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222-536: GLaDOS ( Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System ) is a fictional character from the video game series Portal . The character was created by Erik Wolpaw and Kim Swift , and voiced by Ellen McLain . GLaDOS is depicted in the series as an artificially superintelligent computer system responsible for testing and maintenance in the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center in all titles. While GLaDOS initially appears in
444-521: A Blue screen of death image was used instead of a revelation of Portal 2 , showing the typical text found in a blue screen of death, but with GLaDOS's name at the top. In the reveal of the PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 , GLaDOS's voice was used to introduce Gabe Newell , the co-founder of Valve at E3 2010, where he revealed Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3. Portal 2 ' s release was preceded by
666-441: A Mercyful Fate -inspired band that had played with Patton's Fiend, and they formed another two-piece extreme metal band called FCA. Eventually, the four musicians joined up and established Mr. Bungle in 1984. In November, they performed its first show in the adjacent town of Bayside, California . Dunn, Spruance and Patton "pretty much hated everyone" at school and hung out alone next to the tennis courts outside campus. To pass
888-490: A distributed computing spoof, which prompted players to play the independently developed games to awaken GLaDOS ahead of schedule, effectively promoting the Steam release of Portal 2 about 10 hours earlier than the official time. GLaDOS's popularity has led to merchandise being produced by both Valve and fans; a T-shirt depicting GLaDOS, as well as other elements from Portal , was made available for purchase on Valve's store while
1110-634: A "Weighted Cube", effectively a crate. These puzzles require the use of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, the portal gun. The gun can shoot two portals, colored differently for identification, on any flat surface that is painted with a specific paint containing moon dust. Once both portal ends are placed, the player can walk the character between them, or carry objects with the portal gun through them. Portal ends can be re positioned as often as necessary, but certain actions, such as walking through "emancipation grills" or moving
1332-607: A "modern classic" video game and "how they tell their stories". She called GLaDOS an "endlessly cheerful and clearly insane computer" and called her narrative "simple". Emily Short , creator of a female artificial intelligence character in the video game Galatea , speculates that in GLaDOS's final remarks to Chell ("No one likes you, you know"), "there is a hint that she's talking about herself, not Chell; that she herself desires an emotional connection that she has never been able to achieve, because she also needs to survive, and all humans are
1554-411: A "sort of spiritual successor" to SHODAN. However, PC Zone UK commented that the comparisons between GLaDOS and SHODAN run dry; while Portal leaves everything to the players' imagination, System Shock 2 has a strongly defined storyline. They do, however, describe her breakdown as hysterical, desperate, and hilariously childish, calling it the most finely controlled breakdown since Patrick Bateman 's in
1776-549: A 1986 show at a pizza parlor, where Mr. Bungle played numerous times. After the performance, Spruance, who had invited Patton to the show, gave drummer Mike Bordin Mr. Bungle's demo "The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny". From school to college, Patton also worked part-time at the only record store in Eureka until he joined Faith No More in 1988. During the late 1980s, Mr. Bungle released
1998-585: A 30-piece orchestra, was released by Ipecac Recordings. The album was co-produced and arranged by Daniele Luppi . Recorded in 2007 at a series of European performances including an outdoor concert in a Northern Italian piazza, the CD features traditional Italian pop songs of the 1950s and 1960s as well as a rendition of Ennio Morricone 's "Deep Down". On June 18, 2010, Patton performed the 1965 work Laborintus II by classical composer Luciano Berio in Amsterdam, along with
2220-711: A Dead Scene , as well as a cover of Faith No More's "Malpractice," with the Dillinger Escape Plan live at the band's first of three final shows at Terminal 5 in New York City . In May 2018, Patton performed two concerts entitled Forgotten Songs in Modena, Italy, with the American pianist Uri Caine . The setlists of the concerts varied and included songs from Olivier Messiaen , Elton John , Slayer, Violeta Parra , George Gurdjieff , among many others. They also performed
2442-477: A backstory for the creation of GLaDOS, who is revealed in-game to be Caroline who was put into GLaDOS. This later led the writers to develop a full story arc for GLaDOS where she would come to recall her past, learn from it to solve the dilemma and then subsequently delete it and reset herself. McLain wrote "GLaDOS' Song", her only composition, offering it to Valve for use in the game; it was not used, though she and John Lowrie performed it for Vice . In designing
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#17330852724982664-513: A boss battle; as a result, they had her let Chell go due to the reasoning that Chell was too difficult for her to handle. Writer Jay Pinkerton stated that GLaDOS was an exemplification of a villain who can go from "genuinely tender" to "genuinely villainous" and that "she's not just this moustache-twirling villain". He also stated that she has a "passive-aggressive nature" and will never "overtly attack, it's always these subtle mind games". The designers also intended to make it vague whether or not GLaDOS
2886-664: A bridge from a limited set of parts to cross a river or chasm, using physics simulations to test if the bridge will hold up against traffic crossing it. Bridge Constructor Portal adds in elements from the Portal series, such as portals, as part of the construction challenge. The game is set within Aperture Laboratories, with the puzzles monitored by GLaDOS. The game released on December 20, 2017, for personal computers and mobile devices, and later in 2018 for PlayStation 4 , Xbox One , and Nintendo Switch consoles. Aperture Hand Lab
3108-498: A collection of video games in a collection called Potato Sack , which featured thirteen independently developed games. These games were all a part of an alternate reality, based on a cryptic narrative that suggested the awakening and relaunch of GLaDOS. Valve provided the developers access to their art assets to include Portal 2 -themed content into them, and in some cases, McLain recorded new dialog specifically for these games. The alternate reality game ultimately led to "GLaDOS@Home",
3330-457: A combination of her anger with Wheatley and her conflict with her past life as Caroline. Through the course of the game's events, GLaDOS's personality shifts significantly; however, at the end, she reverts to her original personality, an action Wolpaw sums up as "explicitly reject[ing] it" and saying "You know what? Done." While they wanted to give players the sense that they had defeated GLaDOS, they felt that they should not have players fight her as
3552-635: A core transfer using the Space Core. GLaDOS leads the player in solving bridge-making puzzles within Aperture in Bridge Constructor Portal . GLaDOS makes an appearance in Death Stranding , revealing themselves after completing the final companion cube crossover side quests. The voice and likeness of GLaDOS makes an appearance in a Cyberpunk 2077 side quest: "Epistrophy: Coastview" as one of
3774-466: A devious boss, citing one form where she would use a series of lasers, like those seen in James Bond films. However, it was determined that this twitch gameplay distracted players from GLaDOS, and was too different from the game's puzzle-solving gameplay. Additionally, it was difficult for players to detect when they were hit, so the developers switched the gameplay to feature rockets. This incarnation of
3996-514: A fan produced a voice pack for a navigation system which uses GLaDOS's voice. Another fan also modeled and 3d printed a lamp using GLaDOS as the base form, complete with an LED eye and movement control, other creators have also added voice control, a speaker system, and an output system used to turn on and off various items, such as a PC, VR headset , and room lights. A cosmetics vendor called "Geek Chic Cosmetics" features several video game-themed makeups, including one based on GLaDOS. In 2021, an AI
4218-444: A fan-made video game released on March 3, 2012, that combines elements of the video games Super Mario Bros. and Portal . In August 2011, Dan Trachtenberg released a fan film based on the series called Portal: No Escape . The video would later go viral. The Portal games have found application in educational aspects outside of game development. The first game was praised as an example of instructional scaffolding where
4440-514: A film adaptation of the Portal series. In 2016, Abrams stated that he still has plans to direct these films in the future, with both films in the writing stage. Abrams confirmed in May 2021 that the film adaptation was still in the works as they were still working on a script for the film from Warner Bros. Pictures . Portal Prelude is a 2008 single-player mod that takes place before the events of Portal . A remastered version using Nvidia RTX Remix
4662-469: A fire pit. Once Chell escapes, GLaDOS attempts to reconcile with Chell, claiming the pit was a final test. At the end of the game, after Chell moves through the bowels of the Enrichment Center, GLaDOS's chamber is reached, where the final encounter occurs. In this encounter Chell dislodges the various personality cores (each also voiced by McLain, with the exception of the final core, which is voiced in
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#17330852724984884-430: A floating brain, a spider-like appearance, and an upside-down version of Sandro Botticelli 's painting The Birth of Venus with the four personality cores around her body. Eventually, they settled on the design of the robotic figure hanging upside down. This was done to convey both a sense of raw mechanical power and femininity. A large disk with the four personality cores hanging from it was added to her design, when she
5106-537: A free DLC for owners of the original game on PC. It was released on December 8, 2022. Portal 2 was released as a standalone game in April 2011 on both computers and consoles. It is considered as one of the greatest video games of all time by numerous publications and critics. It received acclaim for its gameplay, pacing, dark humor , writing, the voice work of McLain, Merchant, and Simmons, and its challenging but surmountable learning curve . Portal: Companion Collection
5328-612: A full-scale VR game in 2017, Valve experimented with Portal , but found the portal systems disorienting in VR; instead, they returned to the Half-Life series and released Half-Life: Alyx in 2020. In April 2022, Erik Wolpaw urged Valve to make Portal 3 saying "I am also not getting any younger. We are reaching the point where – it's crazy to think – [we're] literally going to be too old to work on Portal 3 . So we should just do it." In September, Ellen McLain also called for Portal 3 saying she
5550-416: A guttural fashion by Mike Patton ) and incinerates them. During the battle, it is revealed that before the events of Portal , GLaDOS released a neurotoxin into the Enrichment Center (revealed to occur on Take Your Daughter to Work Day in the sequel), which resulted in the surviving scientists installing a morality core to prevent further incidents. Additionally, GLaDOS also appeals to Chell by claiming she
5772-519: A long time after playing. Game Informer considered GLaDOS the top defining video game character of the 2000s, taking the archetype of the sentient computer in "surprising new directions, at turns slyly comic and malevolent", and that she remains one of the most fascinating characters in gaming. GLaDOS has received praise for her humor and wit. In his review of Portal , PC Gamer editor Tom Francis stated that he could hardly stop himself from laughing at GLaDOS's deranged writing. PC Zone UK listed her as
5994-473: A malicious artificial intelligence , GLaDOS , that controls the facility. Most of the tests involve using the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" – nicknamed the portal gun – that creates a human-sized wormhole-like connection between two flat surfaces. The player-character or objects in the game world may move through portals while conserving their momentum. This allows complex "flinging" maneuvers to be used to cross wide gaps or perform other feats to reach
