. He then promptly forged one of the most unique multiplayer experiences this generation with Gears and has refused to let other Shooters dictate his design decisions. Both franchises he’s responsible for are radically different multiplayer experiences with hardcore followings and I have no doubt that he’s up to making yet another fresh experience. But what really secures his position here is an equal attention to cooperative gameplay, as Gears‘ Horde and Beast modes have changed what we expect of multiplayer gaming. He’s a young, up-and-coming innovator that knows how to design fun multiplayer gameplay, and that’s just what he’ll do for this team.

Lead Boss Designer – Fumito Ueda
For some reason, this position simply doesn’t exist in game development–at least based on the research I’ve done. It’s no wonder then that boss fights are generally the weakest part of a game. But that won’t be the case with whatever this studio makes; there will be one expert charged with designing fun and challenging boss fights that capitalize on everything the player has learned in interesting ways. And if you’ve ever played Shadow of the Colossus, then you know that there’s nobody more expert than Ueda. But the real trick to his success is his ability to make his bosses an emotional challenge. There’s no point in writing engaging characters if their climatic moments amount to frustrating patterned confrontations that are there for the sake of being there. Ueda is capable of using epic gameplay sequences and mechanics toward effective emotional resolution. In short, he’s pretty boss at making boss fights.

Lead Tester – Bethesda…ha! Just kidding. Valve or Blizzard
Believe it or not, there aren’t a lot of individuals known for their quality assurance prowess. That’s probably because the good ones quickly advance up the ladder and into other fields of development. So let’s just assign Valve or Blizzard’s QA team as a whole to testing; the game might take longer to release, but it’ll be technically flawless when it does.

And that’s the team. There are countless other developers that I would have liked to include, but I just feel like this team represents the best of the best. Still, I’d love to see some of the following names hired on in supporting roles:

Zafer Coban (Animator), Akira Yamaoka (Composer), Casey Hudson (Designer), Goichi Suda (Designer), Hideki Kamiya (Designer), James Ohlen (Designer), Patrice Desilets (Designer), Peter Molyneux (Designer), Shinji Mikami (Designer), Todd Howard (Designer), Tyson Green (Multiplayer Designer), Robin Walker (Multiplayer Designer), Greg Zeschuk & Ray Muzyka (Producers), Tim Sweeney (Programmer), Dan Houser (Writer), Erik Wolpaw (Writer), Marc Laidlaw (Writer)

Make me Creative Director! With this team, I can finally deliver on what I promise!

I’d love to hear if I missed anybody. Go ahead and dream!

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Okay, that was mean. It’s not even April Fools day. I apologize for getting your hopes up, but that’s what happened to me when I first saw this Half-Life 3 shirt, which was initially spotted on a Valve employee at Seattle’s Eastside Industry Night.

However, the tipster with the sharp eye (head of marketing for Monday Night Combat dev Uber Entertainment) has since said that the Valve employee “knew as much about Half-Life 3 as we do, which is nothing.” Given Valve’s colorful sense of humor, I wouldn’t put it past them to crush our souls with this beacon of false hope, and then when we think it can’t get any worse, they release Half-Life 3 underwear for the low, low price of $20. And you know what the undies say on the back? “Butt a guy can hope, right?”

And in equally mysterious, yet slightly less depressing rumors, there’s the following teaser for The Last of Us, a PS3 exclusive that’s set for announcement at the Spike VGAs on December 10th.

That’s about all we know for the moment, other than a brief clip of an ant getting acquainted with its hindquarters on the game’s website. Internet sleuths the world over have linked the clip to the following documentary, which frankly, would have made a far more exciting teaser.

Moving along to slightly more substantiated rumors, recent talk of BioWare’s new game from a new studio (to be revealed at the VGAs) being an entry in the Command & Conquer franchise is being backed up by some domain names that EA registered a few days ago. Signs point to the title being called Command & Conquer: Alliances. No word yet on whether it will be an awful cash-in Shooter with frisky NPC party members that can pledge their alliance to you given a side quest or two.

