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Old Man Murray Vets To Make Portal Funny

Via Joystiq, an article at the GameInformer site generally about Valve's upcoming plans for Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Portal. In that article, they mention that some of the writing for Portal is being handled by veterans from the Old Man Murray site. From the article: "When you have that style of game it could just be very stale and very dry. It's just puzzle solving and you could put in a little techno music in the background and leave it at that. But we thought it would be much more interesting if we introduced this idea of the narrator. The original idea came from the training room in Half-Life 1 where you had that voice that was talking to you and whatnot. She was a little bit cynical, but not nearly as so as the voice in Portal. The writing for that is being done by Chet [Faliszek] and Erik [Wolpaw] who used to be Old Man Murray. They're at Valve now and one of their first projects they've been tasked with is to do the writing for Portal. So if you were a fan of Old Man Murray you're going to be a fan of that voice in Portal because it's the same wry cynicism."

10 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. w00t! by bunions · · Score: 5, Informative
    OMM was 10lbs of awesome stuffed into a 5lb sack.

    Allow me to present Exhibit A: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/39.html


    erik: Die Hard Trilogy 2 just keeps getting better. It defies logic.
    Chet: I can't believe it's so much better than Doom.
    erik: Science is not about your feelings.


    Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.
    --
    there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
  2. Re:I'll Bite by brunokummel · · Score: 3, Informative

    How about wiki??

    --
    What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
  3. Re:I'll Bite by jqh1 · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    who's moderating the meta-moderators?
  4. Crates! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wonder how Portal will do on the Time To Crate game ranking system?

    1. Re:Crates! by Snowmit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      *I* wonder how many times the narrator is going to call me a fag.

      --
      I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
  5. Re:I'll Bite by Bigboote66 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or you could really go nuts & try http://oldmanmurray.com/

    -BbT

  6. Re:I'll Bite by lbrandy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How about wiki??

    You should have just said 'RTFWA'

    It should no longer be acceptable, in this day and age, for people to ask questions that are answered in a wikipedia article for that particular subject.

  7. Re:I'll Bite by eln · · Score: 3, Funny

    If people don't ask simple questions that are easily answered with a simple Google or Wikipedia search, how will anyone else whore karma on Slashdot? Cut and paste the article text into the comments section? The very idea is absurd!

    Please...think of the karma whores.

  8. Re:[Insert post about how *blank* is not funny] by dr_dank · · Score: 2

    You'll be eating your words once they introduce Team Fortress 2: Fat Chicks in Party Hats

    --
    Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
  9. Re:I'll Bite by iluvcapra · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess I was just looking for personal opinions.

    Thanks for the links everybody, and the instant surmise of clear retardation; I guess it's much easier to paste a few hrefs into a box than to string a few sentences together expressing ones own understanding.

    \flameoff

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.