6216-406: A mind-blowing and standard-warping genius." He has knowledge on multiple instruments as well. Patton has garnered media attention for his reportedly wide vocal range, but when asked about his range in a 2019 interview, he said of past articles written about his vocal range: "I think that range thing is all bullshit. I don't think that I have the biggest range. And even if I do, who cares! ... This
6438-629: A new co-operative campaign, and a second that incorporated an easy-to-learn level editor that allowed players to make their own test chambers and share these through the Steam Workshop to others. Further on this, Valve has created a special version of the Portal level editor to be used alongside its "Steam in Schools" program as a means of using the game and editor to teach students about physics, math, and other lessons; Valve released this version of Portal 2 free for educational use. Exploring options for
6660-580: A new song called "Chansons D'amour" from an album Patton would later release with French musician Jean-Claude Vannier , Corpse Flower of September 2019. The shows were recorded, but it is not certain if the material will get a release. On January 25, 2020, Patton joined Laurie Anderson and Rubin Kodheli at the SFJAZZ Center for a performance based on the 16th century military manual Quanjing Jieyao Pian by Qi Jiguang . In September 2021, Faith No More
6882-431: A new song for the game's ending credits, "Want You Gone", which is written from GLaDOS's viewpoint of wanting to rid herself of Chell. It is performed by McLain. The writers found they needed another character to play off of Portal 2 's Cave Johnson during his recordings; instead of hiring a voice actor for a few lines, they economized by reusing McLain to play Caroline, Cave's assistant. This led naturally to providing
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7104-496: A new threat", but felt that since Chell never talked, it would not work. He compared her transformation into a potato and having her power stripped away to the game Jenga : "You're taking stuff off the bottom and seeing what happens." While she was in the potato form, the designers noticed a "very stark difference between this imperious, all-powerful GLaDOS talking to you, and this powerless GLaDOS talking to you on your gun". They found that playtesters were not interested in her when she
7326-417: A now-ruined facility after Chell and Wheatley inadvertently reactivate her. This time, she makes no attempt to hide her contempt and hatred for Chell; partly because Chell destroyed her, and partly because her quicksave system has forced her to relive her death over and over since her deactivation. Soon after she repairs the facility, Wheatley convinces Chell to perform a core transfer, putting him in charge of
7548-469: A number of "personality cores" that would fit onto GLaDOS to prevent her from turning against them. Despite this, on the day she was officially activated (coincidentally on " Take Your Daughter to Work Day "), she turned against the researchers and killed nearly everyone in the facility with lethal doses of neurotoxin gas. In the games and the comic Lab Rat , one employee Doug Rattmann survived due to his schizophrenia and distrust of GLaDOS. In trying to find
7770-487: A number of demos on cassette only: 1986's The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny , 1987's Bowel of Chiley , 1988's Goddammit I Love America and 1989's OU818 . The last three feature tracks that would later be included on their 1991 debut studio release . Remembering Mr. Bungle's first demo tape, The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny , the members of Faith No More approached Patton to audition as their lead singer in 1988. The band tried out more than fifteen singers to fill
7992-406: A parallel to how a real-life narcissist might attempt to secure the admiration of another person by empowering them in some ways, but limiting them in others. He adds that this works out well for the narcissist until the other person learns to think and act for themselves. He concludes by saying that a part of Portal ' s resonance comes from the fact that using the portal gun to escape the center
8214-462: A patch applied to the Steam version of Portal in March 2010, provided clues heralding the official announcement. The Potato Sack game, launched on April 1, 2011, led to the reveal of "GLaDOS@home", a spoof of distributed computer challenges, to get players to cooperate on playing the independent games as to unlock Portal 2 on Steam about 10 hours before its planned release. The Final Hours of Portal 2
8436-555: A portal, which flings them out of the other side to gain speed and distance that normal jumping and running could not generate. A leapfrogging effect can be used by placing portals in series during this flinging, gaining further momentum with each use. Portals will also allow light and other objects to transfer through them, and numerous puzzles involve using portals to manipulate bouncing energy balls, lasers, "hard light" bridges, and tractor beams to access new locations or direct objects to specific receptacles that must be activated to open
8658-415: A producer or co-producer with artists such as Merzbow , The Dillinger Escape Plan , Sepultura , Melvins , Melt-Banana , and Kool Keith . He co-founded Ipecac Recordings with Greg Werckman in 1999, and has run the label since. He saw his largest success with the group Faith No More; although they scored one US hit, they scored three UK top 20 singles. Patton is an outspoken, even mocking, critic of
8880-400: A proficient singer, Patton is fond of manipulating his voice with effect pedals and diverse tools. This has been a prominent feature in his project Fantômas and contemporary classical performers. Critic Greg Prato writes, "Patton could very well be one of the most versatile and talented singers in rock music"; colleague Blake Butler called Patton "a complete and utter musical visionary and
9102-447: A quality boss, stating that her quality stems from her appearing throughout the game, providing motivation as well as a satisfying pay-off at the end of the game. Editor Randy Smith commented that the battle with GLaDOS was easy, commenting that the fight was fun rather than being annoying to beat, adding that it had an "air of epicness". GLaDOS has won several awards in 2007 for her role in Portal . IGN editor Hilary Goldstein awarded her
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9324-455: A quality computer character. IGN called her the greatest video game villain of all time, stating that while their time with her was short, she left a mark on players like no other villain has. They cited her uniqueness as being because no other players existed in the game. They also added she was more human than most video game villains. 1Up.com editor Scott Sharkey praised her as being the best insane video game computer. He stated that not only
9546-472: A reactor failure, but inadvertently awakens GLaDOS, who had backed up her personality. Though they defeat GLaDOS by putting Wheatley in control of the facility, Wheatley is overwhelmed with power, sending Chell and GLaDOS, GLaDOS being temporarily reduced to a small computer powered by a potato, to the old core of Aperture, where GLaDOS rediscovers her relation to Caroline. They return to the surface where they are forced to defeat Wheatley before his ineptitude with
9768-488: A really familiar relationship". He called her "just one of many countless authorities that have explained to me the rules of a game, how to control myself, and then pushed me towards a particular goal of the computer's design" and that "this is an experience that I have every time that I fire up my Xbox and describes the curiously intimate relationship between player and gaming system that emerges in single player gameplay". He further discussed that he had no idea that Chell's name
9990-466: A reason to bring her with them. In considering the interaction between Chell and GLaDOS, Erik Johnson compared GLaDOS to "a jealous ex-girlfriend", noting "[Chell is] the only person she can have interaction with, but the problem is her only way of interacting with anyone is to test them". While they introduced new characters into the game, the focus of the story in Portal 2 remained the connection and interaction between Chell and GLaDOS, and focuses more on
10212-447: A relationship with someone with narcissistic personality disorder ". He adds that in order to fulfill her self-centered narcissistic desire to toy with someone, the player-character is trapped in the Enrichment Center, forced to do tricks for the computer. However, once the player-character becomes skilled enough to break the confines of the center, GLaDOS's secure amusement gives way to "histrionic, bipolar deportment". He describes this as
10434-449: A sequel to their classic NES title . On March 11, 2021, Patton lent his voice to a remake of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song that was released as the trailer for the videogame, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge . I'm not a poet. I'm not up onstage to get something off my chest. I'm making musical statements, or, most of the time, musical questions for people to figure out, and I'm not going to get in
10656-558: A social worker mother and a physical education teacher father. Patton's home was strictly secular. During his first years, his family had an apartment in San Jose, California , in which they spent much time before they permanently relocated to Eureka. Patton says he has written recreationally for as long as he can remember. Due to his father's profession, Patton grew up as a sports enthusiast and practiced them regularly until his touring career began in 1989. One of his early musical memories
10878-501: A supportive, yet also increasingly sinister character, where she delivers exposition about the general Aperture mindset. However, once the player-character escapes, she begins to speak in first-person singular rather than first-person plural. She shows desperation due to her lack of control at this point, adding that more emotion begins to creep through her voice. After destroying the morality core, she becomes unhinged, featuring an almost human voice. This voice, described as sultry by Wolpaw,
11100-424: A surface with a portal will cause the portals to dissipate. A critical feature of portals is that they retain the speed of the object traveling through it; as stated by GLaDOS to the player in the first game, "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out". When portals are placed on non-parallel planes, this can create the effect of "flinging". Commonly, one uses gravity to build up their momentum when they fall into
11322-452: A threat to her ... [She has] learned that the humans view her as potentially threatening and essentially disposable, and so she has to see them the same way." Scott Rogers, author of the book Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design , uses GLaDOS as an example of a "tormentor" boss character, stating that she taunts and challenges the players, but does not directly confront or attack them. Video game developer Andrew Doull describes
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#173308527249811544-419: A way to defeat GLaDOS, he finds that Chell , one of the human subjects kept in cryogenic storage within Aperture, has a high level of tenacity, and arranges for the events of Portal to occur by moving her to the top of GLaDOS' testing list. GLaDOS remains driven to test human subjects despite the lack of humans. The player is introduced to Aperture in Portal , which is said by Valve to be set sometime between
11766-464: Is "the only thing standing between us and them ". After the cores are incinerated, the room is sucked into a vortex leading to the surface and GLaDOS is destroyed. Chell wakes up outside the damaged facility. In an additional scene added to the game in March 2010, Chell is then dragged away by an Aperture Science robot who thanks her for "assuming the party escort submission position." In Portal 2 , GLaDOS initially resumes her role as test monitor in
11988-432: Is a "cogent metaphor for escaping an intimate relationship with someone diagnosably narcissistic". Grant Tavinor, author of The Art of Videogames , wrote that GLaDOS's actions and personality in Portal were "in the best of science fiction traditions" and describes her as "insincere, malfunctioning, and probably insane". Wendy Despain, author of Writing for Video Games Genres: from FPS to RPG , used Portal as an example of
