In celebration of the delayed release of Valve's popular digital distribution platform on the Mac, it has been announced that until May 24th you can download the 2007 cult hit Portal for free on either PC or Mac. If you're like me and refused to buy the Orange Box when it came out because it forced you to buy two games you already bought, but STILL love the brilliant blend of flawless mechanics, dark humor, and perfect pacing of Portal, this is great news. If you are one of the three people reading this who haven't played through arguably the best three-plus hours of gaming ever, now you have no excuse.
Also posted is this hilarious ad (seen below) to promote the free release. Please also note the reference to the recently announced co-op mode for Portal 2 - to be released this fall. Portal 2 was recently announced and detailed in an in-depth Game Informer article from a month ago.
As much as I love their games, Valve earns a lot to earn my ire. Can you at least announce Half Life 2: Episode 3 or Half Life 3?!? I mean WTF?! At least with Duke Nukem Forever we had scores of worthless screen shots and trailers. With that said, Valve made a brilliant move here. The game is three years old and giving it away for free for a week will not dip into your massive profits in any significant way. All it will do is drum up excitement for the sequel. Well done Valve.
