Portal 2 is due out in stores in about 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to it. I loved the first game. I bought the Orange Box for it, and didn't even bother finishing Half-Life 2 or even touched Team Fortress.

GladOS's voice captivated me. The puzzles twisted my mind. The clever story that tells itself entirely through background details in the gameplay and environment rather than expository cutscenes or dialogue immersed me in the world. Johnathan Coulton's end credit song, Still Alive, is still one of the most requested song whenever I get together with friends to play Rock Band.

It was a triumph. I'm being so sincere right now.

But I can't help but wondering: Do I really want a sequel to Portal?

Do you?

Samurai, I choose you!

A friend of mine called me up just a few minutes ago to ask me for advice on how to set up his first game of Civilization IV and what civ to pick in his first game.

He's going with Japan. Because "Samurai sound cool".

Yes they do. Yes they are.

Yesterday, I began an analsyis of the recently-released Madden NFL 12 teaser trailer. In it, I discussed four of the features showcased in the trailer (or at least, what I thought the features would be). My general conclusion in that section was that the only feature of any note is what appears to be a new player attribute and profiling system. Hopefully, the rest of the new features will provide something more interesting.

1. Section 5: Something about field goals...
2. Section 6: Probably not a blimp camera
3. Section 7: Custom playbooks are back
4. Section 8: Surprise onside kicks
5. Section 9: Hot and cold streaks
6. Section 10: 3-D grass
7. Conclusion, and how EA can earn my money this year

I can't help but comment on this response from last night's The Colbert Report about Colbert's challenge that Jimmy Fallon donate $26,000 to DonorsChoose.org:

I just donated $50 to "Let's learn team sports with real equipment" by going through the link on www.ColbertNation.com, and I encourage my readers to do the same!

Last week, the first teaser trailer for Madden NFL 12 (why don't they just call it '2012'?) was released. Somehow, I managed to miss the initial release and didn't stumble onto the trailer until this weekend. But even though it's "old news" now, that isn't going to stop me from sharing my two cents.

First things first, here's the trailer in its entirety:

There's a lot of information in this trailer. A heck of a lot more than we got in the NCAA Football 2012 screenshot from a few weeks ago. Let's break it down!