12210-401: Is a compilation of both games and Still Alive content released for Nintendo Switch on June 28, 2022. The port was developed in collaboration with Nvidia Lightspeed Studios . The Potato Sack was an A.R.G ( alternate reality game ) conceived by Valve and 13 indie video game developers as a prelude to the release of Portal 2 . Portal 2 had been announced by a similar game, where
12432-493: Is a digital book written and created by Geoff Keighley released on May 17, 2011. This digital book gives insight on the creation of Portal 2 . Keighley had previously worked as an editor at GameSpot , writing several 10,000-word "Final Hours" pieces on various games where he visited the studios during the late development phases to document the creation of the game. One piece, "The Final Hours of Half-Life 2", allowed Keighley to interact with Valve during 2003 and 2004 and talk with
12654-506: Is a roomscale VR video game co-developed by Canadian studio Cloudhead Games and Valve, released free for Windows on June 25, 2019. It is a tech demo set in the Portal universe that showcases the functions of the hand, knuckle, and finger tracking technology used by the Valve Index . Aperture Desk Job is a free game set in the Portal universe released on March 1, 2022. It is a demonstration of
12876-399: Is a single-player mod for Portal 2 released on April 18, 2014, developed by Ruslan Rybka, also known as Stridemann, and released by SignHead Studio. Portal Reloaded is a 2021 single-player mod for Portal 2 developed by Jannis Brinkmann. Portal: Revolution is a 2024 single-player mod for Portal 2 developed by Second Face Software. It serves as a prequel to the original game. Mari0 is
13098-554: Is also co-founder and lead vocalist of Mr. Bungle, and he has fronted and/or played with Tomahawk , The Dillinger Escape Plan , Fantômas , Moonchild Trio, Kaada/Patton , Dead Cross , Lovage , Mondo Cane , the X-ecutioners , and Peeping Tom . Consistent collaborators through his varied career include avant-garde jazz saxophonist John Zorn , hip hop producer Dan the Automator and classical violinist Eyvind Kang . He has worked as
13320-476: Is an American singer, songwriter, producer, and voice actor, best known as the lead vocalist of the American rock bands Faith No More and Mr. Bungle . Noted for his vocal proficiency, diverse singing techniques, wide range of projects, style-transcending influences, eccentric public image and contempt for the music industry, Patton has earned critical praise and influenced many contemporary singers. In addition to his most popular endeavor, Faith No More, Patton
13542-475: Is built atop of a stripped-down version of the Steam client, "Steam for Schools", that is designed to be used in schools, allowing instructors to control the installation of the games and lesson plans on the students' computers. These tools, as well as copies of Portal 2 and the Puzzle Maker, are being offered for free for all educators. Mike Patton Michael Allan Patton (born January 27, 1968)
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#173308527249813764-426: Is descending into flames, requiring players to find a way to survive. He stated that it was both dramatic and exciting, but also a difficult puzzle. Wolpaw stated that this made no sense, commenting that it was one of the easiest puzzles in the game. He added that the battle was a dramatic high-point, since it was the first time GLaDOS directly tries to kill the player-character and the first time that players have to use
13986-400: Is in her best interest to let Chell go, as GLaDOS learned the best solution is usually the easiest one, and felt that killing Chell "[was] hard". GLaDOS also appears in an expansion to tower defense game Defense Grid: The Awakening , entitled You Monster , where she tests the player's abilities in a Portal -themed set of levels. In the crossover title Poker Night 2 , GLaDOS appears as
14208-488: Is kept in indefinite suspended animation , but he is shot by a turret in the process. He then enters a stasis pod himself, leaving his fate afterward unknown. A board game version of Portal , developed by Cryptozoic Entertainment with oversight from Valve, was released in 2015. Titled Portal: Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game , the game is based on players manipulating their tokens – which are representative of unwitting test subjects – through various test chambers in
14430-753: Is not like the Olympics of vocals. [laughs] I could make a record without singing a note, and I'll be happy with it." Patton is enthusiastic about collaborating with other musicians, stating that "It is really what makes life interesting", but he only participates in projects he feels close to. Phil Freeman of The Wire groups Patton with Tom Waits , Frank Zappa and Brian Wilson in what he calls 'California Pop Art' – artists from that area who adapted unconventional sources into their music and created pieces to then hire musicians capable of realizing them. Several writers have likened Patton to Zappa (as well as their bands Mr. Bungle and Mothers of Invention ) because of
14652-424: Is riper than ever". CNN 's Larry Frum wrote that "GLaDOS' voice is dripping with sarcasm and malice even as her tone remains soothing and calm". PCMag ' s Matthew Murray called her voice actor "irreplaceable" and called GLaDOS "saucy and strangely sympathetic". An editor for CBS News wrote that "the interactions between the player, GLaDOS and Wheatley are what give " Portal 2 " its charm and provide much of
14874-442: Is said and done, you'll once again come to cherish your relationship with that cruel AI". PALGN ' s Adam Ghiggino called Ellen McLain's portrayal of GLaDOS "hilariously blunt" due to her calling the player-character fat. He also wrote that GLaDOS has "a lot of emotion to [her] movement". The Guardian ' s Nick Cowen wrote that GLaDOS was funny as well as monstrous. Computer and Video Games 's Andy Robinson wrote that GLaDOS
15096-407: Is she the best insane computer in video games, but in films and books as well. He explains his choice by citing her eagerness to kill the player-character, but not being overt about it until the end. He also cites her feminine voice and passive-aggressive manner for his decision. In another article, he mentions how he feels more sorry for her than any other enemy, describing her as a "digital version of
15318-551: Is slowly revealed and defined throughout Portal despite "little interactivity in how the story is told". Of his own reaction to that character development, he writes, "I wanted to hunt GLaDOS down, confront her for her lies, and break free of her clutches. I wanted this boss battle. I don't know if I ever have wanted a boss battle before." Newsweek editor N'Gai Croal describes her as a "maternal, mischievous, malevolent and finally murderous unreliable narrator". Video game developer Nathan Frost describes Portal as an "exploration of
15540-476: Is tested when the AI directs Chell into a testing area populated with live-fire turrets, a course designed for military androids. The AI claims that the regular test chamber is unavailable due to "mandatory scheduled maintenance". GLaDOS uses the lure of cake and grief counseling to encourage Chell to continue, but at the final testing area, as Chell prepares to receive the supposed cake, GLaDOS attempts to incinerate Chell in
15762-535: Is the 'science' that she has married herself to." Portal (video game series) Portal is a series of first-person puzzle-platform video games developed by Valve . Set in the Half-Life universe, the two main games in the series, Portal (2007) and Portal 2 (2011), center on a woman, Chell , forced to undergo a series of tests within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center by
15984-544: Is the very definition of sadistic fascism". He also discussed the "lack of choice" for Chell, who is required to reinstate GLaDOS into her position to escape. He wrote that this lack of choice "manages to effectively maintain its position on the relationship between the everyman and systems of power". "By fulfilling the expected obligations of a 1950s 'wife', Caroline sounds as if she might as well be married to Johnson, and after all, given Johnson's alignment with American exceptionalism and what it can achieve through technology, he
16206-530: Is uniquely tenacious among the test subjects held by Aperture, Rattmann moves her to the top of the queue of testing subjects, thus starting the events of the first Portal . After Chell defeats GLaDOS, Rattmann escapes Aperture, but returns against the Companion Cube's objections when he sees the Party Escort Bot dragging an unconscious Chell back inside and into a disabled cryo chamber. He ensures that Chell
16428-485: The Half-Life series) for government funding. Johnson acquired the rights to a disused salt mine in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where they started building a labyrinthine set of offices, laboratories, facilities, and test chambers. During this time, Johnson became poisoned from exposure to moon dust, a key component of the paint needed to support portal technology, and became increasingly deranged. In Portal 2 ,
16650-499: The Rock Band game series, and has been a popular song for YouTube users to cover . GLaDOS later appeared in The Lab and Lego Dimensions . GLaDOS received critical acclaim from critics and gamers alike, some of whom called her narcissistic, passive-aggressive , sinister, and witty. IGN considered her one of the greatest video game characters, particularly among those created in
16872-663: The Penny Arcade Expo in 2008, the Press Start -Symphony of Games- concert in 2009, and the Game Developers Conference in 2008. The song is popular for fans to perform covers of on YouTube . Ellen McLain voices a computer AI in Guillermo del Toro 's 2013 film Pacific Rim ; her voice work is deliberately similar to GLaDOS, a Valve-approved nod to the character and Portal series. When announcing McLain's addition to
17094-425: The PlayStation 3 platform, after previously stating the difficulties in supporting this console, but that it would include support for cross-platform play between personal computers and PlayStation 3 players through a limited Steamworks interface. Valve brought in writer Jay Pinkerton formerly with National Lampoon , and Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek to assist Wolpaw with the larger story. They built on
17316-465: The Spitzer Space Telescope . The game Death Stranding , paying homage to Valve Corporation , features a character GLaDOS, who only communicates via email and through aliases. Death Stranding's GLaDOS provides side quests to collect cubes, resulting in the player being rewarded with Valve-themed gear. Near the end of the game, GLaDOS reveals herself and confesses that she does not belong to
17538-499: The beat boxer Rahzel on the album Medúlla . That same year, Patton released the album Romances with Kaada and contributed vocals to the album White People by Handsome Boy Modeling School (Dan the Automator and Prince Paul ). In 2005, Patton collaborated with hip hop DJ trio and turntablists The X-Ecutioners to release the album General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners . In February 2006, Mike Patton performed an operatic piece composed by Eyvind Kang , based on
17760-401: The thrash metal cover band Fiend, but were kicked out and subsequently recorded a death metal tape under the name Turd, with Dunn on vocals and Patton on the instruments. Although Patton was "pretty well-adjusted and well-liked by [his middle school] peers", he had a "hyper geek " personality and felt increasingly alienated from sportspeople; ultimately, he found a supportive environment in
17982-429: The " unreliable narrator " as a narrative staple from more traditional media, stating that GLaDOS is the best example of this staple in gaming. He cites a scene in Portal where GLaDOS tells the player-character that the current puzzle is unsolvable, which turns out to be false. However, he comments that "it is still incredible to see the number of people who fail to read the situation, and proceed calmly to their death" in
18204-534: The "Best of the Worst Guiding Voices", commenting that it was between her and BioShock character Atlas . However, he gave the award to GLaDOS, citing her humor as the prime reason. GameSpy awarded her the Best Character award, stating that she came from the most unexpected place – a game that could have gotten by without a story. They added that during the final encounter, her mood swings provided some of
