deviantART user wazzy88 just uploaded this beauty, and I immediately knew I'd have to have it.

Too bad the pokéball will undoubtedly not contain GLaDOS' famous snarky wit. Maybe you can hear it if you put it under water.

The GLaDOS Pokeball [deviantART via Reddit]

Portal may be the name for a contemporary series from Valve, about mad robots and jumpsuits, but it's also the name of a video game first released nearly thirty years ago.

That game, Portal - Valve got the trademark after the original ceased using it - was a strange adventure title for personal computers, and was published by, of all companies, Activision.

Portal's story is a great one: you're an astronaut who, after spending 100 years in space on a mission, returns to Earth to find everyone gone and the planet an overgrown wasteland. Picture Life After People, only in a text-based adventure game.

Your goal, then, is to talk to a computer system called Homer, and by going back through its records try and piece together what happened. And that's it! No killing, no jumping, you were essentially digging your way backwards through a very depressing story. Think of it as Dear Esther 1986, if you will, complete with the very valid point that it was only half a game, the other half being some kind of interactive story.

Indeed, so heavy on story was it that in 1988 it was re-released as just that, a novel.

While that story is an interesting one, the game part left a little to be desired, your interaction with Homer being more than a little crude and obtuse.

Still, it had its fans, and that coupled with the name's popularity coupled with the current Kickstarter madness has its original creator, sci-fi author Rob Swigart, hoping to get the cash together for a "proper" remake, this time as " a full-fledged computer game with modern technology, music, sound effects, art, voice acting, and gameplay".

The song (a cover of Jonathan Coulton's now-infamous "Still Alive") is well done, too. Don't turn it off after the first few squeaky seconds. It gets better. I swear.

Bonus points if you spot the Duck Hunt dog. And the Skyrim giant.

Professor Shyguy - Still Alive (Portal Cover) [YouTube]

Dr. Who and Portal get an unlikely crossover in this 3D image by Aussie artist David C. Simon, who actually works as a writer at BioWare's Austin studio.

Aperture Daleks [The Dalek Factor, via technabob]

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Reader Alex went skydiving the other day, and aside from taking his good self, packed an inflatable Portal turret to go with him.

Both then proceeded to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft at 13,000 feet.

Alex says that, thanks to air pressure, the turret was actually really tough to keep hold of, and it was only when they got to around 7000 feet that it deflated enough for him to only have to worry about not dying, instead of not dying and losing a Portal turret at 13,000 feet.

After asking Valve Software boss Gabe Newell a bunch of questions about the Half-Life games on the new Seven Day Cooldown podcast, an interviewer finally cut to the chase:

"My final question and the question in the back of all your fans' minds and everyone has been waiting to ask you for a long time: When can we expect the release of Ricochet 2?"

Valve fans know, that that is not the question all of Gabe Newell's fans are waiting to ask him.

No.

Replace "Ricochet 2" with "Half-Life 2: Episode 3" or "Half-Life 3," the either/or sequel that's been missing in action from Valve for a very long time.

Gabe Newell answered the question. It's up to you to decide if he was really talking about Ricochet 2.

"In terms of Ricochet 2, we always have this problem that when we talk about things too far in advance, we end up changing our minds as we're going through and developing stuff, so as we're thinking through the giant story arc which is Ricochet 2, you might get to a point where you're saying something is surprising us in a positive way and something is surprising us in a negative way, and, you know, we'd like to be super-transparent about the future of Ricochet 2. The problem is, we think that the twists and turns that we're going through would probably drive people more crazy than just being silent about it, until we can be very crisp about what's happening next."

Probed further by the hosts on current staffing levels for the project and whether there's been a slowdown on the project, Newell replies "No, everybody who has worked on Ricochet 2 continues to work on Ricochet 2 [laughs]."

For the record, Ricochet was an official multiplayer mod for the original Half-Life and was released by the company in 2000. Our own Luke Plunkett is a bit more up on the mod than I was and tells me: "If you haven't played Ricochet, or even heard of it, I'm going to pull you up now: it was shit. So shit, in fact, that on Valve's site the company likes to pretend it never existed."

You should listen to the whole podcast. It's great. Jump to the 21:05 mark if you want to hear the tones of voice from the part quoted above.

Episode 001 – The Tangy Zip of Gaben (April-16-2012) [Seven Day Cooldown, at the 21:05 mark]

Multiplayer gamers know this fact: if you wander away from your group, you can die a horrible, stupid death. Cows apparently do not have this knowledge.

A bizarre news story from the Seattle Times tells the story of about half a dozen cows that have uttered their last moo and left frozen carcasses behind in a cabin near Aspen, Colo. The problem with the dead cows is that they've frozen to each other, creating a solid, potentially delicious mass that's become very hard to move.

Things are going to get warm soon and there's a threat of dead cow essence polluting the local water supply if the carcasses start to decompose. One of the solutions that the U.S Forest Service is considering is using explosives to dislodge the cows. Where's Team Fortress 2's blowing-stuff-up expert when you need him, huh?

Forest Service may blow up frozen cows in cabin [Seattle Times]

Scoring a knife kill in a first-person shooter is the ultimate insult to your victim. It's one of the most satisfying kills, too.

But it's not always easy to pull off, as this Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player finds out. He looks to be basically on the camera-focused player's shoulders, so close to getting that glorious knife kill.

Unfortunately for the knifer, YouTube user (and victim) Rustsandstuffs manages to turn around just in time to spray-and-pray the hell out of him before he can make the knife swipe. His terrified wails as a result to the close call are hilarious, and even more hilarious in the proceeding slow-motion version.

Knife surprise! [Reddit]

If you're only hopping onto Team Fortress 2 to shoot at people you're missing out on a rich history of greed and betrayal dating back to the 19th century. The latest Lore video from The Game Station gets you fully caught up in 60 seconds, or your money back.

The makers of the best Pokémon summary ever turn their sharp eyes and speedy mouths on Valve's colorful online multiplayer shooter, explaining why there is red, and why there is not-so-red.

Yes, there is a pointless point to those endless battles. Perhaps one day one color shall win once and for all.

Team Fortress 2 Lore in a Minute [YouTube]

Reddit user Tabisama strolled into Best Buy, but wasn't expecting to stumble on this pre-order for what appears to be Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

Looking at this poster, you might think that it's genuine. But looking at that 99,999,999 countdown, you might think otherwise.

These Episode 3 teases are not uncommon. After all, everyone knows gamers' soft spot is for Valve's hopefully incoming Half-Life title. They're going to have to dispel rumors of an inability to count to three somehow, right?

Update: Looks like Kotaku reader crazydog115 discovered this troll/joke poster is even more trollish than meets the eye. It appears to be a photoshop of a Diablo III poster. We originally posted this to share what we thought was a Best Buy joke. Turns out that we didn't realize the whole is a photoshop. This picture is of something that doesn't exist. Like any future Half-Life game.

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so I went to BestBuy to see the Diablo III's POP today, but found this [Reddit]