Lastly (can’t have it all be disappointing news, right?), in a recent interview with GameInformer, Jonathan Blow said that his highly anticipated The Witness might be coming to consoles after all:

My current idea is to launch on PC and iOS, and then maybe one of the consoles which has not been decided, and later to bring the game to all other platforms. We can only do a certain number of platforms at launch, because we’re small. A few months ago, I was doing all these interviews, and I didn’t think we were going to do a console at launch. But we’re hiring two more programmers, which has a huge impact on what we can do. So now the idea is open again, that we might do a console launch, but now what exactly that is depends on all sorts of business things that we just haven’t figured out yet.

Given the phrasing of “one of the consoles” and an explicit mention of the business side of things, I’d say it’s a safe bet that Blow still has some resentment toward Microsoft for XBLA’s business policies, which he has openly criticized before. But hey, at least PS3 owners might get in on the fun.

Now I’m going to go get to work on printing my Half-Life 4 shirts so I can pitch them to Valve and make a boatload of money when Gabe Newell sees the comedic genius in it.

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Moving too quickly for anyone to stop and question its illogical name! Or its illogical cross-platform play, for that matter; those poor XBLA players won’t have a chance against mouse and keyboard.

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Study conducted by Dmitri Williams at the University of Southern California (2006 sales figures).

Okay, so let’s get this out of the way right now; I am not on some misguided racial crusade to take down the inherently racist and evil white man, because, despite what some of your more liberal politicians might want you to believe, white people aren’t all that bad. In fact, we have a pretty rich history of story-telling. And it is from that perspective, one of appreciating good narratives, that I am appalled by the gross underrepresentation of minority characters in video games. I don’t want to play as a Latino protagonist just so Latinos can feel warm and fuzzy about being a part of video games, I want to play as a Latino protagonist because I think they have stories to tell that bald white dudes don’t, just as bald white dudes have stories that fully-haired black guys don’t.

So now that that’s out of the way, may I ask you a question, dear reader? Excluding Sports and Fighting games (funny how those genres are more appealing to casual gamers), can you name five non-white or non-male protagonists in video games? Go ahead. Feel free to combine every race, religion, ethnicity, or sex you can think of, and produce five lead characters. Now, I’m sure a lot of you probably managed to generate that list (bet you it’s heavy on Asian males!), but could you do it off the top of your head? Would your average Joe Gamer who only buys the games he sees advertised on TV recognize any of the characters you came up with? Of the characters you came up with, are any of them doing things or going places that wouldn’t be stereotypically associated with their creed? Now for comparison’s sake, come up with a list of how many games starring white male protagonists you’ve bought this year alone. Seems out of whack, doesn’t it?

I fully understand that some people aren’t comfortable with the idea of playing as something they’re not. But if you are one of those people, just take a moment to think about this: women and other minorities essentially have to play as something they’re not if they want to play at all. And putting that argument aside, simply ask yourself whether or not you consider games to be art. I’m willing to assume that a good portion of you do. Is there any good, narrative art that doesn’t aim to make the reader/viewer/listener uncomfortable on some level? Intellectual and emotional growth is impossible if we never leave our comfort zones. Do you really think the gay-bashers that populate competitive online Shooters are going to mature if their main source of entertainment annually reminds them that the hero can only be a hetero-sexual white male in his prime?

I don’t think there’s any conscious effort on the video game industry’s part to exclude minorities from their games. I think it has more to do with developers crafting stories from what they know, and as of now, most senior developers happen to be white or Asian males. The idea of affirmative action really upsets me in settings where individual performance is easily gauged through testing, etc, but in a creative environment such as video game (or television for that matter) writing, where individual merit is less quantifiable, I see major benefits to encouraging minority placement in leadership roles. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe just maybe, if we had some female writers creating female characters in our games, we might have more female gamers too. Any profit-driven suit funding the same stagnant games every year must realize the financial potential behind story-focused games that appeal to untapped demographics. Minority developers have something to offer that most other developers don’t based on their unique experiences.

It’s not like the video games we know and love today are going to disappear if some underrepresented folks get a chance to have their voices heard too. Hollywood may consist primarily of straight white people, but I can think of respected actors and directors from nearly every walk of life right off the top of my head (except for Native Americans…those guys really get shafted). Language barriers really don’t seem to be much of an obstacle either. Video games, on the other hand…well, you get the point.

Is it a problem if I can spot more non-humans than brown or black skinned people?

