Microsoft Shot Down Portal for XBLA

Portal was, without a doubt, the biggest surprise of last year. What was essentially a "bonus" game in the Half-Life 2 showcase, The Orange Box, completely stole the show, and the hearts of gamers everywhere.

You'd think then that MS would jump at the chance to make Portal available as a standalone downloadable title for XBLA. Then you'd remember that Microsoft has rules. Rules that they break when they see fit, but apparently Portal is not such a case.

Valve wants to see it on XBLA, but just like the free maps they want to offer for Team Fortress 2, Microsoft is having none of it.

Valve's Doug Lombardi has hope though, telling GameIndustry.biz that, "It always happens once it's been proven and I think it's been proven now on Steam, so I'm sure it'll migrate back to the consoles just like everything else does."

I say, put Portal up on PSN. Just as with Bionic Commando and Street Fighter II HD, Microsoft will change their tune when Sony has something they don't.



[via Destructoid]

Rock Band Now Rocking Portal Style

If you happened to miss the announcement that the closing theme from everyone's favorite space manipulating puzzler would be coming to everyone's favorite rock simulator you would be forgiven for thinking that this is an April Fool's Day joke.

It is no ruse however; the song that skyrocketed Jonathan Coulton to instant internet fame is now available as a free download for Rock Band. The 360 version anyway. The PlayStation Store is being renovated and no new content will be available until April 17th. Seems kind of silly that they can't add new content to the old store but at least after the update the PS Store should be much more user friendly than it currently is...

[via Game|Life]

Have Your Cake and Sing About it Too

Last week a massive list of possible Rock Band tracks were discovered in a data file on the game disc. Many of the songs have been released as DLC in the weeks and months since the game launched leaving the remaining songs as safe bets for future downloads.

One of the songs in that list was "Still Alive" but since the list didn't include artist names, there was no way of knowing if it was *the* Still Alive. Surely, it couldn't be.

Turns out it's the real deal, as some of the guys from Harmonix got up on stage at one of songwriter Jonathan Coulton's shows last night and performed it in Rock Band with him. The song is listed in game as "Still Alive by GlaDOS".

It doesn't really lend itself well to the game (unless they rerecorded it?) but it should be fun to play regardless, whenever they get around to making it available. This Tuesday's lineup is still up in the air so we could be playing it sooner rather than later.

[via Kotaku]