Whoa. CompC, a Minecraft forumite, is working on a full recreation of Portal in Minecraft. Using the Portal Gun Mod (available here), a hell of a lot of redstone, and an adapted tileset, he's already finished work on the first six chambers.

Click on to open an HTML portal to video footage.

The free stuff just keeps on coming. Today: another 18 tracks worth of completely free Portal 2 original soundtrack tunes, now available from the official site (you can also grab the 22 tracks from Volume 1 from that page). This batch contains some fast-paced action, such as You Will Be Perfect, and more dramatic and haunting fare like I AM NOT A MORON and PotatOS Lament. Give it a listen to it as you download all the games you bought today on the Steam Summer Camp Sale.

One month ago we mentioned the start of the Thinkingwithportals.com Portal 2 mapping contest, a Valve-endorsed competition to find the best new community made maps for Portal 2. After 140 hours of judging, the 13 judges have decided on the winners.

First prize was taken by Patent Pending by ebola. Second place was won by, Infinifling by MrTwoVideoCards, and Edifice by Omnicoder took a close third place.

The winners were announced on the Portal 2 site, along with instructions on how to download and play the maps. You'll find more runners-up maps listed on thinkingwithportals.com. The fan-made test chambers should tide us over nicely until Valve release their first chunk of Portal 2 DLC, which is set to add new test chambers, leaderboards and challenge modes to the game later this summer.

According to Valve magnate Gabe Newell, Portal 2 has sold an impressive three million copies since it was released in April. While we'd have thrown a massive rager in their shoes, Valve's managing director, of course, delivered the news unconventionally, slipping it into his keynote today at the "Games for Change" festival.

Newell’s speech at the conference—hosted yearly at NYU by the Games for Learning Institute—spanned a variety of societal topics, including why you may see Portal 2 in classrooms soon, Valve’s successful Japan fundraiser in Team Fortress 2, and the impact of a growing worldwide marketplace for in-game content.


Regarding education, Newell indicated that he “doesn't see divide between making a game that can do well and be educational” and that Valve is “staring to work with schools to build curricula around Portal 2,” according to Stephen Totilo’s liveblog of the speech on Kotaku.

Along with comments on the value of Portal’s physics-based problem solving and light criticism of educational game designers, Newell showed off a video in which a class of 7th graders visited Valve’s office for an educational day of game design instruction.



As should be expected from Newell, the keynote was a cascade of fascinating observations and questions. Unfortunately, a video of the presentation doesn’t yet appear to be live on the festival’s official site, but Totilo’s liveblog offers a good recap in the meantime. Oh, and yes, Newell was of coursed asked when Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be released, to which he allegedly responded, “If you know enough to ask the question, you know enough what the answer is.”

That obvious non-answer aside, how do you feel about the state of educational games? Could Portal 2 be manipulated such that it fits into a physics class? Let us know what you think in the comments.

A new map pack for Portal 2 has been released, adding new six chambers designed to be played with the Razer Hydra motion controller. The controller features two control sticks that can be used to pick up items, stretch special cubes and rotate portals. The Hydra works with all Portal 2 single player and co-op missions, but the MotionPack levels will feature special items and puzzles that take advantage of the controller's unique abilities.

The MotionPack comes bundled with with Razer Hydra controller, which can be bought in the US now through Steam, or directly from Razer for $140. According to Razer's site, the Hydra is compatible with 125 other games, including Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. You'll find the full list here.

The controller consists of a central orb that sits on your desktop and two handheld control sticks. The orb generates a low level electromagnetic field, and the Hydra uses magnetic sensors to determine the exact position and angle of the two handheld devices. Razer say the unit boasts an "ultra precise sensor for 1mm and 1 degree tracking" and "ultra-low latency" for faster response.

It's impossible to know how the Hydra really feels until it's in our hands, but a series of demo videos on the Razer site gives us an idea of the movements needed to perform in-game actions. You can watch the videos below. The motions appear smaller and more subtle than the wild arm waving that we've seen on similar devices like the Wii-mote. The Hydra is only available in the US, for now. It's currently available to pre-order from Razer EU for 140 Euros, and is listed as "shipping in June."

The MotionPack is the first piece of DLC for Portal 2, but there's more in the pipeline. We can expect more test chambers, leaderboards and challenge modes later this summer. The release of the Razer Hydra on Steam is another landmark moment. If Steam can sell a motion controller, why not any other piece of hardware?