But I haven’t said anything that hasn’t been said a thousand times before. I think that there’s an aspect of this problem that hasn’t really been examined yet, and that’s the very structure of video games. As we understand video games today, the goal-oriented gaminess of our medium lends itself most readily to the “hero’s journey” flavor of story-telling. This ancient brand of narrative is predominately about action, doing things, completing trials–plot. Perhaps if the Black Panthers were looking to make a game then the hero’s journey would be their choice of narrative template, but that’s probably a step backwards. So in my mind, there’s one of two routes to take in the quest to tell the more complex character-driven stories associated with traditional minority experiences: douse the hero’s journey in metaphor and hope that the highly sensitive subject matter doesn’t get misinterpreted and destroy your development studio, or alter the structure of the traditional video game narrative.

If we look to Rockstar as an example of a developer that’s become more interested in character development than an excuse to keep the player moving forward, we might get an idea of what sort of game is capable of telling these kinds of stories. You may be thinking that Rockstar is far ahead of the curve, what with 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas starring the African-American Carl “CJ” Johnson, but not all African-Americans were happy with the portrayal of CJ at the time. However, Rockstar has undeniably refined their story-telling chops since then with Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption, and L.A. Noire.

Arguably, the traditional shooting is the weakest part of all those games and it’s the experience of exploring a meticulously crafted and authentic world that appeals to so many people. Rockstar certainly isn’t shy when it comes to controversy, so why not allow some of their minority employees the chance to pitch a game that could tell their stories? I mean, with the way they make their games, all they’d have to do is create a diverse city with lots of stories to tell (like Liberty City) and come up with some common game-mechanics that don’t appeal to adolescent male power fantasies and they could do endless narrative arcs through DLC that would tell radically different stories for radically different people. Liberty City should be the platform from which they launch dozens of mini games at $15-$20 a pop. Heck, it’s not like anybody plays Rockstar games for the gameplay; how much fun would we really be sacrificing if the developer had to come up with a suite of simple gameplay mechanics that applied to multiple types of stories?

That’s just one example of a potential solution, though. I’m sure there are smarter and more talented people than me who will find a way to implement minority characters and tell their stories in a meaningful way; it needs to be more than a simple skin change (pun totally intended). All I know is that as video game narratives diversify themselves, I’ll have choice as a consumer, which is a good thing. Publishers will have larger audiences, which is a good thing. Underrepresented game developers will have more opportunity to share their talents and stories, which is a good thing. There is no down-side to making somebody other than Cole Train or Lara Croft the most famous minority in gaming.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear any reactions you might have. And check the under-the-radar Amy and Papo & Yo out if you’re interested in games that aim to appeal to more than the mainstream. I also think it’d be interesting to hear everybody’s suggestions on which developer is most prepared to tackle this special genre of video game. Personally, given Valve’s history with characters like Alyx Vance (Half-Life 2), Chell (Portal series), and almost all of the characters from the Left 4 Dead franchise, as well as the fact that they simply don’t make bad games, I’d be willing to see what they could do. I feel like their subdued approach to narrative would also serve the sensitive subject matter well, as it’d be pretty easy to fall into self-righteous preaching and turn people off otherwise. I’m just not sure what kind of game they’d do or if they’d be interested in setting a game in this reality.

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What better way to announce the news that one of the best competitive Shooters available has gone free to play than with one of Valve’s patented “Meet the…” videos? Can we start a petition or something to get those guys working on a full length movie? Gabe Newell could have the next Pixar on his hands here.

Anyways, you should probably go download it now and join in on all the fun. Just be weary of those mega baboon hearts; it might seem like a great idea at first, but before you know it there’ll be mega chimp hearts and mega dolphin hearts and maybe even mega elephant hearts. You’ll have microtransactioned yourself into mega debt with no way of paying the bills other than pawning your less vital organs to a black-market handler codenamed Archimedes.

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A game of this caliber deserves some classy box art to go with it.

If you’re anything like me, then you probably thought Valve put out one of the funniest, most original, and all around best games ever with 2007′s Portal. This also means that you probably had some reservations about Portal 2 living up to that incredibly lofty standard, especially given the dangerous levels of hype Valve created with one of the more thorough marketing campaigns I’ve seen in recent years. But you know how Valve went and made Half-Life 2 better than Half-Life? Yup–they’ve done it again.

