Swift is joining Airtight Games, the studio behind Capcom's almost-finished jet-pack action game Dark Void. She will be a project lead.

"I've learned so much and had some amazing experiences at Valve," Swift said in a press release announcing the move. "But when I heard I had the opportunity to work on innovative titles with my friends over at Airtight, I couldn't pass it up."

Swift was last seen by Kotaku in Tokyo, where she was demonstrating Left 4 Dead 2 and helping members of this website find a chainsaw with which to slice zombies.

Not that Kotaku was expecting any, but this news sheds no light on a Portal 2, other than to confirm that should such a sequel be made it won't have one of its chief creators involved.

Guido Pellegrini at Playtime Magazine raises that point, among many others, in examining not just the meta-narrative of Portal, but also that of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Portal gets a deeper treatment, but both games deliberate puncture the illusion of control game players feel they have. In the end, Pellegrini writes, we are still following commands, taking cues and completing tasks in order to ultimately complete the game. Sons of Liberty in its way, and Portal to a much larger degree, are completely open about such manipulation.

If you haven't played or finished Portal and feel like you might want to some day, this essay should be treated as one long spoiler (the same for Sons of Liberty). Ultimately, Pellegrini raises this question: Within games is any restriction antithetical to one's freedom to act, or can there still be freedom within those boundaries? It is a question that extends well beyond the immaculate walls of Portal's test laboratory.

Portal and The Meta-Narrative Maker [Playtime Magazine, Oct 23.]

GLaDOS, then, is part adversary, part game-designer, guiding us across levels in an effort to finish the game of portal gun assessment. This antagonistic artificial intelligence is a diegetic representation of the creator or director, shaping up a fiction for the players to complete, providing context, giving orders, outlining our path, introducing complications, playing around with our expectations, intentionally misleading us, and so on. GLaDOS is our ruler and general, our boss. Meta-narrative elements are not terribly common in video-games, although they are not alien to the medium. We need only look at Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to find an especially blunt and grandiloquent example of meta-narrative. In that game, a video-game player - a covert operative who has been trained solely through virtual reality simulations, or so he believes - ultimately realizes that his first official field-mission has been yet another simulation: every battle, death, and confrontation has been meticulously planned by an advanced artificial intelligence hiding behind the human façade of an iconic military general whom the protagonist has only communicated with through Codec, a sort of radio coupled with images of talking faces. The end of the game is infamously weird, culminating as it does with the advanced artificial intelligence commanding us to finish the game by killing the final enemy in a sword-fight atop the Federal Hall. Being coerced into finishing the game by the evil, back-stabbing computer that constructed the narrative we have been playing for the past twelve hours is surprisingly repulsive. We do not have a choice to do otherwise, unless we prefer to shut off our game system. But is this lack-of-choice a departure from other video-games?

Every video-game compels us to complete certain actions in order to reach the finish line. Every video-game controls us and directs our behavior through strict parameters. Even an open-ended video-game is not completely open-ended, only open-ended in the manner and to the extent decided upon by the game-makers. Our immersion into the fiction veils our status as prisoners. Yet we are no more than prisoners, forced to do what the dictator-storyteller demands of us. Now, this admittedly makes the whole business sound much more sinister than it necessarily is - we willingly pay money to be manipulated and led by the game-makers, after all - but it is interesting to note how foreboding and uncomfortable it can be when a video-game opts to make our dependency upon the game-makers a literal part of the plot. In most any game, we would not mind having to accomplish certain feats, and more importantly, we would certainly not complain about having to kill the final enemy, since that would bring upon the much-desired denouement. Alas, in the vast majority of games, these commands are gentle, imperceptible, implied through environmental and contextual cues. Thus, we receive the commands without protest. What Sons of Liberty and Portal do is to actually tell us these commands out-loud, through an in-game director, and suddenly the conceit of freedom that video-games tend to propagate is destroyed. Most games force us to do this and that. The above two games are honest about it.

