Portal 2
So Portal 2 came out last week, and thanks to all those who contributed to the potato sack indie bundle (http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/) to release it early, it was also an awesome birthday present 
(Thanks Gabe). Last week I also finished both the single player and Co-op stories of the game, and it indeed was an awesome game, definitely living up to the Valve standard of games.
My verdict? Co-op is fun, and a great addition to the portal gameplay, and surprisingly has its own story to it too (which follows after the single player campaign). Not so sure on replayability though, once you complete the puzzles, how are they challenging the next time round? And there are some nice communication elements (ping tool) for people playing online, but if your playing with strangers who haven’t beaten a stage yet, or you haven’t, and they’re rushing you, wont that ruin the experience? Fortunately I was playing with a mate, and we got to play through its entirety, consistently.
As for single player, it’s definitely a different beast to its predecessor. Portal 1 was simply a puzzle game, showcasing Valve’s awesome innovativeness, but Portal 2 was to become a full game, with its own box, and its own sales count. It definitely delivered, and at times it felt almost as epic as playing HL2. The environment, story, setting and characters were all great, and a times also felt a bit reminiscent of bioshock, which isn’t a bad thing. Unfortunately, I felt because there were so many new gameplay elements like gravity streams and bouncy goo, there was too much focus in explaining these new elements, and not enough levels where it exploited them. Even though some puzzles were actually quite hard, after you solved them, there wasn’t as much “OMFG THAT WAS AWESOME”, as there was in Portal 1. The beauty of Portal 1 was its simplicity, using only 2 portals, a few cubes and buttons, there were plenty of levels which used the same elements, but in completely different ways, and that made for really satisfying puzzles. Now it sounds like I’m dissing Portal 2 a little, but that’s only because there is nothing else to complain about, the other elements of the game are just perfect! And Valve really made another awesome game (do they ever not?).
What I would like to see though is access to all of Portal 2′s new stuff, for the community to get there hands on and exploit them (I didnt see any level importing like the first one :S). So in summary, Portal 1 had better quality puzzles, but everything else was stellar (oh FYI Portal 2 didn’t have any bad puzzles, they were still good, it’s just Portal 1′s as you know were just mind bending, could also just be as a result of expectation though).
Valve Merch
So thanks to our awesome $AUD ($1.05USD), I had to buy some merchandise from the Valve Store. Here’s what I got:
And there was also a Aperture Lab’s Vinyl sticker, but that’s a surprise for another day 
)