Evening Reading: The Portal 2 Reveal
This week saw an incredibly innovative game announcement by Valve Software. Using its unique position in the PC gaming industry through its digital distribution service, Steam, Valve launched an ARG eventually leading up to the reveal of Portal 2.
On Monday, Valve patched Portal via Steam, automatically pushing the update and its hidden content out to anyone with the game installed and Steam running. With it, a cryptic patch note sent players on a scavenger hunt, eventually decrypting .gcf files to discover Morse code, hidden images, and even a dial-in to a BBS system.
On Wednesday, Valve patched Portal again and changed the ending to the game, offering up more hints (and hype) for a sequel. In the midst of all of this, by the way, Valve also sent out a series of images to tease an "upcoming announcement", which was determined to be a Mac version of Steam by the community. An official announcement is expected at GDC 2010.
This is, by far, the best way to build hype for and announce a game, ever. The Steam community rallied around the scavenger-hunt in a massive, collaborative effort. All Valve had to do was flip a switch and push the content out without a single word to the press, which is probably why I was so thrilled by Valve's actions. I got to experience this as part of the community instead of having to keep embargoed information under wraps.
Oh, and some stuff happened at Infinity Ward.
Hot Gaming Stories for Hot, Gaming Shackers:
- Portal 2 officially announced, as discussed.
- BioShock 2's first multiplayer DLC hits Thursday.
- THQ's horror-survival FPS Metro 2033 goes gold.
- Microsoft changes its Xbox Live naming policy.
- Apple delays the iPad by a few days.
- PSA: Newegg + Intel processors = not a good idea right now.
- Microsoft says, "iPad, who?" with Courier.
- The Daily Show makes funny times happen with Chat Roulette.
Ultima Online: "Everyone (I hope) has at least heard of the first of the modern graphical MMOs, so a summery won't be needed. People are still playing this nearly 13 years after release! However, what might not be as well known is that during a live event Lord British was assassinated due to an accident where his character wasn't set as invulnerable. Some player pickpocked a scroll, targeted and hit the now-mortal British, and got hit with the wrath of the banhammer." (RevRaven)
Beginning Monday, each week in ER, the Game of the Evening will fall under a particular theme or motif as it strikes my fancy. You have been warned.
Oh no, I wroted too much. I didn't mean it.
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Let's play BF:BC2 when it comes back online!!!
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just be prepared for when you can't play online because of EA shenanigans : ( I've only managed to play online once, for 1 minute, when I left because the teams were stacked 2:1 lol. (shack servers were full, NO FAIR!!) Oh and the ping sucked, would have been nice if the damn server browser told me what the pings were... AITOO that doesn't have pings to the different servers display? It's just a blank "--" down the list
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Anyone pull off a "Parachute Kill"??
I took a dive out of our chopper.. and as i flew down to the mcom station i saw a guy and i killed him about 10ft in the air and it gave me a Parachute kill.
Are there any other cool kills? I always forge about using Repair kit to kill someone what does the message say? -
In case anyone didn't see: http://twitter.com/OfficialBfbc2
EA Online is currently investigating an outage of the servers that affects a number of EA games. A fix will be done as soon as possible.
Post 2 hours ago -
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The Statistical Analysis of BC2 Weapons: http://www.shackpics.com/files/WEAPONS_k5ojefohujrdgte5xrz7.png
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hAY CAN I get some sorta invite?? I'm installing it ATM! http://steamcommunity.com/id/jane911
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I guess I would like an invite, too.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/UtilityMaximizer -
Give me an invite also and I will throw medkits at you: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Helgie
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Can I get one also please? http://steamcommunity.com/id/redfive
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http://steamcommunity.com/id/sheepraper
Please add me. Do we have a voice server of some sort? -
Hello, first time poster long time lurker. I recently got the game and was wondering if i could join yall. I always read about your kickin rad shackbattles and i really want to join in on some. http://steamcommunity.com/id/Oshoshmcgraw
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Me to please. I was trying to play on the server and kept getting kicked. I assume I'm doing something wrong?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/foddermk
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