Nintendo’s Portal 2

Ninety percent of the year my Wii has one task: collect dust, and damn well do it good. One hundred percent of the time, it does this flawlessly. But every so often I look down at my Wii and wonder about what more it could be doing.

If you were Frued you might be right, incidentally.

Moving on, there’s one missed opportunity that always comes to my mind. A game I always, without doubt, believe the Wii was invented for. Luigi’s Mansion 2.

You might look at the title of this post and make the connection. You might not. But luckily for you, Mr. Unobservant, connecting these dots is why we’re here. In 2007 Valve released Portal as an experiment bundled with the hotly anticipated Team Fortress 2, and the equally as anticipated Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Portal ultimately stole the show and walked away with being one of 2007′s Games of the Year. The quiet word from Valve’s mouth before Portal was released that, basically, if the game did okay they would consider a sequel.

Sequel it is! with Portal 2 on the way in a matter of months as of this writing.

Admittedly, Luigi’s Mansion is no Portal. It had the distinction of being a launch title for the GameCube, an honored thing for sure, but it never came close to Portal’s runaway success and explosive fandom and oft repeated quoting (to the eventual annoyance of all of Internetland). Regardless, I believe there’s no doubting how important Luigi’s Mansion 2 would be. Luigi’s Mansion could be described, perhaps unfairly, as a tech demo. A showpiece of the GameCube’s graphical prowess. A demo with limited gameplay, and short length, but undoubtedly FUN.

Does that sound like another game? Maybe? A game that begins with P and ends with ortal?

If you were thinking Paraplégiques Kombat des Mortal, you’re incorrect.

The Orange Box

Apparently I thought I didn’t own Half-Life 2 enough times already. I bought the Xbox 360 version of the Orange Box today for $20. When it came out, I got the PC version for $59. By that time I already had Half-Life 2 on the PC and the original Xbox.

So now I own it four times.

I’ve done this with Doom and Super Mario Bros. 3, too, so this is sadly precedented.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought Left 4 Dead which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve given up on the whole desktop computer gaming thing, being incredibly frustrated with system requirements. Lately I’ve felt an urge to play Half-Life 2 again, but rather than download the games off Steam onto my old, disused PC… I came to the conclusion that I’d compliment my copy of Left 4 Dead with the Xbox 360 copy of The Orange Box. Thus bringing my all-time PC favorite to the console once and for all.

Since I have Xbox Live, and never having actually played Team Fortress 2, I think this will be a good chance to finally check it out.