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Imagine GTA with AI-generated characters "just going along with whatever insane thing you say," muses Valve writer, absent-mindedly spotlighting what terrifies me about genAI

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Like many people at companies preoccupied with discovering the next "goose that lays the golden egg", Half-Life 2 and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw has been "poking around" with generative AI. He and a small team at Valve have been testing out different applications, in what Wolpaw assures us isn't a "concerted" effort at implementing the soul-regurgitating, workforce-abrading gadgetry in any particular new game. Wolpaw's current feeling is that generative AI isn't very good at anything "creative", like cracking jokes. But he does think Large Language Models could make for entertaining NPC voice reactions in games such as Grand Theft Auto and, indeed, Wolpaw's own Left 4 Dead, because AI is marvellous at being a fawning little gopher. It is fantastic at "going along with whatever insane thing you say and kind of adjusting to the flow of that". Read more

Portal writer Erik Wolpaw is "not worried about AI taking over creative writing," but it could be the straight-faced foil to GTA's chaos

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Valve writer Erik Wolpaw, one of the leading scribes behind Portal and a long-time staple of the developer's games, has revealed the ways he and several co-workers have been experimenting with generative-AI tools and what they're capable of. Speaking on the MinnMax podcast, Wolpaw says he believes there's potential for its use in reactive dialog, or to play the "straight man" to high chaos games like Grand Theft Auto. However, he doesn't think it's there yet, and notes he's "fully against" AI generation being used as a developmental cost-cutting measure. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Here are some games most own but too few have played A new system requirements tier just popped up on Steam Portal 64 dev says "don't be mad at Valve" for the project's shutdown

Valve's superfans are back to break the player concurrent record for Portal, but the challenge may be steeper than anyone has realised

by Rick Lane

I assumed that everyone with access to a PC would have played Portal at this point, but it seems this is far from the case, at least if Portal's all-time concurrent players are anything to go by. According to Steam Charts, the record for Steam player concurrents stands at just 3,370 players, which is apparently a quirk of the game launching before Steam kept accurate player records... Read more.

Portal sicko beats the game with 'switched' wall textures so no surface is where it's meant to be, creating a whole new puzzling challenge in the process

by Rick Lane

Portal is not only one of the most mechanically inventive puzzle games ever made, but it's also one of the most elegantly crafted. Each of its Euclid-defying conundrums was built with surgical precision by Valve's mega-brain designers, created to slowly and specifically introduce you to the power of thinking with Portals... Read more.

Portal - Update

by Kerry

An update has been released for Portal: - Fixed some fire effects not working in some mods.

Portal - Update

by Kerry

An update has been released for Portal: - Fixed a client crash in particles. - Improvements to main menu layout across all resolutions. - Fixed effects to not produce blood spray when getting shot. - Fixed credits text on PC so ASCII art doesn't get clipped.

Portal - Update

by Kerry

An update has been released for Portal - Fixed fire effects in the ending sequence. - Fixed a crash in some mods when picking up a Half-Life 2 weapon. - Fixed a main menu crash in some mods. - Fixed chapter icon scaling in some menus.

Portal - Update

by Kerry

An update has been released for Portal: - Fixed the executable stack error on Linux.

There's a new Portal game and it costs $12,500

by Andy Chalk

It's been 14 years since Portal 2, and, well, the wait for a new game in the series isn't exactly over. But if you're a die-hard fan, if you have a lot of money lying around and nothing else to do with it, and if you like pinball, you can go for Portal on the P3 Pinball Platform, complete with the passive-aggressive stylings of GlaDOS delivered by actor Ellen McLain... Read more.

Portal Randomized mixes up Valve's beloved puzzler by turning the floor into lava and filling chambers with a deadly neurotoxin

by Rick Lane

I would still count Portal as one of my favourite games, but truth be told I haven't been back to it for a while. Having played it countless times since it launched, I feel like I've simply wrung it dry. Sure, it's fun to drop back in to hear GLaDOS' withering putdowns or just enjoy its general atmosphere. But I know most of its beats off by heart, and I could solve its chambers with the lights turned out... Read more.

Portal Update

by Kerry

An update has been released for Portal. - Roll back previous update while fixing an endgame crash.

Portal Update

by Kerry

An update has been release for Portal. - Fixed a startup crash on the Linux client.

Valve was going to ship The Orange Box in a white box before staff 'destroyed' the idea, and yes they saw you all doubting Portal before release: 'You guys are gonna eat those words'

by Rich Stanton

On October 10 2007 Valve released what is perhaps the greatest deal in gaming history: The Orange Box, a compendium of Half-Life 2 with both episodes, the long-awaited Team Fortress 2, and the unknown quantity Portal. OK, Half-Life 2 was a few years old by this point (Episode 2 was new), but every single game in that package is an all-timer, and you got the lot for the price of one retail game... Read more.

Here are some of the best Steam games most own but too few have played

by editor@pcgamesn.com

There are some games it feels like literally everyone has played - or at least heard of. Half-Life. Portal. Left 4 Dead. The list goes on, and on, and on. But despite their popularity and status as PC gaming icons, new data from SteamIDFinder shows that the videogames we call classics too often sit collecting dust in our Steam libraries and, quite honestly, I feel slightly called out right now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half-Life players somehow manage to beat Opposing Force in 17 minutes Underrated Half-Life game gets huge new Steam record 23 years later Half-Life players are plotting to break a new Steam record

A new system requirements tier just popped up on Steam

by editor@pcgamesn.com

We're no strangers to the delights of system requirements and the sometimes stressful nature of meeting a developer's demands. Well, for those on the other end of the hardware spectrum who want to know how many frames per second they will get from their Nvidia RTX 4090, Steam appears to be testing the waters for ultra system requirements. You've never needed the best graphics card to simply get a game running, but in the world of PC gaming, we often want to know what hardware we need to get a game running at the very top settings, while still achieving a solid frame rate. This endless pursuit of performance is often ignored by game developers when they reveal system requirements, leaving gamers without an expectation of the hardware they'll need to enable the absolute best graphics settings at anywhere from 1080p to 4K. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Nvidia AI demo gives NPCs even more reasons to complain at you Here's what to expect from the Nvidia RTX 5090 after new...