I am a console gamer; have been so for over 20 years and I’ll be one for the rest of my gaming life. However, I must say Valve’s rumored “Steam Box” has caught my eye. For starters, there are countless indie gems like Amnesia, Dear Esther, and To the Moon that I secretly, albeit futilely, would absolutely love to get my grubby gamer mitts on. Not to mention Steam’s support of the mod scece which turns games like Left 4 Dead and Skyrim into completely different experiences from the...

Portal 2 is a very, very good game. Don’t take my word for it – read our review. Or better yet, play the game and see for yourself. Then nod in agreement to our review. None of this is very astonishing, though, as Valve has something of a track record with semi-decent games. What’s more astonishing, then, is that in the three years and more between the release of The Orange Box and Portal 2 there have been no more than six major releases that included developer commentary – and two...

In all honesty, writing a review of Portal 2 wasn't going to be as easy as I originally anticipated.  And it was simply because I didn't know where to begin when reviewing a perfect game. Yes, Portal 2 is perfect.  Now let me tell you why. Early on, Portal 2 resembles what could be best described as Portal Revisited: silent protagonist Chell awakens as a prisoner of Aperture Science and is subjected to another round of testing courtesy of the recently reactivated AI GLaDOS. While...

Now that Portal 2 has hit store shelves (and is garnering a lot of attention for Valve's trademark quality and attention to detail), Gabe Newell and Valve are, we can assume, focusing on what comes next. It's clear that with Portal Valve is trying to start a new franchise, and with the retail success of the game, it's practically a guarantee there will be more games in the series in the future. But news broke recently that Gabe Newell and Valve project manager Erik...

Yesterday, my colleague Steve Haske wrote about this weekend’s Potato Sack event and the Portal 2 ARG. He correctly predicted the approximate 12-hour early release for Valve’s first-person puzzler and condemned the early release and the Potato Sack event “a joke”. I understand where Steve is coming from. Without doubt, Valve has been sly and deceptive in its marketing of a bundle of games that Steam users could play in tandem to “help release Portal 2 early”. It was always unlikely...