Mike Patton Talks Nathan Spencer, Portal, Left 4 Dead

Most will know Mike Patton from Faith No More. Many will also know Mike Patton from Tomahawk, and Fantomas, and other stuff, including that fantastic EP he did with the Dillinger Escape Plan. But lots of you guys, well, you'll also know him as a budding star in the "doing voices for games" field. Patton's lent his talents of late to games like The Darkness, Portal, Left 4 Dead and Capcom's upcoming Bionic Commando, and in this interview with The Onion's AV Club, talks a ton about the lot of them. Did you know, for example, Patton didn't really do the voices for Portal and left 4 Dead? He just did a single session with Valve, and they were able to use his animal/monster/growly noises across both games. Link to the whole piece is below, which is mostly game-related but with some music stuff there as well, a good read for game sound enthusiasts and Patton fans alike.

Mike Patton [The AV Club] [Pic]

Portal: Still Alive was announced during E3 last week. It bundles the original Portal with some "additional content", and it's due for release on XBLA. And ever since, PC owners have been complaining, wondering why 360 owners are getting new stuff while they're not. Well, according to former Shacknews boss Chris Remo, the "additional content" isn't necessarily "new content", as he says the bonus maps are those found in Portal: The Flash Version MapPack. Which PC owners can already get. For free.

Portal: Still Alive explained [Remowned]

Speaking with Valve's Doug Lombardi earlier this week at E3, we got onto the topic of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade version of Portal. I wanted to know what gamers could expect from the game and why Valve decided to tweak it for the XBLA release.

"It's about giving gamers more choices, more points of entry to get to the party, open more gates to the theme park as it were," he said. "It makes a lot of sense for us.

"The main idea is that this is Portal available as a download, and there is additional content as advanced challenges that will be available to you after you finish the critical path of the game."

But will we be seeing more of GlaDOS this time around, or perhaps an extended storyline?

"No," he said, breaking hearts everywhere. "That's for a game to be named later perhaps."

To check out our full interview with Lombardi and hear him pontificate on everything from Left 4 Dead Machinima to Steam as an archive for games hit up the link below.

Left 4 Dead May Get Machinima Maker Post Launch [Kotaku]

Portal: Still Alive Dated 2008 For Xbox LIVE Arcade

Microsoft community manager Chris Paladino does a video walk through of Microsoft's E3 line-up. Games mentioned in the clip include: Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Rockband 2, Lips, Uno Rush, Galaga Legions and Portal: Still Alive. Wait, wait, wait. Portal: Still Alive? The game is hitting Xbox LIVE Arcade in 2008. It will feature single player and "a new challenge mode." Last April, Valve's Doug Lombardi stated, "You won't see a new Portal at retail this Christmas because of that. That's the trade off. People want more, but we don't want to give them more of the same right away because that would just be boring."

Thanks Brian for the tip!

Behind the WGA Nominees: Where Were Portal, BioShock?

Get Portal's GLaDOS On Your GPS

If you're gettin' around town via GPS but find you just don't have enough maniacal supercomputer guidance? Should you be technologically slightly ahead of the curve and in ownership of a Garmin Nuvi (or possibly StreetPilot) GPS device, you can now receive your driving directions courtesy of the GLaGPS — Genetic Lifeform and Global Positioning System — a 'bot that does a near pitch perfect impression of Portal's GLaDOS.

Hit up the official site for download and installation instructions, but obviously not before you check out the compatible hardware guide. And the demonstration video, natch.

Genetic Lifeform and Global Positioning System [via Waxy]

Details given to us last night about Valve's rumored casting of the sequel (or prequel) to its Orange Box hit Portal hinted at a big role for Aperture Science's founder Cave Johnson. The potentially spoiler-iffic painted portrait and brief bio of the possible Portal 2 antagonist led us to believe that the sequel may take place prior to the original. Maybe not, based on some rumored dialogue that a source passed on.

Warning: It's all spoiler territory from here on...

A homebrew programmer has cooked up a version of Portal for the Nintendo DS, titled "StillAliveDS." Naturally, this game plus an editor to create your own levels is free and available for download.

You move about the map, aiming a portal gun with your stylus to finish the level and grab pieces of cake along the way (naturally.) DS Fanboy raved about the game, conceding it lacks the graphics of the original but "it definitely has the feel and charm." Hell, I love the look on its own. Has a kind of Cartoon Networky mien about it. I just want to poke that guy in his tummy with the stylus, Pillsbury Doughboy style ...

I drink my beer out of plain glassware, but if you're a Portal fan and prefer to imbibe out of something a little heftier, these $14.99 beer steins are for you. It's a clever little twist on Portal's ... portals, and reasonably priced to boot.

The Portal Stein [via Geekologie]

How Can A Game Be Subversive?

What makes for a subversive game? Borut Pfeifer tackles the question with aplomb over at GameSetWatch, looking at games from Portal to Blacksite: Area 51 to establish the various ways in which games currently convey 'subversive' messages of many stripes:

Is the "insincere choice" (telling the player they have no choice while they actually do) the best means we have to present a subversive message? If we are locked into a rule system by the nature of the game's code we can never change the system, what would be the ultimate extent in this regard? Making a game that allows the players to create their own rules, would almost seem to devolve very quickly into art-piece.

The resulting experience might have something profound to say about the abstract notions of games as a subversive medium, but would it lack enough direction/focus to be captivating in the slightest, and therefore possibly unable to be profound or meaningful to an individual?

I don't really look towards my games for 'subversive' material (having plenty of daring literature bumping around my shelves, sometimes I just want to get away), but Pfeifer provides some food for thought on how a variety games get their point across.

How Can A Game Be Subversive? [GameSetWatch]

Aussie University *Really* Loves Portal

Microsoft Rejected Portal For XBLA

I'd love to sell Portal on Xbox live. [But] the platform holders aren't doing that right now. There's a size limit and all kinds of other things.

Do We Need Boutique Developers?

Michael Abbott has another little thought provoking post over at the Brainy Gamer on whether or not we need 'boutique' developers — just like the heavies of the film industry have divisions that deal in 'boutique' titles:

Portal is a boutique studio project. Valve could have made it bigger, longer, and splashier and unveiled it as their NEXT BIG IP. Or they could have simply bought the team and plowed all those great ideas into the next edition of Half-Life. Instead, they made a game that was just the size it needed to be with just the amount of attention it required.

We need more boutique developers. I believe there is a vital market for such games and an enthusiastic community of gamers hungry for such experiences. Not every game requires a 3-year $100 million development and marketing effort. And there's something to be said for allowing gamers to discover a game and push it forward ourselves. This was a big part of Portal's success, in my view, packed as it was into The Orange Box with much bigger and more recognizable titles.

I'd venture a 'yes, that would be nice'; the question is, would more studios be willing to follow the Orange Box path?

Do we need boutique developers? [The Brainy Gamer]

I swear to God, that's what this looks like. See, Kirby, that pinkish blob in the middle, vaguely phocomelic appendages, with smiling eyes ... and what looks like three members of The Last Family around him. That's a Kirby-Robotron mashup.

Or it's a cake for reader Blue Cheez's birthday, and his friends were too self conscious to provide the Safeway with art samples, so they did the decoration themselves Lifeinthefridge sent the photo of the yummy-looking carrot cake, describing it as a "combination of Olimar & pikmin (Brawl) and Portal," but admitting the visuals didn't go very well.

Either way, I want a slice. But only if it's 100 percent lard icing.

[Thanks to Lifeinthefridge!]

In typical Valve tradition, it won't be Portal with different colours. I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, 'Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.