Community site thinkingwithportals.com have launched a new Portal 2 mapping contest. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create the best singe player or co-op test chamber you can think of, and submit it to the Thinking With Portals download database before 11:59pm EDT on June 6. Entries submitted at midnight will be incinerated in the nearest Aperture Cleansing Oven.

The best two mapers will receive an Ultimate Portal 2 Gift Pack signed by the Portal 2 developers and both maps will be featured by Valve on The Portal 2 site. Read on for the rules of entry.

You'll find full details on the Thinking With Portals contest page. The rules are below. Good luck!

Maps must be submitted no later than June 6th at 11:59pm EDT.
Both Singleplayer and Co-op maps are allowed. You may submit one map of each game mode.
Maps cannot contain custom assets of any kind. No exceptions. Spend your time working on your puzzle, not making models, textures, sounds/voices, or other extra content.
Maps must contain both an Entry and an Exit elevator, the style of which as appropriate for your map theme. 1940's Aperture maps can use the old style elevators, destroyed Aperture can use the destroyed looking elevators, and so on.
Maps must be able to be completed without using engine or portaling glitches of any kind.
Entries must be uploaded to the ThinkingWithPortals.com Download Database and uploaded in a compressed file format (such as ZIP, RAR or 7z).
Entries must include the source VMF.

 

Move over Lady Gaga, here comes LaDY GLaDOS. While the latest Jonathan Coulton single will still cost you, Valve has posted 22 tracks - totaling more than an hour - of Portal 2's electro-trippy ambient soundtrack for free download, complete with album art and Android/iOS-formatted ringtones. Even if you're not a Portal fan, this is worth grabbing for tracks like Science is Fun and the hauntingly catchy Turret Wife Serenade.

Bonus: the fact that this is labeled "Volume 1" implies more free tunes will be coming sooner or later!

Do you crave more Portal 2 development insight? Enough to pay for it? Fret not: Portal 2 - The Final Hours is now available on Steam as well as iPad. It'll set you back £1.49/$2.00

The 15,000 word multimedia experience/interactive documentary/digital book was created by Geoff Keighley during Portal 2's development. Valve gave him "fly on the wall" access to their offices, resulting in a "gripping and dramatic story brought to life by exclusive photos, videos, interviews, interactive experiences, and other surprises."

Read on for the details and Craig's mini-review.

According to Steam, The Final hours of Portal 2 reveals:


That Portal 2 actually began as a prequel to the first game without portals or GLaDOS.

The Directed Design Experiments created after Half-Life 2: Episode 2, including video of a never-before-disclosed project, Two Bots, One Wrench.

How the story of Portal 2 evolved during development. See images and read surprising details.

How it worked with Jonathan Coulton to create "Want You Gone," the closing song to the game.

 
The interactive bits from the iPad version are also intact for the Steam release, albeit with less fingerprints/smudging. You'll get to:


Play with portals in an interactive diagram where you learn how portals work.

Muck about with a 360 degree panorama photos of the Valve office and design labs.

Listen to the songs that inspired the Portal 2 development team.

Hear Jonathan Coulton's Portal 2 song in various stages of development.

Puppet Wheatley in an interactive experience

Destroy Aperture Science by wiping your fingers over the screen (we assume you'll need a touch screen for that)

Interact with fans and voice your opinion via polls and a feedback form.

 
Craig was fiddling with the iPad version, back when it was hot on the App Store. He says that Keighley's "Access to Valve is remarkable, giving a glimpse into the surprising number of failures that goes into making their impeccable games. Buy it if you want to know everything about Portal 2." He also mentions that it took him about an hour and half to read the whole thing.

Funny story: PC Gamer's boss is obsessed with zombies. Completely, totally, enthralled by them. He demands, occasionally, that we stay up late and play Left 4 Dead with him, on the overclocked and overpowered rig we got for him as a 'present'. We going to leave this video on the front page of the site for a little while, just because he'll come bouncing into the office on Monday morning, demanding to know how he can play this. James - to answer your questions: it's an ArmA II mod. And yes, we do have a copy of ArmA II waiting for you. But no, we don't have a spare TrackIR hanging around. You'd look silly using one, anyway.



There are plenty more videos, including the best trailers of the week, below.



