“If you like it so much, why don’t your rub your face all over it.”
True - but you have to admit this is a really sweet cake:
(Hope it’s linkeable via facebook…)
“Have I lied to you? I mean, in this room?”
Basically everyone just took GlaDOS’s insinuations that you’re killing your only friend and ran like crazy with them.
“There was even going to be a party for you. A big party, that all of your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn’t come, because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn’t come either, because you don’t have any other friends, because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file; ‘Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned.’ SHALL NOT BE MOURNED. That’s exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted. So that’s funny too.”
Just you, there might be something wrong with your brain. Should probably check that out.
GlaDOS is funny, “the cake is a lie” isn’t. My favorite GlaDOS line:
“That thing you burned up isn’t important to me. It’s the fluid catalytic cracking unit. It made shoes for orphans. Nice job breaking it, hero.”
Yep. The OP is just plain wrong.
And “the cake is a lie” IS funny. The only people think otherwise are those who spend more time reading about memes on the internet than trying out the interesting new things that inspire them.
Maybe some one else can help the OP.
Maybe Black Mesa.
Ha ha! Fat chance.
Even other game companies, like Blizzard, think that the cake is funny.
And the voice actress, who is an opera singer, is awesome.
Lines like this one and the many quoted above are exactly what makes this game so brilliantly funny. “The cake is a lie” is just a catchphrase which, like “Eat my shorts” or "we are the knights who say ‘nee!’ " isn’t really all that funny on its own, but rather acts as a shorthand in-joke reference. Catchphrases are, as a general rule, not that funny.
Explaining humor kills the joke, but I’ll do it anyway. When I first played Portal, I didn’t know anything about the game. The game starts out in a fairly typical fashion for games of this genre. There are a number of introductory levels that get you used to the gameplay and controller, and the game provides you with basically a series of simple, mundane tasks which are overseen and explained by an omnipresent, computer narrator.
So far so good. Just a typical get-to-know-the-game period common to many games of this style. You have a seemingly reliable narrator hand-holding your way through the basic concepts of the game, supplying you with basic goals to complete each level. It becomes uproariously funny (IMO, anyway), as the game quickly starts to subvert this and you realize the narrator isn’t reliable at all, nor is the narrator your typical personality-less computer overseer. The first few lines like:
“You’re doing very well. Please be advised that a noticable taste of blood is
not part of any test protocol, but is an unintended side effect of the Aperture
Science Material Emancipation Grille, which may, in semi-rare cases, emancipate
dental fillings, crowns, tooth enamel, and teeth.”
made me chuckle a bit. Then, when lines like:
"“As part of a required test protocol, our previous statement suggesting that we
would not monitor this chamber was an outright fabrication. Good job. As part
of a required test protocol, we will stop enhancing the truth in three, two,
o–”
come out, followed by outright taunting of the computer: “Frankly, this chamber was a mistake. If we were you, we would quit now” it becomes really obvious that something is, um, different here. It’s this subversion of expectations that makes the game funny as hell. The computer lies to you, pleads with you, makes fun of you, understates (“Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record. Followed by death,”) etc. It’s very Monty Pythonesque in that manner.
Now that I’ve killed the joke, you’ll just have to take my word that GLaDOS is the funniest character I’ve seen in a video game in years. When I played through the game, I would look forward to every bit of monologue from GLaDOS. That was really my reward for getting through the game.
The OP really wouldn’t like to wear this t-shirt, then.
Nope. Fail.
When Uncle Joe was admitted to the retirement community, he noticed that after dinner, a number of the old codgers would sit out on the porch and spend the evening laughing uproariously. One evening he found a nice rocking chair, sat down, and joined them.
“Eight-nine!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”
“Forty-seven!”
“Ooooh ha ha ha ha ha!”
Uncle Joe was confused as to what was going on. He asked the old coot next to him what was so funny.
“Well, we’ve been coming out on this porch for years now, telling jokes to each other. We’ve told the jokes so many times over the years, that we just decided to number them. So we say a number, remember what the joke was, and laugh at it.” Uncle Joe thought this was a strange idea, but wanted to give it a try. So the next day, Uncle Joe made his way out after dinner to the porch, found a chair, and sat down. He waited until an appropriate time, and exclaimed, “Forty-seven!”
Silence. No one was laughing. “What, what’d I do wrong?” The old man next to him leaned over and said:
“Some folks can tell a joke, some folks can’t.”
Portal wasn’t THAT funny, but Jesus Christ was!
Also, “the cake is a lie” never struck me as funny; it was more part of the “be filled with dread this place is rife with insanity” thing the game had going underlying the whole thing.
GLaDOS, on the other hand, was great. And I want that end-game song for my music collection.
I’m with the OP on this one, I didn’t find Portal to be funny. It was a fun innovative game, sure, but not funny. Though to be fair I played it all the way through for the first time maybe a year ago, after I had heard people annoyingly repeating the lines constantly for several years, draining any humor value out of them that they may have had.
Even so, I think if I had played it without any preconceived notions regarding the content, it may have been worth a smirk or two but not actual laughter.
I missed 90% of the computer’s lines while playing the game due to the excessive voice processing. It was nearly unintelligible to me, barely above Charlie Brown’s teacher. On my third playthrough I managed to be able to parse the dialog, and while objectively funny, I wish the developers had made it more understandable.
The laser turrets, on the other hand, were understandable and brilliantly hilarious my first time playing through. The way they said plaintively “Are you still there?” had me in tears every time.
I have the turrets saying “Hey… it’s me!” as my text message ringtone. Usually freaks people out, but I love those guys.
I think it’s available on itunes. Perhaps other places. You can also get a version for Rock Band.