Picking up a good many years after the events of the first game, you’ll wake up from a lengthy cryogenic nap to find that the Aperture Science facility is crumbling around you. A talkative robotic chap by the name of Wheatley comes to your rescue and the great escape begins. Despite the very real possibility of brain damage (insinuated by a positively hilarious poke at the Silent Protagonist concept), Wheatley knows that you and your portal gun are the only chance he has of getting out of Aperture. What follows is an expertly paced odyssey through the history of Aperture Science where some friends become enemies, some enemies become potatoes, and lots of science gets done.

You’ll encounter one of the very few issues Portal 2 has early on, as you come to realize just how dated the Source engine is becoming. The lighting and shadow effects are actually rather impressive, but surface textures are noticeably bland when compared to other new games. Valve alleviates some of this by varying the environments with a range of new-aged, industrial, and decaying aesthetics for the top secret facility, but the visuals can still become a little boring at points. But the overall art direction, from the secret messages scribbled on walls to the egotistical self-portraits of Aperture’s larger-than-life founder, Cave Johnson, gives the game-world a sense of history that not many games have.

Vintage Aperture

Fortunately, audio doesn’t grow out-dated so quickly, and GLaDOS’ voice is just as unnervingly cold as ever. While it is true that some of the novelty of her sarcastic, passive-aggressive quips has worn off, she’s still pretty darn funny. And now we have Wheatley’s smooth and sophisticated British accent (which juxtaposes quite well with his bumbling idiocy) and Cave Johnson’s zestful and robust exclamations (a man’s man American hero if there ever was one) to keep things fresh. And as if the vocal stylings of Ellen McLain, Stephen Merchant, and J.K. Simmons weren’t enough, there’s a fantastic and unique score to go with an assortment of cartoonish sound effects that fit the wacky “science” experiments perfectly. High marks across the board for Portal 2‘s sound.

But what really makes this game shine, even more so than memorable characters and laugh out loud dialogue, is the gameplay. The concept of “thinking with portals” was entirely new and innovative back in 2007, and many gamers found it incredibly rewarding to use their brains for once. But Portal 2 is so much more. This game is about thinking with portals, hard light-bridges, excursion funnel tractor beams, propulsion gel (slippery), repulsion gel (bouncy), and $70 million worth of ground-up moon rocks (makes a portal surface out of anything it touches).

Every one of these tools adds a new layer of complexity to puzzles while making a puzzle type that’s completely distinct from the others. Things get even more interesting when these tools are combined in certain tests, such as moving repulsion gel through a tractor beam and using portals to direct that beam over a cadre of hostile turrets so you can kill the beam just as the gel hovers over your enemies, dropping it and causing them to bounce into oblivion. What’s most impressive about it all is how Valve steadily introduces the next mechanic before you ever get tired of the old one, without it ever overwhelming you; there’s just always a new and fun test waiting to be solved.

Equally important in making this game so incredibly fun is the difficulty of the puzzles. There’s a spot-on mix of confidence-building softballs and brain-racking death traps that you’ll swear are unsolvable for fifteen minutes until you realize what to do just as you were about to go look it up online. You’ll then immediately feel like a genius and thank yourself for sticking with it, because really, these puzzles may be challenging, but none of them are unfair. And of the hundreds of tests in the game, you’ll never once feel like you’re repeating something you’ve already done before. Quite simply, Portal 2 is a monument to immaculate game design.

The only real fault from a gameplay perspective is the ease of the final boss fight. While you may want to let the ticking clock hit zero just so you can hear every side-splitting line of dialogue (seriously, at least take the time to hear Rick the Adventure Sphere’s adventure music), it’d be pretty hard to fail if you weren’t actively trying to do so. Even with the various gels coming into play, the challenge just isn’t as complex as Portal‘s dual with GLaDOS was. For that matter, the ending song isn’t nearly as memorable as “Still Alive,” either.

Still, that doesn’t detract from a phenomenal story that has more character and personality than just about any other game, despite the fact that you never see another human being throughout your nine hour adventure. The characters are the star of the show, but the plot’s perfectly paced twists and turns rival any other story-driven game’s, and as stated before, the sense of history in the environments is spectacular. You’ll want to know more about the mysteries within Aperture, but it’s the sort of extraneous curiosity that doesn’t ruin the core narrative.

If Cave Johnson doesn't make you want to do science, then I don't know who will.

