Portal 2 fans have been eagerly awaiting the promised free DLC from Valve since the game's release. Today, there is DLC for Portal 2, but it's not free, and it's not from Valve.

Rather, it's a pack of ten levels developed by Sixense Studios, a collective of motion-sensing evangelists that have partnered with peripheral controller maker Razer to develop the Hydra motion controller. The controller, which vaguely resembles a pair of Wii Nunchuks strung to something that looks like it should be hanging from the ceiling of a Borg cube, is required in order to play these new levels. The good news? It'll only cost you $140! Oh, wait, that's actually the terrible news. The good news is... wait, is there even good news here?

Oh, maybe it's that the levels themselves actually sound pretty cool. Using the Hydra controller, these levels let you do some pretty bananas stuff, like rotate portals and rescale objects, such as custom weighted test cubes. No, that's actually more of a terrible tease than good news. Hmmm.

Could it be that you can buy the hardware directly from Steam, provided you live in North America? Well, I guess that's good news for North Americans, sort of. As for Europeans, you'll be paying 140 Euros, and have to buy it directly from Razer's website. You'll still get the Portal 2 content, though you might have to skimp out on paying your electric bill this month.

Okay, so none of this is really good news. We'll just go ahead and resume our tireless vigil awaiting Valve's first official DLC release. It's gotta be coming soon, right? It's just gotta be...

Source:Rock, Paper, Shotgun

What? So when do we get some proper DLC?

edit: man about time >_<

Woot News! plus Not First!
 
And wtf..i hope this is a mistake! Wake me up!

pass

That controller looks weird...

Valve, you want to play nice with PS3 owners, and millions of us already have Move. Come on, throw us a bone here.

Are you kidding me?

I don't have a problem with Valve making some levels for Razer (a couple of the potatoes from the recent ARG could only be obtained if you used a Razer gaming mouse), but as far as the controller itself goes, that is definitely not how I want to play PC games.

The title of this article is sort of like what I`d call `fishing`for hits. 

When will they fucking understand that 1 dollar DOES NOT equal 1 euro?

I guess that is alright... although I don't want to buy a controller. Sorry.

People are surprised about this? This was announced months ago when the Hydra was first shown.

What terrible news...

@Nomin:Except that it's a true statement?

Just look up user created maps and campaigns. FOR FREE.

Razer is the last brand you should be making deals with.

140 Euro is $200 by the way. What is up with Valves EU pricing. I live in the UK so it doesn't affect me much but still. I'm not quite sure how they justify a 30% price hike on everything. It's like the UK's $360 3DS.

who is the developer? Robbery INC?

I wonder if they know by doing this it sends the wrong message to the community.

140 dollars = not 140 euros + shipping
 
Fuck. That. Shit.

When will they fucking understand that 1 dollar DOES NOT equal 1 euro?

Portal is fun, but not that fun.

Not many people can afford this but are still really interested, so I'm sure that a lot of us would really appreciate a quick look of these levels.

How about no.

Well at least here in New Zealand they are tracking the US dollar accurately, since our dollar went from USD ~0.65 to ~0.90 games on Steam here are USD 90 rather than the old 50 or 60. Wait, that's not good at all, dammit.

Love the writing in this article, BTW :)

Meh, who cares about this? The existence of a product I don't want to purchase doesn't offend me. The levels aren't even designed by Valve.

They'd probably get more sales of that controller if they said "Hey, buy this $140 controller and get a free TF2 hat".

They'd probably get more sales of that controller if they said "Hey, buy this $140 controller and get a free TF2 hat".

I'm just gonna throw this out there - it would be super cool if you guys Quick Looked this DLC, or played it on Happy Hour. I'd love to see some of the weird things they do, but $140 for a handful of Portal 2 levels is not happening.

@jayjonesjunior said:

Razer is the last brand you should be making deals with.

I used to be all about Razer stuff. Then both my super expensive Razer headset and my super expensive Razer sound card died in the same day. Fuck Razer so much.

That controller is messed up.

Oh look, I created a portal... in my wallet.

i dont have time to do it now but someone should make a razer hydra page asap

@Nomin said:

The title of this article is sort of like what I`d call `fishing`for hits.

Not really. Like any good title, it's gives you a reason to read the corresponding article. This one is just really honest.

Well at least here in New Zealand they are tracking the US dollar accurately, since our dollar went from USD ~0.65 to ~0.90 games on Steam here are USD 90 rather than the old 50 or 60. Wait, that's not good at all, dammit.

Love the writing in this article, BTW :)

I'm not sure why people are upset by this? They are levels designed for this new controller. I think it looks pretty decent. I won't get it, but I dont know why it would offend anyone?

Can't wait until the first proper DLC pack is released. I could do with more Portal 2 co-op.

This can't be true, there's no way.
 
I'm not paying $140 just for a couple of Portal 2 levels. All I really liked about it was the narrative anyway.

Maybe if there was more reason to buy the controller, but it seems kinda stupid right now...

If there were 100 new maps, then it would be good value.

@iAmJohn: Stick to the input devices. Razer's Black Widow mechanical keyboard is the best keyboard I've ever used, and I've used quite a few. (Just make sure not to waste your money on the 'Ultimate' - backlighting is not worth $40). It's cheaper than any other mechanical keyboard I've seen, and has even better feel than the Das Keyboard, though I'd love to get my fingers on an IBM Model M or equivalent for comparison. Also I like the weightlessness of their mice - most of the other high DPI mice are too heavy for me.

@Nomin said:

The title of this article is sort of like what I`d call `fishing`for hits.

Isn't that what a headline is supposed to do? It's not like it's overly misleading, any reasonable person is going to think "There must be more to this" and click on through to see the whole story. It's a clever headline and nothing about it seems particularly gross to me.

Wait, what? Fuck that shit!
Also, 140 euros is more than 140 dollars.

@FissionXuiptz: To be fair to Steam, its only Modern Warfare (both Blops, and 2???) that gets *that* bad. FEAR 3 and Dirt 3 are (pre)selling for $50 still, for example. But Duke Nukem is $80, and The Witcher 2 is $75. :(

I'm not buying that,

@arch4non: @thabigred: @Cyrisaurus: @drhans: @jayjonesjunior: These are just user-made levels (company-made, technically). This is not Valve's doing. Read the article. Anyone is free to make Portal 2 levels, including a company promoting a mouse.

This is not, as @alex kind of made it sound like with the headline, the first Portal 2 DLC. It's just some downloadable maps people made.

The majority of comments on this article are oozing with stupidity.

@Rolyatkcinmai: Aren't they breaking the mod terms by effectively selling these maps though? They would have to have official sign off to do this, which does make these kinda-sorta official DLC.