Thoughts on Portal 3

If the comments sections under any blog/article about Portal 2 are to believed, one of the popular demands for a new Portal (either full game or DLC) would involve Doug Rattmann as a playable character.

If you are reading this and you don't know who Rattmann is, you can see him here.  He is also responsible for all of the graffiti around Aperture Laboratories in both Portal games.

The scribbled ramblings of a man we can trust.

My gut reaction said "No, that's a dumb idea."  If you read the comic, you can see that Doug Rattmann's survival was questionable at best.  It's very tricky in storytelling to confirm or deny the survival of a character, especially one in his position.  In addition, it breaks Chell's set tradition of having a silent, somewhat detached protagonist, and Atlas and P-Body's (somewhat forced) silence in the Portal 2 co-op campaign.  Chell, I think, added a lot to Portal because she could have been any one of us, and we experienced Aperture Science in just the way we did.  Doug Rattmann adds a history to the Enrichment Center that separates him from us, the players.

However, after playing Portal 2, I've kind of changed my mind for a couple of reasons.  One thing that initially occurred to me as a negative was the possibility of Rattmann responding to GLaDOS, and actually carrying on a conversation.  After all, he is identified as not being mute, and he does talk back to GLaDOS in Lab Rat.  Adding this to Portal 3, though, would greatly separate the game from Portal and Portal 2, setting it apart.  Considering Valve's level of polish on whatever it is they do, it's likely that Rattmann's conversations with GLaDOS would add to the game in a good way, rather than a bad way.

In addition to Rattmann's possession of a voice, Rattmann has another quality which sets him apart from the other characters of the Portal series: he is a paranoid schizophrenic.  If you haven't read Lab Rat yet, read it, and you'll see the way Rattmann sees the world.  It's all kinds of fucked up.  Things seem to blend into one another, and because he has held off on his medication, his schizophrenia has taken an even deeper root in his mind.  Thinking of this from a level-design point of view opens things up.  Things have been pretty sterile in Aperture, save the takeover by nature.  Even then, though, things obeyed the laws of the land.  Playing from Rattmann's point of view could allow for some unnatural occurrences, like twisted or untrustworthy perspectives, or (literally) insane levels.  The gameplay element of the Portal Gun would allow for levels like that.  Think about the original Half-Life, and the Xen levels.  You could twist and alter the already messed-up landscape even more for Rattmann levels, even as challenge levels akin to the special levels in Super Mario Sunshine.

I'm talking about a twisted, distorted version of this crap.

So you know what?  I kind of hope that I get to see this kind of level design in a future Portal game.  Gabe Newell has said that Chell would have an impact on the Half-Life universe, so I doubt that we would not see her again.  But if I had to wait 'til Portal 4 for that to happen, and I played as Doug Rattmann while we waited, I'd be A-Okay with it.

30 Days of Video Games Day 26

Best Voice Acting:

Again, I'm told that Uncharted and Uncharted 2 would be one of those games that would take this title if I had played it.  But luckily, Valve has me covered on multiple fronts for this one.

Firstly, the Half-Life series.  Unfortunately, I haven't played Half-Life 2 in a while, so I don't remember the voice acting very well.  It was high-quality stuff, though.  I remember the first Half-Life, though, and that is mostly because of the G-Man.

Or as he's also known: Seriously What the Hell is Your Agenda?

At the end of the original Half-Life, he congratulates you for defeating the final boss of the game and blah blah blah enigmatic crazy bullshit.  You could see him in every chapter of the game, but to hear him actually speak to you is creepy as hell.  He also makes mention of his "employers," who are again completely unknown (but there are theories.  Oh boy are there theories).  The G-man's speech stands out greatly as probably the most memorable parts of Half-Life and Half-Life 2.

Then there's Team Fortress 2.  I haven't gushed about the game in a few blogs, so I'll hear no complaining from any readers on this subject.  One of the things that really can draw you in to the game is the different (ridiculous) accents that each mercenary has, giving away their countries of origin.  But it's the fun that the script has with the characters that makes it great.  It's like a room full of Americans went, "What would an Australian say as a battle cry?"  And then we end up with a bad Australian accent yelling "God save the queen!" and a Scotsman yelling "Freeeedooooom!"  It gives a very light tone to a game where I will end up setting people on fire and blowing them up into small bits.  The game's a cartoon, and the characters really make it great.  Watch any of the Meet the Team videos and you'll get the idea.

But the best voice acting, I think, has to go to Portal and Portal 2.  They really turned two pretty damn good games into two of the best games in this field.  I can't say enough good about GLaDOS.

Ceiling GLaDOS is watching  you...

As the only "companion" you have in Portal, she quickly becomes your best friend, even though you KNOW that she has every intention of killing you.  Any time I heard her monotone, auto-tuney voice come over the loud-speaker, it was a joyous occasion.  It really helped, too, that the script for this game was amazing.  The same goes for GLaDOS's script in Portal 2.

Portal 2 really set the story element in motion with its voice acting, though!  Bringing in J.K. Simmons to play Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science, was amazing.  Wheatley was a great contrast to GLaDOS; where she was extremely intelligent but had the personality of a serial killer, Wheatley was a welcome-wagon that never stopped welcoming you with the warmest of greetings... until he wakes up GLaDOS and starts the events of Portal 2.  Because Chell is a mute protagonist (and maybe just a straight-up mute person), the story depends entirely on the physical looks of Aperture Labratories and the voices around her.  Portal and Portal 2 pulled this off better than any other game I've played.

30 Days of Video Games Day 21

Game with the Best Story:

This one's tough.  One of my gut reactions is Portal 2, because it expanded on a world that we knew so little about but wanted so much more from.  And yet I still feel like I can choose a better one.  Amnesia gives me the same reaction, but I haven't played it enough to declare that one the winner.

I think I'm going to have to go with Killer 7 on this one, too.  I loved the characters, and the twisted sense of the world in this game.  The story really kept up with the idea of twisted, too, because that plot is all mixed up.  The world is so convoluted that they released an entire book explaining what the hell happened.

This is your brain on Killer7.

But the game had a kind of flow to it that really fit the atmosphere.  You get the idea that even the Killer 7, probably the greatest team of assassins in that universe, is nothing but a pawn in the face of global politics and Illuminati   The idea of good and evil gets lost in this whirlwind of activity between the US and Japan.  It kind of speaks to the idea that no matter how much you think you know about the world, there's so much that you can decipher through a hundred different lenses that everything has to become new again.