If there is one divergence between Sons of Liberty and Portal, it is that the former provides no true escape from the fiction of the in-game director. To the very end, we are following the commands of an artificial intelligence. The closing cinematic (a movie-like animation that furthers the story using film language) suggests future freedom only for the fictional protagonist. As far as our interactivity is concerned, we never oppose the computer's authority. Our last action is to kill the final enemy, just as the computer has ordained. Portal, on the other hand, gives players the opportunity to walk backstage - to view the machinery behind the fiction - in order to confront the neurotic puppeteer.

[...]

We must constantly observe the architecture that traps, annoys, hinders, and informs us. Only by doing this can we find the opposite end of the labyrinth. Just as the architecture might facilitate our flight, it is also a participant in our entrapment. This double-edged quality makes our interaction with the environment a passionate endeavor. Equal parts savior and jailer, the environment is the middle-man in the tug-of-war between computer and human guinea pig, as each uses the same landscape to claim victory over the other. It is this battle that is the soul of Portal. The game-designer and the player are constantly at odds with each other. One tries to control, while the other hopes to achieve independence. One tries to dominate through a precise architecture that delimits movement, while the other explores his or her possibilities within this supposedly constraining architecture. The player's performance can flower inside a confined milieu. This happens in every video-game, but this one makes it literal and readily visible thanks to GLaDOS. We wake up inside a game and subsequently form a hostile relationship with its designer. Walking beyond the walls of this game, we find a parent game with more objectives and more puzzles. We wonder if the hostile relationship does not continue, despite our perceived escape. We turn off Portal. We play something else. We keep wondering about the hostile relationship, now in a new context. Video-games allow freedom of movement while restricting its degree. In a sense, Portal is about whether this restriction is enough to stifle any sense of freedom or whether there can still be freedom within restrictions. It is a dilemma that expands to the medium at large, if not beyond even that.

- Guido Pellegrini

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

But it certainly looks like other iPhone ports - less stuff and clunky controls - so if it is fake, at least they got that part right.

The Cake May Be a Lie, But This Video Exists [touch Arcade]

I almost missed the inclusion of Jonathan Coulton's masterpiece in the list of new songs coming to the Rock Band Unplugged Music Store next week, mainly because they tucked it further down the list after the Dixie Chicks "Sin Wagon". My eyes read "Dixie Chicks" and tend to wander off. Luckily for us all I soldiered on, reading about the coming of The Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man", R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion", and "Pride and Joy" from Stevie Ray Vaughan. And yes, GLaDOS, in all her glory. I never truly got tired of that song, and now I'll be able to perform it in my bathroom on a regular basis.

All of these tracks will be available on July 19th for $1.99 apiece, with the exception of "Still Alive", which pays you with delicious and moist baked goods.

ASCIIpOrtal update video 2 [ASCII Portal, via Offworld]

All games included with The Orange Box - those being Half-Life 2, HL2 Episodes 1 & 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 - will now work with the novel controller. And Valve's other big shooters, like Left 4 Dead and Counter-Strike, will "soon" be supported as well.

If that sounds just too awesome to resist, Valve and Novint are offering an Orange Box bundle over on Novint's site, where for $149 you can get a Falcon and The Orange Box.

Unless you don't have $10 to spare, there is officially no reason why you shouldn't at least own The Orange Box by the end of the weekend. $9.99 gets you Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Team Fortress 2, Portal, and some cake.

Okay, I lied about the cake.

The Orange Box for $9.99 [Steam]

Announced to the world back in February, Atlus Online is an online community for fans of Atlus games, role-playing, and anime, three passions that generally coincide quite closely to one another. The company has now completed phase one, which evidently involved plastering their mascot all over the front of the webpage and implementing a few new features, such as the Oekaki Wall, a forum featuring a java applet that allows users to create and share artwork on the fly. They've even got themselves a Twitter account, which means they've officially joined the internet now.

Head on over to AtlusOnline.com to join in the festivities.

Among them:

• Life-sized Big Daddy from BioShock. "I realize this has been done before, but I think I can bring it to life in a more authentic and realistic way than has been displayed before."
• PipBoy3000 from Fallout 3, "with an integrated iPhone dock."
• Also a "Fat Man" nuke launcher from Fallout 3.

