Arctic Quest is a simple puzzle-solving game, where you finish each board by collecting falling crystals from the sky and placing it on the board. Once you finish a board, you move on to the next level. The boards take the shape of different animals, or according to the developers “…other tropical wonders.”

(more…)

So we’re all having truckloads of fun with the Orange Box, but with all the charm and the heartbreak of Episode Two, it looks like Portal is missing out on all the attention. And believe me, this is one game that literally takes the cake, pun very much intended. (In case you don’t get that awesome joke, then you need to get a life and find a way to play Portal.. NOW!)

We’ll have a multi-staff review on the Orange Box games soon enough (we’re still enjoying the games in Commentary mode), but in the meantime, I just had to drop in here to talk about how Valve has managed to create the most lovable, cuter-than-cute AI entity in the form of GLaDOS, the Portal AI that’s a cross between Cortana, 343 Guilty Spark, HAL-9000 and Aileen Wuornos on crack. Tempting you throughout the game with promises of a rich, moist, delicious cake before trying to finally bake you into one, GLaDOS, voiced by singer/actress Ellen McLain, finally gets torn to pieces by the player as she tries to escape the Aperture Science facility. The rub here is that GLaDOS, apparently, isn’t dead, considering her final report, which is delivered in the form of the best damned ending credits song I’ve ever heard in all my years of gaming.

I’d seriously recommend that you do not listen to this song if you haven’t finished Portal yet, simply because you’d ruin its intended effect. For the rest of us, and for the ones who are dead, enjoy your download of this awesome little ditty and sing along with the lyrics, which you can download, print, frame and gaze at for eternity after the jump.

And oh, don’t believe the heretic. Remember: There is a cake!

Download Portal - Ellen McLain - Still Alive (MP3/5.39 MB)

(more…)