Portal 3

Hi there! It hasn't been too long since my last post, has it?

Anyway, I recently discovered the awesome video game series by Valve: Portal! It is centered around a human trapped in a human testing facility, run by a robot named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). My brother, Mutt, got Portal 2 for his birthday. He had played a demo of the original and watched a walkthrough of the full game, and loved it. I watched him play Portal 2 and became hooked on the idea. I did more research, and ended up watching the original Portal myself. I even played Portal 2 all the way through!

Now, if you are playing either game and don't wish to have them spoiled for you, I recommend you stop reading RIGHT NOW. That's right. Just click the little shiny X in the upper right-hand corner. I won't be offended AT ALL.

So, you're still reading. That means you've either played, or don't really care about spoilers.

People have talked a lot about how great Portal 2 was, and what they would want for a Portal 3. I, personally would LOVE another installation to this series, but I think the ending of Portal 2 was a pretty satisfying end to the story. Chell (the main protagonist) is freed to go back to the surface and live out her natural life outside of Aperture Laboratories, leaving GLaDOS to test with her two robots, Atlas and P-Body.

I can think of a few plot points for a Portal 3, but they have one question in common: Why would GLaDOS want Chell back after all the events in the past two games? In the end of Portal 2, GLaDOS lets her go because it is too hard to kill her, and she doesn't want to be killed again herself. So why would GLaDOS drag Chell back into Aperture? This wouldn't exactly work out.

Some people want a prequel set when Cave Johnson, the CEO of Aperture, was still alive. I, personally, think that we got all the backstory we need from Portal 2, when Chell is sent back to the original Aperture from the 60's to the 80's. We learn about the history from pre-recorded messages Cave left to be played after each test. Also, GLaDOS was designed to have his wife, Caroline's, likeness so, she implies some things while in this persona. What more do we need to know?

Others want Wheatley, the anti-hero from Portal 2, to come back, but the whole premise of Portal 2 was that Wheatley was to be stranded in space forever! Chell no longer trusts him, because he went mad with power after she put him in GLaDOS's place. How could he come back?

What I want to happen is this: GLaDOS reverses her deletion of Caroline and discovers the secret behind Chell's mysterious past: Chell is Cave and Caroline Johnson's daughter. Since both of her parents were unable to care for her, because Caroline was being used for the mind-to-computer technology, and Cave was ill due to exposure to lunar sediment, they had her raised by one of the scientists of Aperture so that she would be cared for properly. When GLaDOS was activated on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, and released neurotoxin, Chell and Rat-Man were two of the few survivors. Rat-Man put Chell into cryogenic stasis, so that she could be revived when all was repaired. He left messages for her, so that she could defend herself against GLaDOS until she could manage to escape, whether or not he could help her. GLaDOS puts her core into a human body, and goes to the surface to tell Chell, who has always wondered about her past, but was only told by GLaDOS that she was adopted. GLaDOS uses this information to blackmail her back to Aperture to test. (In the co-op campaign, she re-gains access to the cryogenic human vault. I always thought that she would test with them, but think that none of them were as good a quality as Chell was)

I realize this is a HUGE stretch, but I think Valve could make it work. Granted, it would probably do better as a movie. Not saying that it wouldn't be EPIC if Portal could be made into a movie.

Either way, Portal 3, as of yet, has not been officially confirmed. Some person from Valve briefly mentioned Portal 3 during E3 when Portal 2 was announced, saying that it would not support Playstation Move or 3D. They said that we'll "have to wait for Portal 3". This could have just been a side little joke, but maybe not. As of yet, none of their game series have had third installations. Half Life hasn't, Left 4 Dead hasn't, etc. So it may not happen, who knows? We can only imagine...