18426-466: The "Moonchild Trio" alongside Joey Baron and Trevor Dunn , named after Zorn's 2006 album on which the trio first appeared, Moonchild: Songs Without Words . In 1998, Patton formed the metal supergroup Fantômas with guitarist Buzz Osborne (of The Melvins ), bassist Trevor Dunn (of Mr. Bungle ), and drummer Dave Lombardo (of Slayer ). They have released four studio albums. In 1999, Patton collaborated with Japanese experimental musician Merzbow on
18648-450: The "conversion gels" as part of Portal 2 . Valve included a co-operative play mode, based on their own observations and stories from players about working out the solutions to Portal ' s puzzles in a group environment. With this feature, they sought the ability to enable cross-platform play of Portal 2 between computers and consoles through Steamworks. This led to a surprise reveal by Newell that not only would Portal 2 be on
18870-525: The 1582 work Cantus Circaeus by Giordano Bruno , at Teatro Comunale di Modena in Modena , Italy. Patton sang alongside vocalist Jessika Kenney , and was accompanied by the Modern Brass Ensemble, Bologna Chamber Choir, and Alberto Capelli and Walter Zanetti on electric and acoustic guitars. The singer remarked that it was extremely challenging to project the voice without a microphone. This performance
19092-659: The 2000s. Universally praised for her contributions to the caliber of Portal ' s narrative, GLaDOS received multiple awards for being the best new game character in 2007 from GameSpy , GamePro , and X-Play . A number of publications listed her as one of the all-time greatest video game villains, including IGN and Game Informer , both of which ranked her first. She has been the subject of significant critical analysis from both journalists and game developers, who have compared her to other villainous computer systems in fiction, including HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and SHODAN from System Shock , with GLaDOS meeting
19314-437: The 2011 Games for Change Festival at New York University , Gabe Newell stated Valve's intention to direct Portal and Portal 2 towards education. Newell stated that Valve "doesn't see divide between making a game that can do well and be educational", and was already working with schools to develop lesson plans around the game. In one example, Valve brought in students from nearby Evergreen School to watch them interact with
19536-400: The Aperture Laboratories. The goal being to test the most lucrative chambers while attempting to stall the progress of other players. Valve had approached Cryptozoic with the core concepts of the board game, which the publisher found only needed small modifications in gameplay for the purpose of balance. The Lab is a VR game developed by Valve that as part of its partnership with HTC and
19758-475: The Aperture systems causes the facility reactors to become critical and explode. GLaDOS is returned to her original place and returns the facility to normal. GLaDOS then lets Chell go, realizing that the prospect of trying to kill her is too much trouble. Instead, she turns to two robots of her own creation, Atlas and P-Body, to locate a mythical store of additional human subjects kept in cryogenic sleep for her to continue testing on. In addition to these characters,
19980-535: The Companion Cube is a sentient object and a key to her survival, before having Chell dispose of it in an incinerator in order to leave a test chamber. Both games feature other personality cores that were constructed to keep GLaDOS in check; the first game includes three cores, the Morality, Curiosity, and Intelligence Cores, voiced by McLain as well as a snarling Anger Core voiced by Mike Patton . In Portal 2 , three more such cores (beyond Wheatley) are introduced including
20202-553: The Composer Series of John Zorn's Tzadik label, ( Adult Themes for Voice in 1996 and Pranzo Oltranzista in 1997). He is a member of Hemophiliac , in which he performs vocal effects along with John Zorn on saxophone and Ikue Mori on laptop electronics. This group is billed as "improvisational music from the outer reaches of madness". He has also guested on Painkiller and Naked City recordings. He has appeared on other Tzadik releases with Zorn and others, notably as part of
20424-476: The GLaDOS voice. Portal 2 also features the song " Exile Vilify " by The National . The concept of Portal came from Narbacular Drop , a student project from the DigiPen Institute of Technology . The game included the aspects of placing portals on any flat surfaces and using them to maneuver around levels. Valve's employees, attending a DigiPen career fair, saw their game and shortly later offered
20646-564: The Pines . In 2016, Patton provided the voice to lead character Eddy Table in a short animated film, The Absence of Eddy Table . In 2017, he scored the Stephen King movie 1922 for Netflix. Patton is an avid video game player, especially with PlayStation consoles. In 2007, he provided the voice of the eponymous force in the video game The Darkness , working alongside Kirk Acevedo , Lauren Ambrose and Dwight Schultz . Patton reprised
20868-623: The Radio and rapper Doseone (with whom Patton had previously collaborated on the Peeping Tom side-project). In 2016, the group released an eponymous debut album on Patton's Ipecac label. In August 2017, Patton released an album with the band Dead Cross , a supergroup that includes Slayer and Fantômas drummer Dave Lombardo and Retox members Michael Crain and Justin Pearson . On December 27, 2017, Patton performed his collaborative EP, Irony Is
21090-546: The UK on June 8. The same line-up eventually released a new album called Sol Invictus in 2015. During his time in Faith No More, Patton continued to work with Mr. Bungle. His success in mainstream rock and metal ultimately helped secure Mr. Bungle a record deal with Warner Bros. The band released a self-titled album (produced by John Zorn) in 1991, and the experimental Disco Volante in 1995. Their final album, California ,
21312-484: The VR headset, the HTC Vive . It was described as a "room-scale" VR experience, consisting of about a dozen small experimental experiences that highlight the use of VR; such include experiencing a fully panoramic view that has been stitched together from a number of photographs, a physics game where the player attempts to launch personality cores into piles of boxes using a catapult, and a bow-and-arrow based game. The Lab
21534-696: The album Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By with the group Lovage , a collaborative project consisting of Patton, Dan the Automator , Jennifer Charles , and Kid Koala . Patton performed vocals for Dillinger Escape Plan 's 2002 EP, Irony Is a Dead Scene . That year, he joined violinist Eyvind Kang and his ensemble Playground to play the piece Virginal Co Ordinates at the AngelicA International Festival of Music [ it ] in Bologna. The performance would be release as an album in 2003. In 2004, Patton worked with Björk and
21756-529: The album She , released under the name Maldoror. In 1999, Patton met former The Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison at a Mr. Bungle concert in Nashville, and the two subsequently formed the band Tomahawk . Tomahawk's straightforward rock sound has often been compared to Album of the Year / King for a Day era Faith No More. In 2001, he contributed vocals to Chino Moreno 's group Team Sleep and released
21978-500: The backstage of the institution is hinted at and gradually revealed through GLaDOS's slip-ups, from the momentary glitch during her initial instructions to the player ("the first flaw in the routine") to her ultimate abandonment of the formal language of the institution as she desperately pleads with the player to return to the testing area (the "front stage", where the institution's inner workings are supposedly hidden from view). Microsoft Game Studios developer Tom Abernathy, in discussing
22200-662: The best AI he had ever encountered – "more convincingly psychotic than HAL, with a more emotionally engaging death than Floyd , and funnier than C-3PO and R2-D2 ." The comparison was also made by other critics such as journalist Stephen Totilo and IGN's Cindy White. Totilo wrote that HAL was an influence on GLaDOS's "psychotic breakdown" seen near the end of the first Portal title. White wrote HAL and GLaDOS were similar due to both having "a calm, almost childlike, demeanor" which "hides nefarious intentions". She added that "the prospect of being shut down causes them to act out in deadly ways". GamesRadar editor Tyler Wilde stated that while
22422-416: The best end credits song of all time. It was funny, smart, fresh and managed to feel like the plucky, accidental hero". GameSpy 's Nathan Meunier wrote that "without inhuman antagonist GLaDOS spewing a laugh-inducing tirade of thinly veiled threats in her deadpan robotic drone as you progress deeper into the bowels of Aperture Science, Portal would have been a very different game". GLaDOS's mocking of Chell
22644-452: The book American Psycho . The Daily Telegraph editors Nick Cowen and Tom Hoggins listed her as the ninth-greatest video game villain, stating that she is as diabolical as a female AI can get, mentioning SHODAN as being inferior in this respect. Writer N'Gai Croal commented that the boss battle with GLaDOS is similar to the "Room 19" encounter with Andrew Ryan from BioShock , citing the same use of tactical language and techniques between
22866-462: The cast, del Toro stated that he is a "big fan of Valve" and highlighted Portal and Left 4 Dead as "instrumental family experiences" in his home. Del Toro contacted Newell directly to secure McLain's voice, with his daughter's influence on the call helping to finalize the deal. McLain voiced GLaDOS for an episode of the IRrelevant Astronomy web series prepared by NASA employees working on
23088-407: The change of the co-op characters to robots. The dialog written for GLaDOS in the co-operative campaign is aimed to try to break the bond between the two robot characters. Valve initially considered having separate lines for GLaDOS that would be given to each player individually, but found this to be a significant effort for minimal benefit. The writers also attempted adding GLaDOS lines that would make
23310-571: The character of the Aperture Science facility, providing a deeper story for GLaDOS and Aperture's CEO Cave Johnson, as well as developing several concepts for "personality cores" ultimately to the creation of the Wheatley core character. Portal 2 was similarly released with high praise with a 95 out of 100 score on Metacritic. Valve has continued to support the game through the release of two separate downloadable content packages, one introducing
23532-541: The compilation, was instead considered the highlight of the five. Its success led to the creation of the much longer Portal 2 , which included both single player and cooperative player modes; it too received near-universal critical acclaim. In addition to the challenging puzzle elements, both games are praised for their dark humor , written by Erik Wolpaw , Chet Faliszek , and Jay Pinkerton , voice work by actors Ellen McLain , Stephen Merchant , and J. K. Simmons . A number of spin-off media have been developed alongside
23754-409: The core of GLaDOS (also McLain). Sometime after Johnson's death, the old sections of the facility were vitrified , and a more modern facility was built atop the ruins. GLaDOS was built to control the facility and monitor the tests, but researchers found that the computer had villainous tendencies, threatening to kill the entire staff before it was shut down in time. The Aperture researchers constructed
23976-522: The creation of GLaDOS, who is revealed in-game to be based on Caroline's personality. This later led the writers to develop a full story arc for GLaDOS where she would come to recall her past, learn from it to solve the dilemma, and then subsequently delete it and reset herself. The designers wanted to start GLaDOS's role in Portal 2 off with her being "incredibly upset at [Chell]". They felt however that this would "get old pretty quick" if they did not put her "into another space". They accomplished this through
24198-453: The creation of the new content and what new features players could expect in the future from Portal 2 . To help the players develop the fictional history of Aperture Science, Valve created a digital comic to tell the story of the "Rat Man", a schizophrenic who is unseen in the games themselves but creates murals and scrawlings that guide Chell in both games. The comic, "Portal 2: Lab Rat", takes place both during and after Portal , explaining
24420-583: The dealer and is a part of an announcer pack for Valve's Dota 2 . The crossover-franchise game Lego Dimensions includes a significant amount of Portal content, including a Lego-constructed GLaDOS (voiced by McLain) as one of the main villains in the game's primary story. The heroes are forced through more Aperture tests (in which she accuses them of cheating through the usage of the keystones and their abilities) and eventually defeat GLaDOS by introducing her to HAL 9000 to distract her long enough to damage her. GLaDOS continues to appear in other areas through
