Binge Gamer’s The Bender

When Half-Life 2: The Orange Box was released last year, the game that received the most praise and hype was a little first-person puzzle game called Portal (listen to me, talking as though y’all haven’t played it to death already). Portal changed the way puzzle games are made, and I’ve called it the Tetris of the 21st Century on more than one occasion. However, there is an interesting side-story to Portal. You see, before it was released as a stand-alone title, Valve had wanted to put Portal on Xbox LIVE — to which Microsoft said no.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Valve’s Doug Lombardi explained that, in essence, Microsoft said no:

We’d love to do that. Right now it’s something we’d love to do. I’d love to sell Portal on Xbox LIVE… the platform holders aren’t doing that right now. There’s a size limit and all kinds of other things.

If you want to download Portal off the Xbox LIVE marketplace, though, don’t worry — Lombardi did hint that there could be something down the road: “I think it’s a trade-off, we’ll see it one day.”

I own The Orange Box on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I love it. I still play Portal from time to time on the weekends. My only gripe against Portal is because of you people — you know who you are — who just wouldn’t shut up about “Still Alive”. It’s a great song, yes, but it’s not even Coulton’s best work. Listen to “Tom Cruise Crazy” or “Ikea”, or something. Educate yourself!