April 22 |
April 22 (Reuters) – Greenwich Capital Commercial Mortgage
Trust 2007-RR2
* Moody’s Affirms One and Downgrades Three CRE CDO Classes
of Greenwich Capital Commercial Mortgage Trust 2007-RR2
Originally Published On: www.reuters.com – Original Article Here
Story By: by Travis Larchuk
In the video game Portal 2, players use portals to teleport themselves and objects to help solve puzzles.
Source: YouTube
One way the computer attempts to get the player to do its bidding is with the tempting offer of cake.
“You know, if you just do what she says, there’s going to be some cake at the end of the game,” Wolpaw says. “Like there’s going to be an office party.”
[Spoiler Alert] But that sweet-sounding computer pulls a 2001: A Space Odyssey and turns out not to be so nice.
“And somehow, for whatever reason, ‘The cake is a lie’ caught on as this thing that was appearing everywhere,” Wolpaw says.
The phrase can be found on blogs and message boards across the Internet. Some people even baked Portal-themed wedding cakes.
Gamers also embraced Portal’s music â especially the song “Still Alive,” which plays during the game’s closing credits. Written by Jonathan Coulton, a singer-songwriter known for his quirky lyrics, “Still Alive” is a passive-aggressive song sung by GLaDOS after the player manages to beat the game.
Coulton says fans quickly embraced the song, even uploading their own cover versions to YouTube.
“Immediately there were all of these spinoffs, and people doing covers on the ukulele,” he says. “And I think it’s an elementary school chorus who [also] sang the song.”
Coulton says the song is undoubtedly more famous than he is. And he envisions playing it at concerts for a very long time.
“It certainly has led a lot of people to my music,” he says, “and still today, there are people who discovered me through that song.”
‘Portal 2′
Compared with the relatively quiet release of the original game, Valve, the company behind Portal, is going all-out for the sequel.
No longer part of a compilation, the game is being released all by itself. It’s about four times as long, including a cooperative mode that requires two players to work together to solve puzzles.
The original Portal team consisted of seven core people â for the sequel, the team had 40 members.
Valve has put out a full publicity push, with billboards and advertisements on TV and in movie theaters.
Portal 2 also adds new voice talent, including Stephen Merchant, co-creator of The Office and a co-star of HBO’s Extras. Erik Wolpaw says the team was surprised when the actor agreed to participate.
“Just because he was co-creator of The Office, we figured he was filthy, filthy rich. Which he may very well be, I don’t know,” he says.
So far, history is repeating itself with the sequel. Valve tapped the team behind another DigiPen student project, Tag: The Power of Paint, to incorporate that game’s mechanics into Portal 2.
And Jonathan Coulton was tapped to write a new song for the game â to potentially be covered by ukulele players and grade school choirs everywhere.
Originally Published On: www.npr.org – Original Article Here
