when Half-Life08.mp3 kicks in
Did You know Games:
If you look closely during the Turret Opera, you can see Chell’s mother’s corpse inside the Companion Cubes.
Portal 2 fandom:
I’m proud to finally share with you my symphonic arrangement of The Courtesy Call. This is the first movement of a larger project. I want to orchestrate the whole single player campaign soundtrack, to be performed live by a symphony orchestra.
I want to thank everyone involved in making this possible and the whole community for loving this game as much as I do.
🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
Today’s Portal 2 10th anniversary and to celebrate I reorchestrated the whole soundtrack I arranged the first act for symphonic orchestra I did an orchestra version of the first track I’m announcing my Portal 2 Symphonic Suite project with the release of this little teaser of the opening track, The Courtesy Call, rearranged for a full symphony orchestra.
If you enjoyed it, please subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss the release of the full version (coming soon!)
[MP3 download link in the video description]
Yep, that sounds like Valve.
According to IMDB, Ellen McLain plays GLaDOS in three My Little Pony episodes but I just can’t find anything else about it?!?!?!
Something I loved about HL:Alyx is how they didn’t shoehorn every major character just for fanservice, like they’ve done lately in Star Wars media.
Every appearance is natural and we’ll handled.
HL:A looks GORGEOUS
I can’t wait for modders to spend the next 10 years remaking HL2 on Source 2
It’s P-Body! My new Fender Precision! :D
Whole modding story after the cut:
Read moreI’m trying not to overhype for what could be nothing but WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT FUTEHADKADÑALKAÑRKA
I want to talk a bit about the music near the end of Portal 2…
I’m not good at all at talking -even when it’s my own language, wich is not the case- and it’s worst when it’s describing things… and I’m going to regret it in a few minutes…
But, anyway… I’m going to talk a bit about the music of the Act 4 of Portal 2 (because, yes.. it has 4 acts, as you can see in the map names)
The first audio track (first 55 seconds) is called sp_a4_finale3_b2 (where sp means singleplayer, a4 means Act 4, finale3 means it is for the third map in the act and b2 is for order reference). This track appears in the soundtrack as OMG, What Has He Done? This is heard when GLaDOS says, guess what: “Oh, my God, what has he done?”. It’s a slow variation of the GLaDOS/Aperture theme, the one theme that sounds lot of times during the game and also present in the trailers, but with two notes less after cutting into the drama-queen like strings. It really captures the panorama you get to see in this scene: the facility falling apart bathed by the rays of… what? Is that the sunset or the flames burning down the whole place?
sp_a4_finale3_b4, from :55 to 2:00: The sound of revenge! Plays when you enter the excursion funnel and GLaDOS… tells you something that’s quite sad… at the end you can hear a fast fariation of the GLaDOS/Aperture theme played by the “strings” (synths probably). Not much to add…
sp_a4_finale3_b4p2, from 2:00 to 2:18: Once you leave the funnel and head into the Central AI Chamber, this track is heard. You can hear the Wheatley leitmotif played by the “brass”. What I want to note here is that the music during “narrative” parts of the game are based on two elements: the GLaDOS and the Wheatley themes. The most remarkable part, I think, is during the button scene at the end of Act 2 (Don’t Do It in the soundtrack) where you can hear both motif “arguing” just like you hear the characters in the dialogue. Naturally, as GLaDOS is talking to you can hear glimpses of her motif and, once she’s done talking, you hear Wheatley’s motif, because you’re heading to his lair.
sp_a4_finale4_b0, from 2:18 to 2:50: When the map changes and during the damaged cores dialogue, as a continuation and ending to the music that was already playing. What seems to be really slow variation of the Wheatley motif is played by the strings.
sp_a4_finale4_b1, from 2:18: Most of this track is cut from Songs To Test By, just the beginning is on Bombs For Throwing At You and it’s pretty interesting: the first seconds play during the revenge speech from PotatOS and intensifies when “WheatDOS” begins to talk about his Four-part plan. Why do I find this interesting? Because I’m a nerd. But, besides that, the track is just like what’s happening… YOU’RE READY TO FIGHT! BRING IT ON! LET’S DO IT! COME ON! WHEN IS HE GONNA BE DOnE TALKING! HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO BE? That’s it. The same pattern plays over and over trying not to loose as Wheatley talks and talks and talks before cutting abruptly into the fast heavily sintetized music from the battle… (not present here)
That’s it. Once again, I suck at doing this but I wanted to try.
999999 - Portal 2 soundtrack
So I heard you like 8-bit music…
It’s easy to think that now (”now” being at the end of Episode Two) that the Combine forces on Earth are cut from the Overworld, all that’s left for humanity is to hunt down the remaining Combine stranded on the planet, rescue Judith, build a new society and live in peace (you can read that with the Full-Life Consequences music playing in your head).
But we should know that the Half-Life series are, maybe not groundbreaking if you compare it to other works of the genre, specially on literature, less obvious and more complex than that and a happy resolution is not likely to happen.
First of all, what if the Combine are wiped out from Earth? Will people just think “Yeah, they know now they shouldn’t mess with us so they’re not going to be a problem anymore!”? Hell, no! There are hints that Gordon is into something bigger than he knows (thanks to G-man he freed the Vorts from Nihilant’s slavery) and the Combine was invading planets before they knew about the Earth.
Once humanity is back to “normal”, what will happen? There’s something obvious that would click on everyone’s mind: We are not alone and we must be ready. The same idea that’s being developed on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And that’s also a situation we can find in our times (have you found those nuclear weapons on the middle east yet, USA?) and it’s probably the reason that got the Combine out of their planet: We are not alone, are we going to wait for others to come and take us over? Obviously the story is more interesting that “bad guys do bad things because they are bad” and there must be a motivation for the Combine expansion.
Who’s gonna stop them? Humans? Then, what? Are we going to be the next invaders?
Omg, What has He Done? (In-game mix)
The Portal 2 soundtrack is really interesting and you can’t appreciate it enough by just listening to Songs To Test By, as Mike Morasky used a different mix oriented for the listener to enjoy it by itself rather than the in-game mix that’s oriented on the gaming experience.
Yet Songs To Test By cuts for some reason parts of the soundtrack and that’s the case of “Omg, What has He Done?”.
The STTB version begins with the music you hear when you get the panorama of Aperture Science getting destroyed and GLaDOS exclaims “Oh my God, what has he done?”, next comes the music that plays when getting inside the Excursion Funnel during GLaDOS speech and ends with what plays when getting inside the Central AI Chamber before the map change (the last excerpt plays again at the beginning of the next map).
What is left from this mix is just a short section you hear while climbing in the Central AI Chamber beginning around 1:58 and the importance of this small section is that it contains the Wheatley motif at around 2:03, a motif composed of merely four notes that plays in key sections of the game related to Wheatley.
At least in a subconscious level, your mind already associates this short motif to Wheatley and evokes the mixed experiences the player had with the character just before the final battle with him.