But that’s not all, folks! After you finish the masterful single-player campaign, there’s a separate co-op campaign complete with different protagonists. The story for co-op isn’t nearly as developed, and for whatever reason, it’s not as funny as the single-player, but the puzzles as just as fun. In fact, some of them are probably more fun, because working with four portals as opposed to two notches up the complexity a bit. Every puzzle is designed so both players have to participate, and because Portal 2 isn’t a game that relies on twitch reflexes, this co-op makes for a highly accessible experience that non-traditional gamers can enjoy (given that they have some brain power, of course). It can be played locally with a friend, online with strangers (the ability to mark where you want your partner to shoot a portal greatly assists in this), or even through system link.

As far as Puzzle games go, this is really the only co-operative one I can think of, so it’s definitely worth trying out. And honestly, both the single-player and co-op are so good, that even after you know how the puzzles are solved they’re worth returning to for achievements, speed runs, easter eggs, or just to spend some more time with the characters.

Portal 2 is one of those rare games that will stick with you long after you’ve completed it. It’s even rarer because it’s the sequel to a game that did the same. But I can honestly say that Portal 2 is the better game–mechanically, narratively, and comically. There are certainly aspects of the first Portal that are superior, and it’s kind of hard to overlook how down-right innovative it was, but Portal 2 cleverly expands upon the strengths of its predecessor and is unique in its own right. When all is said and done, this is a game that you need to own.

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This NFL draft is too damn exciting for me to think of witty Portal 2 lines.

Boy, am I glad I haven’t bought Portal 2 yet. $35 at Kmart (360 and PS3 versions) beginning May 1st. GameStop will reportedly be offering it for $40 on the consoles and $30 for the PC beginning April 30th. Did somebody portal themselves into Kmart and GameStop’s headquarters and forge some papers?

Oh, you know what else is great. You could be enjoying some Portal 2 DLC as soon as this summer. So get out there and buy that game!

This is interesting: Valve has come out and said that “Portal 2 will probably be [our] last game with an isolated single-player experience.” Given how great Valve’s multiplayer and co-op experiences have been so far, I don’t really have a problem with that. It is sort of hard to imagine Half-Life 3 with multiplayer options, though.

And here’s the third episode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Johnny Cage!

Outland, a game that Ryan and I got some hands-on time with at PAX East, is now out for XBLA and PSN. For $10, you should probably get it.

Microsoft has confirmed that Hulu Plus will be coming to Xbox Live tomorrow. But if you know anything about anything, you’re paying for Netflix, not that Hulu garbage. Feel free to use Hulu Plus’ services free for the first week, though.

Is EA Sports planning a premium subscription service? Even if it is, the rumored benefits don’t sound overly enticing.

And finally, some super juicy Mass Effect 3 details. More dynamic combat with the ability “to roll, jump smaller gaps and dive into cover like Max Payne.” There’s also a new Heavy Melee class that “plays off some new melee moves — kicks, punches and a ‘SWAT turn.’” I think Renegade Shepard has found himself a new class.

Hope you enjoyed all the sorta-news. Now I need to get back to watching the wildest NFL draft I’ve ever seen!

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InsaneBear’s policy on announcements of announcements, Alternate Reality Games, and any other such nonsense is one of staunch disapproval, but I suppose we can make an exception for Valve’s latest Portal 2 ARG. Why you ask? Well, dear reader, just take a look at all the wonderful alternate box art that’s come of it.

I’ve been so kind as to provide you with what I consider to be the most exquisite cover of the bunch up above. I really think that’d be the coolest video game cover of all time if Valve actually had the…gusto to go with it.

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According to Valve’s Chet Faliszek, “The mod tools have to stay on the PC side just because there’s a bunch of dependencies that require the Windows platform, but the content that comes out is agnostic, and so we will be seeing that on all the platforms. Depending on the platform you’re on I should say, will depend on how we’re delivering it.”

Personally, I’m not entirely confident in Microsoft’s ability to facilitate frequent updates and downloads over Xbox Live, given their resistance to Steam and propensity to charge for any and all content. So you should probably splurge out some blue goo and bounce your way over to another platform if you’re interested in experiencing the world’s first portal-based, interactive sexual innuendo. What? You think people are actually going to create real levels?

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Yeah…

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