24642-415: The death metal music scene where he shifted his focus from sports to art. He and Dunn also had punk friends and started to branch out to that subculture; neither musician wanted to be associated with the drug epidemic in Eureka nor the school's party scene, thus soon self-identified as straight edge . On the other hand, Trey Spruance, who is a year younger, and drummer Jed Watts were members of Torchure,
24864-511: The declining quality of the band's work as a contributing factor to the split. On February 24, 2009, after months of speculation, Faith No More announced they would be reforming with a line-up identical to the Album of the Year era, embarking on a reunion tour called The Second Coming Tour . To coincide with the band's reunion tour, Rhino released the sixth Faith No More compilation, The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection in
25086-404: The development team from 8 to about 30-40 programmers. Initial ideas for Portal 2 retained the idea of solving puzzles through scientific concepts, but eliminating the use of portals altogether; these versions did not fare well with test audiences nor with Gabe Newell, Valve's president; these ideas were dropped though saved for potential reuse in a different game by Valve. Portal 2 development
25308-404: The early part of the game, GLaDOS introduces each chamber and congratulates the player on completing it; though they could have included intermediate dialog from GLaDOS while the player attempts to solve each chamber, they found this would be distracting to players and limited her presence in the game to only these points. The developers considered having GLaDOS and Chell act as "buddy cops against
25530-428: The effect that she is still alive by the end of Portal . This song was written by Jonathan Coulton , who was approached by the team and asked if he would want to write a song for them. He later decided that it would be a good idea to do a song featuring one of the voices from the game that would tie up the story at the end. Swift stated that the team wanted the players to leave the game happy, leading to them implementing
25752-512: The effort is sabotaged by Wheatley. Through a collapsing ceiling, Chell shoots a portal onto the moon, which sucks the chamber into space and leaves Chell and Wheatley dangling on the moon surface. GLaDOS used the opportunity to regain control of the facility, knocking Wheatley away into space and saving Chell. GLaDOS reveals she felt relief for her safety but realizes that Caroline lives in her through emotion and immediately deletes her, reverting GLaDOS to her old self. Nevertheless, she decides that it
25974-418: The entire team jobs at Valve to help expand on their idea. Valve originally saw Portal as an experimental game to be included with its upcoming compilation, The Orange Box , alongside its release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 . To give the game character, a minimal story, tied loosely with the Half-Life world, was written by Valve's Erik Wolpaw . He needed a character to guide
26196-420: The environment to their advantage. After learning about what fellow Valve developers had planned for the final boss battle in Half-Life 2: Episode Two , the Portal developers decided to implement a neurotoxin that would kill the player-character in six minutes. This made it easier on the writers, who only had to write six minutes of dialogue. As a result, they scaled the game back, intending to ensure that everyone
26418-415: The events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 . The player-character Chell is awakened by GLaDOS for testing. Chell resists GLaDOS' lies and verbal ploys and succeeds to defeat GLaDOS' core, the destruction creating a portal implosion that sends Chell to the surface, unconscious. Rattmann, who has helped Chell by writing warning messages and directions to maintenance areas on the facility walls and had observed
26640-448: The events that led to Portal 2 . The Rat Man's artwork appears early in Portal 2 , where it retells the plot of Portal . Michael Avon Oeming , who had worked on comics for Valve games Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead , and Valve in-house artist Andrea Wicklund drew the comic. Ted Kosmatka wrote most of the story with input from the Portal 2 writers. The 27-page comic was made available online in two parts about two weeks before
26862-411: The exit for each test chamber. A number of other mechanics, such as lasers, light bridges, high energy pellets , buttons, cubes, tractor funnels and turrets, exist to aid or hinder the player's goal to reach the exit. The Portal games are noted for bringing students and their projects from the DigiPen Institute of Technology into Valve and extending their ideas into the full games. The portal concept
27084-438: The facility in place of GLaDOS. At this point, he immediately becomes power-mad and puts GLaDOS into a potato battery before she tells him that he was originally 'designed to be a moron'. He then turns on Chell and slams the elevator they are in, sending both into the bowels of the facility. GLaDOS is kidnapped by a bird and later retrieved by Chell, who teams up with GLaDOS to escape from the facility. While they are escaping from
27306-452: The fact that the new protagonist was not recognized by GLaDOS when she awoke; as such, they changed the new character back into Chell. Wolpaw and the designers were not sure what to do with GLaDOS and were wary to do the same thing as the last game. They felt that she should "go someplace" and that since GLaDOS is "kind of likeable in the first game" and players "enjoy being with her", they would utilize Wheatley as an "other, external threat". In
27528-418: The fallout from Chell's destruction of GLaDOS from the first game. The cooperative campaign contains a separate story between the two robotic characters and GLaDOS. The cooperative campaign includes additional dialog from GLaDOS; the original dialogue Wolpaw wrote for GLaDOS was aimed to two women, Chell and a new character "Mel", with the assumption of "image issues", but this dialog remains in place even after
27750-473: The final 'encounter' with GLaDOS in Portal , one of the important aspects to it was giving the players a predisposition to the Weighted Companion Cube, an object that GLaDOS gives to the player-character and tells her to protect. This was accomplished by forcing the player to incinerate it, therein providing a tutorial for how to defeat the boss and a revenge angle. GLaDOS was originally designed to be
27972-560: The final battle, escapes Aperture, but on witnessing a robot dragging Chell's body back inside, sacrifices his escape to assure that Chell is put into indefinite cryogenic storage. He himself is critically wounded but appears to make it to another cryogenic chamber, though his ultimate fate is not revealed. Portal 2 takes place an unknown number of years after the events of the first game; the Aperture facility has fallen into disrepair without GLaDOS. A personality core named Wheatley ( Stephen Merchant ) wakes Chell from her sleep to help her stop
28194-422: The final boss was dubbed "Portal Kombat", which Swift describes as a "high intensity rocket battle". However, Wolpaw disliked it because no one was paying attention to what GLaDOS was saying. While it went over well with hardcore shooter fans, the people who liked the puzzle-focused gameplay were turned off by it. The third boss was a chase scene, with players pursuing GLaDOS down a corridor. Wolpaw sharply criticized
28416-420: The first game but returns in the sequel, in which she is supplanted by her former intelligence dampener and temporarily stuck on a potato battery, while her past as the human Caroline is also explored. The inspiration for the character's creation extends from Wolpaw's use of a text-to-speech program while writing lines for the video game Psychonauts . Other game developers working on Psychonauts found
28638-463: The first game to simply be a voice that guides the player, her words and actions become increasingly malicious as she makes her intentions clear. The second game, as well as the Valve-created comic Lab Rat , reveals that she was mistreated by the scientists and used a neurotoxin to kill the scientists in the laboratory before the events of the first Portal . She is apparently destroyed at the end of
28860-706: The first time he discovered that video games could make him laugh out loud. The New York Times editor Charles Herold praised GLaDOS, calling her comments "wildly funny". In an article titled "The GLaDOS Effect – Can Antagonists Rule the World?", Gamasutra publisher Simon Carless describes her as the one true memorable character from Portal . He states that she is the reason he keeps returning to play Portal , describing her as funny, unexpected, and beguiling. The Daily Telegraph ' s Tom Hoggins wrote that GLaDOS "became one of gaming's most compelling villains" and that "it managed to get people attached to an inanimate cube. It had
29082-539: The focuses of developing the game was for players to hear GLaDOS and hear her song. GLaDOS continues to be voiced by McLain in Portal 2 , who worked with Valve every two weeks to record the majority of the dialogue for the game. The frequency of her voice sessions allowed Valve to experiment with GLaDOS's lines and how they came out within the final game. After finding that "Still Alive" was a large part of Portal 's success, Valve included more music in Portal 2 , including further involvement from Coulton. Coulton wrote
29304-530: The former in Lego Dimensions . In Portal , GLaDOS is the only witness to the situation of the player character, Chell . The game begins with GLaDOS introducing Chell to the game's Aperture Science Laboratories Enrichment Center and the physics of the portal gun. As Chell navigates through the center, GLaDOS admits to having lied to Chell about her progress, as part of a supposed "test protocol". GLaDOS slowly becomes more sinister, and Chell's trust in GLaDOS
29526-484: The game in an educational setting. As part of this effect, the company promoted Portal for free use by any user during September 2011. In speaking at the 2012 Games for Change Festival, Newell said that the response to these efforts was praised by educators. Their efforts culminated in a "Teach with Portals" program that Newell announced at the Festival. The effort is built on a standalone "Puzzle Maker" that incorporates
29748-417: The game includes numerous laser-seeking turrets that seek to kill the player-characters, though are apologetic for it; most are voiced by McLain, though some defective ones in the sequel are voiced by Nolan North . GLaDOS introduces Chell to the " Weighted Companion Cube ", appearing similar to other Weighed Cubes (crates) in the game, but decorated with hearts on its sides; GLaDOS attempts to make Chell believe
29970-588: The game will shock, wow, and humor even jaded gamers tired of cake quotes". PC Gamer ' s Dan Stapleton wrote that "evil robot GLaDOS is in top politely murderous form right from the moment she appears on screen" and that " Portal ' s show-stealing monotone antagonist is challenged for the spotlight by Wheatley". He compared her to Cave Johnson, who has a similar "comically sociopathic approach to science". Giant Bomb 's Ryan Davis wrote "it would be charitable to characterize GLaDOS as indignantly sociopathic, and her lust for punishing you for your past transgressions
30192-452: The game's concept, they were left asking of what these puzzles were leading towards. The team worked to come up with some type of narrative, coming down to creating an antagonist that would guide the player in early part of the game but become the goal that the player would strive for by the end. The creation of GLaDOS to serve this purpose began with a discussion between the Valve team and Wolpaw on
30414-594: The game's release and was also bundled with the game itself. Dark Horse Comics has published "Portal 2: Lab Rat" in a printed anthology of Valve comics, Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories , in November 2011. In the comic, Doug Rattmann (also known as The Rat Man) is a scientist working in the Aperture facility. He escapes GLaDOS's initial neurotoxin attack, but suffers symptoms as his schizophrenia medication runs out, causing hallucinations of his Weighted Companion Cube talking. Noticing that Chell