There's not a huge amount of hype going on for it at the moment, but every time I remember that Lord of the Rings: War in the North is an actual game in development, my inner Tolkien nerd comes out. The latest developer diary focuses on one of the most important things in a hack'n'slash game - swords and other assorted weaponry. And not only do we have swords in-game. Oh no, the guys at Snowblind Studios have actual swords in their offices too, which they quite happily use to hack apart sandwiches and use a keyboard with.

If fantasy is your game but Middle-Earth not your ideal setting, your pointy-eared and sharpened steel needs could well be fulfilled by Hunted: The Demon Forge. In the latest trailer the developers talk about the creation of the game's grimy environments, and explain that they used the Unreal engine to create what the tech does best (essentially Gears of War, just with orcs instead of Locust). More interesting is the Crucible, which is a level creator that allows players to create maps to be used in a Horde-like game mode.

We're fast approaching the summer, well known to be the time of the gaming drought. Thankfully 2011 is kicking this rule in the teeth, with games like The Witcher 2 looking to be deep enough to eat up the next three months, not to mention the complexity of Deus Ex: Human Revolution that wonderfully hits during August (the time I'd normally be re-playing an old classic). Less predominant in the summer schedule but no less noteworthy is America McGee's sequel to Alice. Madness Returns, as you can see from the above trailer, is set to be a beautiful-but-haunting adventure through the protagonist's warped mind. Blood soaked kitchen knives and demonic teapots are of course what everyone wants to experience during the sunnier months, along with little girls being burnt alive.

Getting away from all that death and beheading, less violent players may want to check out Dirt3, which is fast approaching. On reveal here is the game's Gymkhana mode. Forget bombing around a pre-set track six times; gymkhana lets you go free-form on an abandoned bit of land, full of ramps and spaces perfect for donuting in.

Not quite a video but a great bit of non-game gaming is this dub-step remix using samples from Portal 2. I predict that all the cool kids will be raving to this in the big-name clubs before the month is out. Who could resist the demands of a turret, insisting you "Get mad"?

Also, one can't include a link to a videogame-based piece of music without plugging my favourite game musical tribute.

Finally, we spotted that Gamespot have a video dedicated to the Sith Inquisitor class from Star Wars: The Old Republic. Rich and Tom have played it with mixed feelings, but there's still much of BioWare's vast universe we've not seen. We can only hope that the Force is stronger in the so-far unseen areas.

Co-creator of The Office, Stephen Merchant, has been talking to MTV about his role as Wheatley in Portal 2. Merchat said that the role was one of the most exhausting he's ever done, but would be interested in coming back for a sequel after seeing fans' reactions to the game.

Merchant described his surprise at fans reactions to his performance to MTV, saying "when I started to mention to people who know about such things, 'I'm doing this game, Portal 2,' they got very excited, suddenly. More excited than anything I've ever done before, weirdly.

"Gamers are incredibly enthusiastic about the stuff they love. Suddenly I realized, this is quite a big deal and what I thought was an easy gig, I suddenly felt this responsibility to try and do a good job."

Merchant says that the recording sessions for Portal 2 were more active than anything he' done previously. "I found the entire thing really exhausting. More than anything I've ever done before because I'm in this little recording booth, shouting down these imaginary corridors, imaginary gantries, pretending to fall off things and really trying to move around and live it as best I could.

"I know it sounds really pretentious, but really try to move around like this robot so my voice would feel like it was animated. I was really working hard to try and put myself in that environment, I guess, which is not something I normally do as a performer."



While the Office and Extras star has never played Portal, he says that Valve were able to quickly get him up to speed with a series of clips from the game. While the high energy nature of the recording sessions initially put him off ever doing a similar project again, he was turned around by fans' enthusiasm after the game's release.

"What I was really pleased by how people seemed to respond to it in the way they do with a movie they've enjoyed, or a TV show they've enjoyed. They seemed to respond to it as entertainment.

"It never occurred to me that people would respond to it in the way they do with other stuff I've done. I felt like, 'Oh, actually this is a really legitimate, creative art form now.'"

Finally, Merchant admits he knows nothing of any future plans for Wheatley or the Portal series, but would consider reprising his role.

"I'm a robot," he says, "I don't need to die. They could bring me back anyway if they wanted. Make it a prequel!"