(Although I would be willing to bet that the actual writers would laugh at how completely pretentious that statement sounds. Which doesn’t change the fact that the message was there, it just means it came out naturally in their worldview and sense of humor.)

http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/8517/portal2chellkneemy8gd3.jpg

I like the commentary about Glados as a cruel game designer / dungeon master. The promises of cake become all the more amusing when you apply the game designer interpretation. Is this a commentary on how designers bait or promise to reward player? I definite need to replay Portal paying attention to the “game” of the experiment.

I pretty much have suspended any impulses to rationalize the legbrace on the character.

B: Glados is not antifeminest, apeture labs was looking for female subjects (probly due to there ability to adapt quickly, or there (suposed) superior inteligence, or most likely that women are less likely to rebel)

the self esteme fund, well, the owner suffred from mercury poisning (causing insanity) the portal gun was only 1 of 3 branches he created, along with the “counter heimlich maneuver”, and the “take-a-wish foundation”
or maybe it is sposed to sound stupid, to add to the satire.

the leg devices, Glados is not making her wear them, apeture is, they are most required to complete the testing, most likely added years ago, (pre-evacuation)they were added most likely because its easyer to incorperate the 2 tests into 1, than to do 2 diffrent tests, and build 2 diffrent test facilities

it is obvious that Apeture has done portal testing on alien likeforms, (a clipboard shows a chickenlike skeleton structure next to what seems to be testing data, with a big red stamp mark across it reading “FAILED”) or maybe it IS just a chicken

***this has nothing to do with portal, but i just have to get it out there, in HL-1, it was the G-Man, who supplied the crystal that triggered the portal storms that led to the HL series, as said by Eli Vance in HL2 ep2, in white forrest, while alyx (Mmmmm, alyx) was getting tea

***i made detailed records of the Apeture Reasurch Facility, email me if anyone is intrested in the images and summaries, T_Q_O_F@yahoo.com

The leg brace design and the comment about donating organs to a Self-Esteem Fund for Girls still create (for me, at least) a general feel of gender-snarkiness. But I knew when I wrote this that I was piecing together some vague impressions that were nagging in the back of my mind – and vague impressions are bound to be interpreted in different ways by different people.

I wouldn’t take that as anything sinister on the part of GLaDOS or Valve. I can remember back in the early to mid ’90s when it was a pretty widespread thing, here in the U.S. anyway, for a specific day where a bunch of girls, sometimes myself included, would be gone from school for “Take Our Daughters to Work Day”, which wasn’t something specific to a particular company but was in fact observed by lots of companies. It was about the idea of getting girls interested in different careers beyond motherhood and stereotypically “female” careers.

After a while, at least in my area, it was more of a gender-neutral thing, but it was a very big thing for a while for it to be specifically daughters. So that remark is definitely based on a real-life event.

Considering the team’s website for Narbacular Drop mentions that team leader Kim Swift had just turned 21 (at the time of Narbacular Drop being released), and we can assume the rest of the team is around the same age, that makes them only slightly younger than me, so I’d imagine the women on the team were fully aware and may have taken part in Take Our Daughters to Work days themselves.

On a side note, I’m fairly certain glados isn’t ‘evil’ at all, she says in a round about way during the credits that her purpose was to help the humans still alive no matter the cost, and if she had to kill to do and die herself she would. That doesn’t make her evil, it makes her apathetic and driven. She does mention that you won’t get anymore help from her up there, then makes that sarcastic joke about black mesa which seems to indicate that she doesn’t hold black mesa (which we all know is evil) in high regard, which would point to her working ‘for’ humanity as a whole, not just themselves… sorry this is turning into a full note. I’ll stop now

The Valve commentary re: the leg braces is something I mentioned above. Yes, I’ve heard it, and when I did my first thought was that perhaps it was just a random coincidence after all. But the fact that playtesting prompted them to put *something* on her legs doesn’t change the fact that they chose this specific visual look among many options. Why the awkward pose? It probably made more work for their animators – it’s not like this was the simplest choice possible.

Frankly, when the commentator says that after they added the leg braces playtesters no longer complained about how she could survive such long falls, it seemed kind of laughable – these leg augmentations allow her to land a hurtling 5+ story fall or being flung across huge rooms without any injury? It’s ultimately a silly concession – which in my mind is fine, it fits in with the humor of the game.

None of what I was writing about takes away from the game’s experience to me. It adds to it.

About the leg braces:

If you listen to the developer commentary, VALVe reveals that playtesters were always confused at why she could land from such insane heights. Once the devs added the braces, no one wondered where she got her super-human abilities. That’s really the only reason they were added. Physically, it wouldn’t make sense to have her flat-footed if she’s wearing the braces, because there would be no room for the energy of impact to travel, thus making them pointless. Aside from that, Eli Vance from our more familiar side of the Half-Life universe wheres a similar brace due to a would-be physical limitation; I’ve never heard someone call foul-play about his frailty.

But even aside from all that, you do realize that the project lead from this game and its project predecessor (Narbacular Drop) is female, right? That’s most likely the reason the main character is finally not a stereotypical male. I, for one, enjoy the breath of fresh air given by this female game developer.

The second issue of the quotes from the game is what I read as an over-analyzation–again, no offense. =) I’m not sure how many others heard them and thought anything but how dryly humorous it was, but I hope it wasn’t many, because though thoughtful, turning comical writing into something more sinister sours a bit of what I perceived the game intended. And that is to make a game that stirred up the gaming community, but with simple, addictive gameplay, not social commentary.