Once Valve gets around to releasing its magical future goggles, I’m hoping it’ll just start constantly beaming clever trailers for its games straight to my eyeballs. Between TF2′s “Meet The ___” series and Portal’s cavalcade of comedic excellence, I could spend all the rest of my days awkwardly cackling to myself on buses, in restaurants, and while committing the most unforgivable crime of them all: wearing sunglasses at night>. Everyone will hate me and take tremendous pleasure every time I stumble blindly into low-hanging signs or taller-than-ordinary children. Which brings us to Valve’s latest bit of advertorial brilliance: the story justification for the Perpetual Testing Initiative, as narrated by Aperture founder Cave Johnson.

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As hinted at March at GDC, Valve have now announced the imminent release of a puzzle creator for Portal 2. It’s going to be called the Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative, it’s going to be out on the 8th May, and most of all, it’s going to be free.

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I’ve been waiting for a John Walker simulator to arrive, and this is the closest I’ll probably ever get. It’s the Secret World’s GDC presentation, showing off Ragnar-Tørnquist’s increasingly-interesting (to me) MMO. You can pretend you’re in the room being John Walker, who can be seen here following Ragnar. Toss some water at the screen to simulate the tears that usually flow when John experiences a game by Ragnar. Or you can just watch the most complete look at the upcoming MMO yet. It includes a scene that suggests oral sex is being performed, so I’d not risk it at work or at a funeral. They really go down… look down… LOOK DOWN on that sort of thing. (more…)

The British Academy Video Game Awards took place on Friday night and Portal 2 was awarded highest honours, taking home little gold faces not only for Best Game, but also for Story and Design. Congratulations to Valve, who by this point must be making plans to put up some new shelves of award-bearing load strength. The popular vote went to Battlefield 3, which also won awards for Online Multiplayer and Audio Achievement.

The full list is celebrating after the jump.

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The movie Cube, the TV show Lost and, Portal are all broken down and reassembled in CUBE, a Half-Life 2: Episode Two mod about self-assembling test chambers. Unsurprisingly, I spent a lot of time stuck, but in a good way. CUBE’s an odd one: accomplished and beautifully designed in most respects, but always on the cusp of crashing. Engine errors are as ubiquitous as new puzzles. I’m still working my way through it: there’s hours of content and multiple endings to complete, but it’s worth picking up and persevering if you miss Valve’s elaborately designed roomy puzzles. (more…)

Imagine a Portal 2 with no GLaDOS, Chell, nor portals. Set in the 1980s. With competitive multiplayer and quantum co-op. And multiple endings. At various points, those were all things that could have hapened, as revealed by Valve last night in San Francisco.>

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My admirable, handsome, humble, delightful paymaster Mr. Walker already mentioned the remarkable looking Mari0 in October, but it wasn’t out then. Truth be told, it’s not quite out yet – but at about 10 tomorrow evening, this amazing mash-up of Super Mario and Portal 2 will downloadable. I point out it’s Portal 2 to make a clear distinction: it has the gel and it will eventually have online co-op (currently it has local) in addition to the Portal gun. It also has Super Mario Bros, but let’s not hold that against it. Even more moving imagery of it exists through this portal. Come… 0

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We’ll just have to come to terms with rule #89: if it exists, it’s in Minecraft. As proof RPS (RedstonePistonSpawner) readers, here’s a look at the newly updated Portal gun mod that, when combined with the Portal 2 gels mod, manages to drop some Aperture Science all over Blockland, or Blockworld. What the hell is the name of the world that Minecraft creates, anyway? I’m calling it Cubea (pronounced like Cuba) from now on. Amazing video and instructions herein. (more…)

Alongside the Skyrim Creation Kit and the HD Texture Pack that was officially released last night, Valve added their own little addition to Skyrim: Fall of The Space Corp, Vol. 1 adds Portal 2′s jittery little Space Core to the Nord world, voiced by the man that holds the patent on all gaming voiceovers, Nolan North. It’s both proof that clicking things in Skyrim’s Steam Workshop works just like they said it would, and that Valve’s punmasters are missed a trick by not calling him Nolan Nord. When you add the mod to the game, you need to find him. Here’s a video I made that shows you how. (more…)

Level With Me was a series of conversations with level designers like Dan Pinchbeck, Jack Monahan, Magnar Jenssen, Brendon Chung, Davey Wreden, Ed Key, and Richard Perrin. At the end, we all collaborated on a Portal 2 mod. You can download that mod here. Liner notes, installation notes, and screenshots are after the jump. (more…)