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!

No this isn't an early April Fool's joke. Harmonix, MTV Games and Valve have teamed up to release Portal endsong Still Alive on Rock Band tomorrow for free. That's free for the Xbox 360 and free for the Playstation 3.

"While the cake may be a lie, the free download of "Still Alive" is confirmed truth," said Greg LoPiccolo, VP of product development at Harmonix. "'Still Alive' is an awesome song that brings together great gaming and great music. We've teamed up with Valve to deliver a free download of "Still Alive" as a "thank you" to our fans for their incredible support."

"Rock Band has lit the industry on fire by opening a new market for cooperative musical gaming," said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. "We're delighted Harmonix has selected the track for inclusion in the growing library of tracks available for this phenomenal title."

With the suspicious timing I actually emailed the publisher's back just to make sure they weren't pulling a fast one, but they say it's 100 percent true.

Can't wait to play it again.

So a funny thing happened at last week's Valve party.

As I'm sure you're all aware Valve threw a little party during last week's big show (We weren't invited. I blame our butchering of their song.) and during the tail end of it they brought up Jonathan Coulton to play a set. At the end of his last song he invited the Rock Band folks up on the stage to play Still Alive on their game, a really neat way to announce that the song was coming to the game.

I got a chance to check out Portal's famous credit song Still Alive today on Rock Band in the Harmonix hotel suite.

While the bass is a little bit on the easy side, the lead guitar, drums, and of course, singing are all the perfect level of challenging to make it fun. I'm already a HUGE fan of the song so playing it on Rock Band was a real treat. I can't imagine a single person with the game not wanting to pick this up when it hits the consoles.

I was a little bummed to discover that while the original singing is there and can be cranked up enough to cover your truly awful singing voice, there is no modulation for your voice while you are singing. So you can harmonize with a computer, but you can't sound like one... and we all know how awful that is.

Still Alive Confirmed For Rock Band

Last night Valve held their GDC party at the lovely and white Temple Nightclub in beautiful downtown San Francisco, and a group from Harmonix were on the scene to catch a special performance by Jonathan Coulton, who you may remember as the writer behind the Portal ending song, "Still Alive". Towards the end of his set, Coulton and the Harmonix boys pulled out a surprise.

That is when we jumped on-stage and pulled out our Rock Band equipment piece by piece...When they got to the song list they scrolled through an almost infinite amount of DLC until eventually they stopped on one- "Still Alive" by GLaDOS

Valve Party at GDC + Special Preview of an Upcoming DLC Song [HMXSean's Rockband.com Blog - Thanks BatDan!]

EA Splits Up Orange Box For Retail

If you're one of the five PC gamers on the planet who didn't suck it up and join Steam in order snag the contents of The Orange Box individually rather than go for the total package, you're in luck. During yesterday's conference call to investors, EA revealed plans to deliver Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to retail shelves individually by March. No details on the pricing, but VideoGamer.com's suggestion that they would stay in line with current Steam prices seems like a sound one. I firmly believe that $50-60 for a chance to play through the sublime goodness of Portal alone was well worth the price, so a potential $19.99 is a steal, though let's face it...if you haven't played through Portal yet and your PC is fully capable there is something seriously wrong with you.

Orange Box contents to be separated at retail [VideoGamer.com]

Still Alive In Japanese Sung By Computer

Caek is Delishas [S.K.Y.]

Top 12 Portal 'Still Alive' Covers

GameSetWatch has trawled the vast, vast waters of user-created content on YouTube and come up with their very own top 12 list of 'Still Alive' covers. Some of them are pretty neat, several of them are incredibly cringe-worthy, as befits a lot of user-generated content, especially of the YouTube variety - but worth a listen through for the sheer entertainment value. Above is their chart-topping pick, of which the creator said: "Everything on the terminals and sound is controlled by an Intel 8080 Microprocessor at 2MHz. The sound chip is a MOS SID (From a Commodore 64)." Mmm, geeky!

Aperture Science Rocks: The Top 12 'Still Alive' Cover Versions [GameSetWatch]

Kotaku Kristmas Kard, 'Still Not Banned'

Hmm...maybe we overdid it with the whole "K" for "Kotaku" theme, but we've put together a special holiday ecard just for our readers. Why? Clearly the internet is short of obnoxious electronic entertainment. And when Valve agreed to lend us the background of a certain very popular song from Portal, we just couldn't help ourselves...

So from the entire Kotaku staff, happy holidays and merry whatever you celebrate. And to Valve, thank-you...and we're very, very sorry.

Voices in order of butchery: Michael Fahey, Mark Wilson, Brian Crecente, Brian Crecente, Luke Plunkett.
Lyrics by Fahey, Crecente and Wilson
Video by Mark Wilson

Frag Doll Sings Portal Song

I don't know if it's the slight Scottish brogue or just that, like most gamers, I'm deeply in love with the song Still Alive, but this video of Scottish Frag Doll Kitt fulfilling a promise to sing a song with Jam Sessions is adorable. More so because she's singing the Portal song.

Kitt's Video Blog Number 2

VG Cats Still Alive

VG Cats creator Scott Ramsoomair loved him some Portal. Not only did it inspire him to create a comic featuring the worst babysitting choice in the history of parental irresponsibility, but he also broke out his mad flash animation skills to create a music video for the song that I listen to over and over again on my iPod whenever the world conspires to drag me out of this chair and out into the harsh sunlight. No, not "Two Princes" by the Spin Doctors. That was last winter. Of course I am talking about "Still Alive", that epic tale of cake and lies. Nice to finally put a face to the voice, even if the face is just a series of blue blocks. Hit the link to check it out. Just go ahead now!

VG Cats Still Alive [VG Cats - Thanks Alex!]

Condemned Movie Not Dead Yet

But the project is very much alive (especially after the surprising success of THE 300). In the world of features, a few years to get something into production is the norm... There will be some parallels [to the game], but it is not a movie BASED ON the game. It's INSPIRED BY the same source material.