30636-449: The games, and several of the game elements have become parts of internet memes . Both Portal games take place in the fictional "Aperture Science Enrichment Center". Aperture Science was founded by Cave Johnson (voiced by J.K. Simmons ) and originally sought to make shower curtains for the military. Its research happened upon the discovery of portal technology, and soon became a direct competitor with Black Mesa Research Facility (from
30858-494: The humor that keeps the game captivating puzzle after puzzle". The Globe and Mail ' s Chad Sepieha listed the top five insults from GLaDOS in Portal 2 , which included "Science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep." Rock Paper Shotgun's John Walker wrote that "Ellen McLain returns as GLaDOS, and is pushed so much further this time, hitting every single line with perfection". Game Informer ' s Adam Biessener wrote that while Portal 2
31080-424: The importance of compelling characters in video games, praises Portal for giving its audience "room to do some imagination work" by inviting them to read between the lines to understand GLaDOS's motivations. His own interpretation is that GLaDOS is conflicted between her wants and needs, a conflict which ultimately "causes her to go crazy". Stephen Totilo notes the "artful way" in which GLaDOS's antagonistic character
31302-574: The incinerator when ordered to do so by GLaDOS; he uses this example to support an argument that the "unreliable narrator" narrative technique might not transfer readily to the gaming medium. Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point G. Christopher Williams discussed the relationship between GLaDOS and Chell. In response to a quote by designer Erik Wolpaw that read "we wanted you to have this very intimate connection with this AI that changes and evolves over time, leading up to
31524-418: The irrelevant Fact Core, the bold Adventure Core, and the space-obsessed Space Core, each voiced by North. The player controls the main character (Chell in both single player campaigns, or Atlas and P-Body in the cooperative campaign) from a first-person view, running, jumping, and interacting with switches or other devices. The player-characters are able to withstand large drops, but can be killed by falling in
31746-433: The latter's soundtrack impacted him deeply. He and his bandmates have consistently credited their early years in Eureka, a relatively isolated city in the far north of California, to the intense curiosity that would drive their future career paths (Eureka being one of the few big towns between San Francisco and Portland, and surrounded by dense redwood forests). Although his family did not have an artistic background, Patton
31968-462: The level editor for Portal 2 that was released as free content for the game in early 2012. Valve had built the Puzzle Maker with the aid of educators, as to make it suitable for lesson plans as well as making it as easy for teachers to use to construct such plans. The Puzzle Maker is not limited to physics, but designed to be modular so that other fields, such as fundamental electronics or chemistry, could be included. The "Teach with Portals" initiative
32190-523: The level's exit. Portal 2 introduces "mobility gels" that can paint surfaces, including turrets and cubes, that can also move through portals though not directly by the player. The gels can create a surface that repels the player (Repulsion Gel), increases the player's speed (Propulsion Gel), or allows the surface to accept portals (Conversion Gel). The games' credit sequences feature the songs " Still Alive " and " Want You Gone " composed by Jonathan Coulton , and, in its original form, sung by Ellen McLain in
32412-403: The lines funnier as a result of the synthesized voice. GLaDOS was originally intended to be present solely in the first area of Portal ; she was well received by other designers and her role was expanded as a result. Play testers were motivated to complete tests in the game due to her guidance. While the game was initially designed with other characters, they were later removed, leaving GLaDOS as
32634-423: The lines funnier than they were worth. He commented that "no amount of writing is funnier than this text-to-speech thing reading it." He became bitter about that, stating that he would leverage this and use it to his advantage. Portal had been under development for about a year, at a state where there were only test chambers that the player moved between. Valve found from playtesting that while players had fun with
32856-544: The main story, adding Portal -themed elements to other worlds and eventually aiding the heroes in defeating the primary antagonist, and on conclusion of the game, she sings a song during the credits, "You Wouldn't Know", again sung by McLain and written by Coulton. GLaDOS also acts as the primary antagonist in a bonus level bridging the events of Portal 2 with Lego Dimensions , wherein Chell and Wheatley (returned from space redeemed with anti-gravity abilities) defeat her by performing
33078-522: The mainstream music industry and has been a champion for non-mainstream music that he says has "fallen through the cracks." Patton has been cited as an influence by members of Coheed and Cambria , Deftones , Five Finger Death Punch , Hoobastank , Incubus , Killswitch Engage , Korn , Queens of the Stone Age , System of a Down , Papa Roach , and Slipknot . Mike Patton was born in Eureka, California , to
33300-504: The most engaging characters to appear in a video game. Cinema Blend featured GLaDOS as the best character of 2007, stating that she "breathes life, emotion, and hilarity into the lab of Portal ." GamesRadar praised Portal as having one of the best video game stories ever, citing GLaDOS as the primary reason for this. They stated that she had the most defined personality in gaming, adding that she "redefined passive-aggressive". Shoot 'em up expert Michael Molinari cited GLaDOS as an example of
33522-503: The most memorable dialogue in video game history. X-Play similarly awarded her with the best new character award. GamePro awarded GLaDOS, referred to as "The Voice" in their article, the most memorable villain award, describing the decision as a surprise upset, considering either Atlas/Frank Fontaine of BioShock or Saren of Mass Effect to win. GLaDOS has received other awards, including "best nemesis of 2007" from Primo Technology, best new character from GameSpot , and character of
33744-450: The most memorable video game villains ever. Pittsburgh Live editor Jessica Severs described GLaDOS as having the most entertaining villainy due to her promises of cake and her encouragements such as "This next test is impossible." GameDaily listed her as the most horrific video game boss, describing her as "polite, passive-aggressive, and insanely sadistic". The review adds that while the game may be short, players would resonate with her even
33966-445: The most passive-aggressive girlfriend ever". He adds that he can imagine it not being easy to be a super-intelligent computer trapped in a single building. Crave editor Rich Trenholm also regarded her highly, listing her as the fifth best evil computer. PC World editor Spandas Lui listed GLaDOS as the second most "big-time, badass video game villain", citing her various non-sequitur one-liners and personality for her becoming one of
34188-584: The music room after school and even joined them as a temporary horn player at a show. Patton enrolled in California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt , located in the nearby town of Arcata, California , to study English literature with plans to become a writer. He performed very well in college and wrote numerous short stories of varied genres, while at the time music was an enjoyable yet not-too-serious hobby for Patton. At Humboldt, Patton met his future band Faith No More during
34410-416: The narrative constraints they had to deal with. When they were designing the game, they found that they did not have enough time or staffing to use human characters, due to the amount of animation work and scene choreography involved. A week later, to alleviate this problem, Wolpaw returned with sample dialogue made with a text-to-speech program, which was intended to be used as a series of messages relayed to
34632-423: The old testing facility, GLaDOS discovers that her personality originally came from an assistant to former Aperture CEO Cave Johnson named Caroline, who was later uploaded into the GLaDOS program (it is suggested that this might have been done against her will at Cave Johnson's urging). After surviving Wheatley's various attempts to murder them, the two manage to corrupt him enough to perform another core transfer, but
34854-427: The only character players encounter. The physical appearance of GLaDOS went through several designs, one of which featured a large disk below her. McLain imitated dialog read aloud by a speech synthesizer with her own voice, which was then processed to sound more robotic, and performed songs in character during the closing credits of both entries in the series. " Still Alive " became hugely successful, notably appearing in
35076-470: The orchestra Ictus Ensemble and vocal group Nederlands Kamerkoor . This show would be released as an album on July 10, 2012. On October 8, 2016, Patton and Ictus Ensemble played this piece in Krakow, Poland, preceded by a performance of the album Virginal Co Ordinates the previous day, alongside its creator Eyvind Kang. Patton is a member of the supergroup Nevermen , alongside Tunde Adebimpe of TV on
35298-400: The pacing, which caused the players to wander around until they found the corridor, at which point a series of pistons would spring out of the walls. The developers came to the conclusion that complex battles would only serve to confuse players. One play tester helped them by pointing out the quality of the fire pit puzzle, a puzzle that has the player-character riding on a moving platform that
35520-477: The parent-child relationship as an example of this and cited a metaphor by psychologist Sigmund Freud which Williams said was about "murdering a parent in an effort to describe how children eventually would attempt to get out from under the wing of their parents". He wrote "nothing can be as intimate, perhaps, as loving someone enough to follow their rules and then needing to "kill them" in order to escape that "game," which makes this game feel like something more like
35742-421: The parents, the fact that GLaDOS was trying to kill Chell would be more upsetting. He also pointed out that "morons and the overweight are also mocked by robots" in Portal 2 . 1UP.com's Chris Pereira found the joke harmless. GLaDOS's appearance in Portal 2 received critical acclaim. GameSpot's Chris Watters wrote that GLaDOS was a "complex character who evolves throughout these early levels" and that "before all
35964-455: The player explores these long-abandoned areas of Aperture, learning that the company had moved from testing on the country's finest, to paid volunteers, who were often homeless, and ultimately to forcing its own employees to participate in testing. Near the point of his death, Johnson ordered his lifelong assistant Caroline (voiced by Ellen McLain ) to be the first test subject for a mind-to-computer transfer ; her personality would ultimately form
36186-458: The player in the relaxation vault, the first area of the game. The team liked the voice, describing it as "funny" and "sinister", so Wolpaw decided to add this voice to other test chambers, all the while trying to think of story elements. The developers noticed that play testers were more motivated by the voice because they became attached to it. As a result, the team decided to make GLaDOS the narrative voice of Portal . While designing GLaDOS, one of
36408-400: The player through the game, coming onto a polite but humorous artificial intelligence, which would ultimately become the character of GLaDOS . Portal ' s release with The Orange Box received near-universal praise, with the standalone game earning an aggregate Metacritic rating of 90 out of 100. With success of the game, work on an expanded sequel began nearly immediately, expanding
36630-417: The player, she fulfilled his desire for a villain who has not been "done to death". He described her as both supportive and funny, while also sad and scared. One of his intentions was for players to believe that they are "putting her through the wringer emotionally". The game was designed to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Wolpaw stated that with each new part, GLaDOS's personality changed. She begins as