As for the gun itself, Krix confirms that its claws do not articulate (the whole thing is static), but he plans to retrofit it to play Portal sounds on command.

Harrison, who has made some Zelda props in the past, is also accepting commissions on his blog. In whatever free time he has left he rebuilds vintage cars.

There is cake! - Interview with Portal Gun Model Maker [Gamernator]

Code Sharing by peganthyrus [DA, via Offworld]

So he made her one! A real one, made out of heavy, real materials. Calling it amazing would be understating it so bad you should never, ever call it amazing.

Portal Gun [flickr]

We're not sure how deep into the goof juice the Kids in the Hall were when troupe funnyman Scott Thompson started sulking and playing Portal in the back of the tour bus, but something got into Kids during this sad little gaming session. Yes, the comedic stylings of Valve writer Erik Wolpaw are most amusing, as is the struggle of watching Thompson attempt to do anything more than move a cube — uncrouch already! — but something tells me there's something magical in those cups. Thanks for the tip, Sascha23!

So how much does all of that run? Only $99, and before you pull out your calculators, keep in mind that the package also includes Left 4 Dead itself, so you're basically getting all of the other games for $50 more. That's a savings of $134.82. The only way it isn't a good deal is if you already own all the other games, and that's just crazy.

Valve Complete Pack [Steam - Thanks Tenshigure!]

$15 for Portal?

Loved
Meet the old Portal, same as… - This is Portal. So long as we're talking the main game, it was great in 2007, and it’s still great in 2008. Same puzzles, same GlaDOS, same cake, same lies. Graphics have been trimmed back a pinch to get it in under, XBLA’s, uh, size limits, but aside from that, no changes to last year's game.

Hated
Dry – There are a bunch of new maps/puzzles added to the mix, as bonus, standalone (ie not part of the main story) levels. And while they present an abstract challenge, playing Portal without GlaDOS’ urgings feels a lot like it’s missing the point. It also stings a little that PC owners can get these levels for free, while the inclusion of them in this paid package seems to be the only thing justifying the existence of the entire product.

Portal is great, yada yada yada, we already knew that. Covered it in 2007. But this product? The same game again, for $15, with some bonus maps thrown in that other people can play for free? I'm less inclined to blow sunshine up its ass. If you somehow missed Portal the first time around, and don’t own a PC, and aren’t interested in The Orange Box, you…probably don’t exist as a real person. And won't be needing this. But hey, just in case you did tick all those boxes, Portal’s great, check this out.

Portal: Still Alive was developed by Valve & We Create Stuff, published by Microsoft Game Studios. Released on Oct. 22 for Xbox Live Arcade. Retails for 1200 Microsoft Points (USD$15). Played bonus maps to completion.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Whatever the reason for the absence of gâteaux de jeu, this birthday treat from blogger Kim Vallee to her husband (and former Xevious world record holder!) Jerome was special enough to attract our attention.

Montreal's Clever Cupcakes were commissioned to create a set of, well, cupcakes emblazoned with retro gaming icons such as Space Invaders, Frogger and Robotron, artfully arranged around a tower crowned with a delicious Weighted Companion Cube.

Oh, and they played Still Alive while the birthday boy cut the 'cube. Nice.

My Husband's Classic Video Games Cupcake Tower [Kim Vallee]

Potentially more interesting than the release of a baker's dozen plus one set of maps, is Portal: Still Alive's size, which is 629 MB, the biggest XBLA game to date and one that certainly won't fit on your memory unit. That's well beyond the 350 MB "limit" introduced earlier this year. This must be what David Edery, portfolio planner for XBLA, means when he says "steady progress."

We warned you: Portal: Still Alive breaks XBLA size record [Destructoid]

Note the picture caption. And what in the hell is that chopped-off headline at the top? I see "Nazi-style." Is a new pizzeria opening in town?

Mario's Mistake [infendo]
Now You're Thinking With Portals [Reddit]

The game offers a glimpse (a longer glimpse than the original game, actually) of the events leading up to GlaDOS' little pecadillo with an extra 8 chapters of aperture-wrangling.

You'll need a copy of Portal, obviously. Other requirements here.

Download Portal: Prelude [PortalPrelude]