36852-488: The player-character from Portal . However, the demand for all of these to be implemented into Portal 2 was great enough that they chose to do so. Originally, the character Cave Johnson was intended to be the antagonist instead and Portal 2 to be a prequel. Before implementing Chell, they considered introducing a new player-character who would at one point inadvertently reactivate GLaDOS. During play testing, Wolpaw found that there were two groups that were "at-odds": one group
37074-407: The players attempt to compete against each other, such as the awarding of meaningless points, but playtesters did not respond well to these lines. The writers found they needed another character to play off of Cave during his recordings; instead of hiring a voice actor for a few lines, they economized by reusing McLain to play Caroline, Cave's assistant. This led naturally to providing a backstory for
37296-415: The point that you betray her and do the most intimate act you can do with someone—murdering them in cold blood", he at first noted that "on the face of it, this description of intimacy seems nonsensical", but also noted that "a changing and evolving relationship with someone in authority over you that eventually leads to betraying them by violating their rules—is one that is an altogether familiar one". He used
37518-427: The quantity of their work, wide-ranging influences and recurrent use of humor. Patton is averse to that comparison, but he admitted that one of the few records he enjoyed from his parents' collection was from Zappa. Freeman believes that besides superficial elements, their music does not hold many similarities. Film scores by Patton have been described as blurring the lines between genres, as well as "radical", in
37740-495: The respective characters. MSNBC game reviewer Blake Snow compared The Sign Painter from World of Goo to GLaDOS, due to the mischievousness and unseen nature of the character. GamesRadar editor Mikel Reparaz compared GLaDOS to SHODAN from the System Shock series and stated that before GLaDOS broke their hearts, they had SHODAN. GamesRadar's Alan Bradley named GLaDOS as one of gaming's most "malicious machines". He called her
37962-426: The rest of the content of The Orange Box as a "safety net". Portal has since been repackaged on Windows as a standalone game in April 2008. A Mac OS X client was introduced simultaneously with the release of the Steam client for that platform in May 2010; as part of its promotion, the game was released free of charge for both platforms during which at least 1.5 million players downloaded it. Portal: Still Alive
38184-618: The role in The Darkness II in 2012. He also had a role in Valve 's 2007 release Portal as the voice of the Anger Sphere in the final confrontation with the insane supercomputer, GLaDOS . He has another role in the Valve title Left 4 Dead , voicing the majority of the infected zombies. He also voiced Nathan "Rad" Spencer , the main character in Capcom 's 2009 video game Bionic Commando ,
38406-600: The role, including Chris Cornell from Soundgarden , but they settled on Patton in view of his versatility. In the next months they performed a few live shows together and Patton would be officially announced as their new singer in January 1989, replacing Chuck Mosley , which forced Patton to quit his studies at Humboldt State University. Mosley subsequently formed the bands Cement and VUA, and had several special "one-off" performances at shows with Faith No More and Patton before his death in 2017. Faith No More's The Real Thing
38628-460: The rules that the writers had was that they would not make her seem like a computer, for example having her say, "Oh my nuts and bolts." While GLaDOS is physically a computer and speaks with a computerized voice, they intended her to speak to the player-character like a regular person. GLaDOS's physical appearance went through several iterations when Valve had Jason Brashill help drive the visual creation of GLaDOS. Early designs used for her included
38850-457: The second-best conceived character in gaming, commenting that the memes related to the Weighted Companion Cube and " the cake is a lie " could distract people from GLaDOS's "perfectly-metered and lyrical voice". He described her as the "humorous, clinical, savage and poignant heart of Portal ". In a piece in The Observer , game theorist and author of Fun Inc Tom Chatfield listed GLaDOS as one of
39072-431: The sixth best new character of the decade; he wrote that she "may just be the most likable villain in video-game history" and that "we only killed her because we had to". An editor for GamesRadar also called her one of the best new characters of the decade. Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition also listed GLaDOS as second in their list of top 50 Villains. Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski stated that he
39294-449: The song in the first place. Wolpaw and the other writers wrote down a list of things that would make people happy, which resulted in "Still Alive". In discussing the difficulties in singing the song as GLaDOS, McLain listed one of the difficulties as breathing, because computers do not need to breathe. As a result, she had to sing the phrases in one breath, while attempting to keep a clean, even tone. Swift commented in an interview that one of
39516-423: The split personalities that has taken over one of Delamain's cabs. Before development of GLaDOS had begun, Erik Wolpaw was writing the script for the video game Psychonauts , where he went around the office, finding people to provide voices to the words until they could add the final voices to the game. Once he ran out of people, however, he began using a text-to-speech program. According to Wolpaw, people found
39738-501: The staff as they completed work on Half-Life 2 . Keighley wanted to recreate a similar work for Portal 2 , with focus on making it an interactive work for the iPad . Keighley was granted "fly on the wall" access to Valve when Portal 2 was being produced. The initial iPad release was written by Keighley with work by Joe Zeff Design, a studio that had also produced digital applications for Time magazine. The interactive work provides movie clips and short applications to demonstrate
39960-463: The staff of GamesRadar loves GLaDOS, it makes no sense to insert a personality core into a robot. He suggested that the scientists either never read 2001: A Space Odyssey , or read it too much. Empire Online listed her as the 12th-best video game character of all time, describing her acts as " HAL -like conduct". Writer Stephen Totilo alluded the final battle with GLaDOS to the scene of David from 2001 disabling HAL, with both scenes involving de-evolving
40182-477: The student is first given an environment to learn new tools with sufficient hand-holding, but these facets are slowly removed as the student proceeds. At least one college, Wabash College , introduced Portal as part of required coursework; at Wabash, the game is used as an example of Erving Goffman 's dissemination on dramaturgy , The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life . At a mid-2011 presentation at
40404-562: The ten best video game characters of all time, describing her both as "gaming's funniest, freakiest female" and a "psychopathic artificial intelligence". The Observer ' s Will Freeman wrote that GLaDOS "really is (in a rare case of living up to the hyperbole) one of the most fascinating characters in the history of the video game". The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences praised Portal for its comedy, citing GLaDOS's humorous and homicidal personality. Writer Lou Kesten, in discussing humor in video games, cited GLaDOS as possibly being
40626-469: The time, they often engaged in late night freighthopping , getting off at nearby towns or remote, wooded areas, and relying on hitchhiking to find their way home. While they disliked the cultural vapidness and degradation of the area, they appreciated their school teachers who nurtured their artistic interests; an English teacher turned Patton onto Marquis de Sade and The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński , while Dan Horton, their music teacher, let them use
40848-418: The toxic water of the facility, crushed to death, passing through laser grids, or fired on repeatedly by turrets. Both games are generally divided into a series of test chambers; other sections of the game are more exploratory areas that connect these chambers. Each chamber has an exit door that must be reached, often requiring that certain conditions have been met such as having weighed down a large button with
41070-783: The track "Lost Weekend" by The Qemists . In December 2008, along with Melvins , Patton co-curated an edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties Nightmare Before Christmas festival. Patton chose half of the lineup and performed the album The Director's Cut in its entirety with Fantômas. Patton also appeared as Rikki Kixx in the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse in a special 2 part episode on August 24. In June 2009 Mike Patton and Fred Frith performed in Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, England as part of that year's Meltdown Festival. On May 4, 2010 Mondo Cane , where Patton worked live with
41292-480: The two. In the book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter , Infinity Ward developer Michael Boon mentioned GLaDOS and BioShock character Andrew Ryan while discussing believable non-playable characters. He commented that while shooting games in general feature enemies as bullet magnets, both Andrew Ryan and GLaDOS do not provide an opportunity for players to shoot them. However, he adds that both characters end up defeating themselves, but in different ways. He stated that she
41514-599: The various features of the Steam Deck handheld system. In the game, the player works as a quality assurance checker for toilets manufactured by Aperture Science in its early years. They are guided by the personality core Grady through the steps, but as the game progresses, mishaps in the automated factory lead Grady to suggest that the player develop a weaponized toilet as an invention to pitch to Cave Johnson. In February 2013, Valve president Gabe Newell and film director J. J. Abrams announced that they were to collaborate on
41736-413: The various mechanics of the game and stages of the game's development. The work was later ported into a non-interactive eBook, and into an application with the same iPad interactivity on the Steam platform. With the iPad and Steam version, Keighley is able to offer live updates to the work; upon release of the "Peer Review" downloadable content pack, the work was updated with an additional chapter discussing
41958-487: The voices of the monsters in the 2007 film I Am Legend starring Will Smith . He also worked on the Derrick Scocchera short film " A Perfect Place " for the score/soundtrack, which is longer than the film itself. In 2009, Patton created the soundtrack to the movie Crank: High Voltage . In the 2010 film Bunraku Patton voiced The Narrator. Patton composed the soundtrack to the 2012 film The Place Beyond
42180-426: The way of that. Throughout his career, Patton has utilized various different genres including, avant-garde , alternative metal , experimental , experimental rock , art pop , contemporary classical , funk metal , and thrash metal . Mike Patton's vocals touch on crooning , falsetto , screaming , opera, death growls , rapping , beatboxing , and scatting , among other techniques. While already
42402-460: The world of Death Stranding, and showed up there only to conduct experiments. Finally, GLaDOS returns to her own world. McLain provides GLaDOS's voice as part of a side mission in Cyberpunk 2077 in which the player tracks down driverless taxis. McLain reprised her role as GLaDOS for a GEICO commercial based on Portal , released in January 2022. Paste Magazine's Jason Killingsworth listed GLaDOS as
42624-463: The year from Man!ac. During the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the character of GLaDOS received an Interactive Achievement Award for " Outstanding Character Performance " by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences . Game Informer also highlighted GLaDOS in a 2010 retrospective list, "Thirty Characters Who Defined a Decade". GLaDOS is frequently cited as both a quality villain and
42846-517: Was "surely now deserving of entry into the Best Game Characters Ever club". He added that "GLaDOS' character progression is a joy to follow, as she progresses from bitter, to angry and eventually even finding a bit of heart". An editor for GameTrailers wrote that GLaDOS's "constant auto-tuned barbs are extremely well-written and voiced-helping lend some character to an otherwise spartan presentation". GameZone's Ben PerLee wrote that GLaDOS
43068-406: Was Chell or that she was a female because he recognized the character as himself. He wrote "I cared about GLaDOS only because she was the one directing me . Oh, and then I really cared about her because she wanted to kill me ". G. Christopher Williams also discussed the relationship between Wheatley and GLaDOS. His initial impression was that Wheatley, being an "utter moron" and attached to GLaDOS,
43290-673: Was a political critique of the Presidency of George W. Bush . Namely, he thought that it would "be a way of paralleling the mythos surrounding the origins of the Bush-Cheney White House as an opportunity for the Republicans to regain control of the White House through a less intellectually apt figurehead and to thus control their domain through this weaker authority figure"; however, as he progressed, he saw nothing more to suggest that this
43512-614: Was a standalone version of Portal with additional content for the Xbox Live Arcade , released in October 2008. The game included new achievements, additional challenges from the existing test chambers, and additional non-story levels based on those found in the Flash -based Portal: The Flash Version created by We Create Stuff. In September 2022, Nvidia announced it would release an updated version of Portal with real-time ray tracing , as
43734-433: Was able to see the game to the very end. Well done. Here come the test results: "You are a horrible person." That's what it says. "A horrible person." We weren't even testing for that. Erik Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton were mainly responsible for the single-player campaign's story, while Chet Faliszek focused on the lines for GLaDOS in the cooperative campaign. Portal 2 was originally not intended to feature GLaDOS or Chell,
43956-402: Was accomplished by her emulating a computer-generated voice that the Valve team played for her and her adding emotion to lines when appropriate. While designing her voice, Swift commented that it was difficult to write some of the lines for GLaDOS, describing McLain as "super likable", and that they should write for that. She also performed the song " Still Alive ", which features GLaDOS singing to
44178-458: Was announced at the 2016 Game Developers Conference , and was released free on April 5, 2016, following the public release of the HTC Vive. Valve licensed the use of Portal to Headup Games and Clockstone Software, the developers of Bridge Constructor , to develop Bridge Constructor Portal . The game follows the same type of gameplay as Bridge Constructor , where players are tasked to create
44400-416: Was created to vocalize text as GLaDOS. The song "Still Alive" has garnered significant attention from fans and critics alike. It was released as a part of The Orange Box Official Soundtrack and appeared in other video games, including the Rock Band series and Left 4 Dead 2 , the latter which was also released by Valve. The song has been performed in multiple venues by Jonathan Coulton which includes
44622-459: Was entertaining, but also that he wanted to kill her. The book's author Tom Bissell stated that in addition to these similarities, both were well written, describing them as "funny, strange, cruel, and alive." In his analysis of Portal , Daniel Johnson pointed out that a majority of Portal ' s plot derived from GLaDOS's dialogue, which he says tells "a metaphoric tale of a power struggle of identity roles within an institution". He discussed how
44844-479: Was excited to see GLaDOS return, while the other did not want to wake her up and questioned why players would want to do that. As such, the character Wheatley was introduced, who inadvertently wakes GLaDOS while trying to escape the facility with Chell. Wheatley and GLaDOS served as a contrast to each other; where GLaDOS has a more "computery-sounding" voice due to her intelligence, Wheatley "sounded perfectly human" due to his lack of it. Play testers were also bothered by
45066-416: Was introduced by the game Narbacular Drop and led to the basis for the first game. Another game, Tag: The Power of Paint , formed the basis of surface-altering "gels" introduced in Portal 2 . Both games have received near-universal praise, and have sold millions of copies. The first game was released as part of a five-game compilation, The Orange Box , and though intended as a short bonus feature of
45288-516: Was later released as the record Athlantis in July 2007, through Ipecac Recordings. Patton's Peeping Tom album was released on May 30, 2006, on his own Ipecac label. The set was pieced together by swapping song files through the mail with collaborators like Dan the Automator, Rahzel, Norah Jones , Kool Keith , Massive Attack , Odd Nosdam , Amon Tobin , Jel , Doseone , Bebel Gilberto , Kid Koala , and Dub Trio . In 2008, he performed vocals on
45510-467: Was less quotable than its predecessor, "repeating GLaDOS lines stopped being funny a long time ago". He also wrote "I never once thought I'd place GLaDOS second on any list of Portal characters, but J.K. Simmons' character surpasses the malevolent AI even though she's as amusing as ever". GLaDOS has been compared to characters in fiction, including HAL 9000 from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey by LucasArts designer Noah Falstein. Falstein described her as
45732-434: Was listening to his father's records by Earth, Wind & Fire and a Frank Zappa one, yet at the time they did not leave a significant impression on Patton. In elementary school he was a good student and athlete, but had very few friends due to his focus on getting good grades. As an "escape valve", he regularly asked his parents to drop him off at the movies, where he secretly watched slasher films and Star Wars , and
45954-414: Was met with negative reception from Neal Stapel, an adoptive parent profiled by 1Up.com. He stated that "it literally pokes fun for not having parents", and stopped playing when he first heard the insult. He added that "it throws the ultimate question that that child is ever going to have for you... and it just throws it right in the living room." Kotaku 's Michael McWhertor felt that while it was awkward for
46176-457: Was motivated to complete test chambers in Portal . He also compared her to an ex-girlfriend who sent text messages that went from friendly, to aggressive, and finally to apologetic. GamesRadar's Justin Towell called her the third-most difficult game bad guy to kill due to Stockholm syndrome , a syndrome where hostages will bond with their captors. IGN editor Daemon Hatfield described GLaDOS as one of
46398-400: Was originally to be used for turrets, but it did not work out. Because they liked it so much, they chose to use it for GLaDOS. Valve described GLaDOS's actions in Portal 2 as attempting to build a relationship with the player-character, and the only way to accomplish this is by testing her. In creating the voice for GLaDOS, voice actress Ellen McLain attempted to sound like a computer. This
46620-416: Was powerless and insulting players and would question why they were "carting this person along". They decided to give her a personality shift and become Chell's "sidekick" on the basis that "she can't just be needling you for a half hour". To keep players from feeling that they should want to abandon GLaDOS in her powerless form to prevent her from becoming powerful again, the designers made sure to give players
46842-445: Was released in 1989. The album reached the top 20 on the US charts, thanks largely to MTV 's heavy rotation of the " Epic " music video, (which features Patton in a Mr. Bungle T-shirt). Faith No More released three more studio albums— Angel Dust , King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime , and Album of the Year —before disbanding in 1998. In one interview, Patton cited what he perceived as
47064-549: Was released in 1999. The band ceased being active following the 1999–2000 tour in support of the California record, although their disbandment was only officially confirmed in November 2004. Mr. Bungle reunited in 2019 with three original members (Patton, Dunn and Spruance) plus drummer Dave Lombardo and guitarist Scott Ian to re-record its first demo from 1986 The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny , released on October 30, 2020. Patton's other projects included two solo albums on
47286-507: Was released in 2023. Portal Stories: Mel is a single-player mod of Portal 2 released on June 25, 2015, developed by Prism Studios . Portal Stories: VR is a single-player virtual reality fangame of Portal 2 released on May 16, 2016, developed by Prism Studios . Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative is a 2014 first-person puzzle-platform video game developed by the Aperture Tag Team. Thinking with Time Machine
47508-533: Was restarted specifically to keep the portal concept but adding new elements to freshen the gameplay. During this period, Valve had witnessed another student project out of Digipen, Tag: The Power of Paint which allows the player to spray paint onto surfaces to alter their behavior, and brought them into Valve, though not initially as part of the Portal . The Tag team had found a way to incorporate their paints with real-time fluid dynamics code previously made by Valve, and soon their concept for paints had become
47730-506: Was scheduled to play shows but were cancelled due to Patton citing mental health reasons. In 2005, Patton signed on to compose the soundtrack for the independent movie Pinion , marking his debut scoring an American feature-length film. However, this had been held up in production and may be on the shelf permanently. His other film work includes portraying two major characters in the Steve Balderson film Firecracker . Patton provided
47952-413: Was still just a sphere standing above it. However, the team found it to be too small, giving her a body and putting it below the disk. Another early design was when GLaDOS was only a cube, which was used for the removed laser battle mentioned below. The large chamber that the player-character encounters was the result of the team wanting to build a space that brought a great deal of attention to her. GLaDOS
48174-521: Was thankful for the freedom they granted him which led him to music. Patton studied at Eureka High School where he met bassist Trevor Dunn and later guitarist Trey Spruance , both members of its music theory class and jazz ensembles. Patton got to know Dunn through trading records and they bonded over their studiousness, sarcastic humor and disaffection. Both were part of the cover band Gemini that performed songs by popular heavy metal groups. They quickly gained interest in heavier styles and joined
48396-410: Was the "much brighter star of the franchise" compared to Chell due to her role in Portal . He also wrote "the player's interaction with her is absolutely amazing to watch. She is as vindictive as ever, coating pure unadulterated hatred with a veneer of cool science" and that "for fans of GLaDOS, her return from her unfortunate death in the previous Portal is fabulous, and her literal transformation within
48618-416: Was the intent. He added that the thought of this concept helped make him realize how Portal 2 "presents a fundamental conundrum that does exist surrounding competency and power". In contrast to this, he wrote that "an extremely smart leader can be about the most oppressive force in an organization has already been provided in abundance for anyone who has played the first Portal" and that "GLaDOS's "leadership"
48840-431: Was under the control of the machine that she was attached to. Wolpaw also called her "passive aggressive" as well as "mildly sarcastic" and compared her to The Sopranos character Livia Soprano . GLaDOS has been used several times for reveals in the Portal series. At E3 2008, GLaDOS's voice was utilized to reveal the Portal expansion Portal: Still Alive . She has also been used to show Portal 2 reveals; initially,
49062-443: Was willing to star in it and asked fans to "write in. Email Valve. You've got my blessing". Portal was initially released in October 2007 as part of a compilation game called The Orange Box , alongside Half-Life 2 and its two episodes and Team Fortress 2 . Valve considered including Portal as a bonus feature of the compilation; the game was purposely kept short such that if it did not meet expectations, players would have
49284-399: Was written with the intent of making her more understandable and empathetic to players, making her villainy more tragic. Kim Swift, team leader of Portal , described her growth in the game as her becoming more and more human. The two-hour total playtime for Portal allowed the writers enough time to let players get to know GLaDOS. Wolpaw commented that while GLaDOS did yell and fire rockets at
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