Portal is FREE until May 24th!

That's right, people! Steam is celebrating releasing the platform on Macs by giving away Portal for free for a limited time. And no, not just for Mac users. PC gamers can get in on it too. I would say Linux users also, but I don't think there's Linux support for Steam yet.


If you don't have Portal, but have a Mac or PC that can run it, you have absolutely no excuse not to get it.

Quote :

Portal used to cost money. Until May 24th, it's free. End of story.

Well, technically speaking, there are some strings attached. Fortunately, they're entirely decorative. We just like the way they look, swaying in the gentle breeze created by a million people simultanously fainting from shock at the news that Portal is free. Now you have no reason not to try Portal.

"I have a reason," some of you are probably typing into an angry email. "You see, sir, I own a Mac."

Well guess what: For the first time ever, Portal is also available for the Mac.

"Capital news! But the excellent puzzle adventure Portal won over 40 Game of the Year awards; Surely it must cost at least five or six hundred dollars."

You'd think that, especially since it actually won over 70 Game of the Year Awards. But, like we keep saying, Portal is free. Free on the Mac. Free on the PC. But only until May 24th. So you only have a few days to decide if your free copy of Portal is worth the price we're currently charging - which is you ever-so-slightly moving your index finger just barely enough to click the big red "download" button right there to the left.

http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal

Honestly not only do they use time making their games work on Mac (Time that could be used making HL2 Episode 3 . the game thats almost as slow to come as the Black Mesa mod), now they give away a game I already payed for.....

Good for Mac owners and all those who do not own Portal though

So...just sign up and download right?

I'm very paranoid about getting hacked when on there though - happened to a YouTuber I'd subscribed to.

Here's me being difficult, but would I be able to sign up, download Portal, cancel my account but then still play the game? Or is it part of that unique site?

I've never used anything like this before so excuse my retardation.

just pirate it if your scared of steam, its free anyway? haha.

Shadowed Luminous wrote:

Honestly not only do they use time making their games work on Mac (Time that could be used making HL2 Episode 3 . the game thats almost as slow to come as the Black Mesa mod), now they give away a game I already payed for.....

I personally think it's cool that they are extending Steam to Mac, trying to get their games to more people. Honestly, I think it pays off more than working on HL2E3 right now would. And besides, I doubt that they are spending ALL their resources on getting the program and games to run on Macs.

Agriagropolis wrote:

So...just sign up and download right?

I'm very paranoid about getting hacked when on there though - happened to a YouTuber I'd subscribed to.

Here's me being difficult, but would I be able to sign up, download Portal, cancel my account but then still play the game? Or is it part of that unique site?

I've never used anything like this before so excuse my retardation.

Yep, just sign up and download. Don't worry, it's completely legit. I've got over 50 games on my Steam account, which I got years ago when HL2 was fairly new. I think at last count it was 56 games, but I'm not entirely sure...

No, you wouldn't be able to play Portal without Steam, as it (and the majority of HL2 games) are made specifically to run through Steam. But there's no real reason to get rid of Steam anyway... It isn't harmful at all, and it automatically updates all your games so that you're running the latest patches, there's huge amounts of other games and even game mods and demos available through Steam. Oh yeah, and there are the constant Steam specials. They often have weekends where people can download a game and play it for free for a limited time, and every now and then just give away a game or two for free. It's how my mom got a hold of HL2, HL2LC, and something else that came free in a special. Maybe HL2DM. I forget.

The thing I like about Steam is the account system they have. I've had to reinstall a number of times due to hard drive failures and other computer problems. I always lose my game discs, so when I had to reinstall my games, I was able to re-download Steam and have it reinstall all the games I have on my account. Didn't help for the non-Steam games I had though...

Yeah, you could just pirate it, but there's no real reason to. Portal is free, and you're FAR more likely to encounter problems due to piracy than you are due to Steam.

Yes, I'm double posting. No, I don't give a fuck. Steam has another offer page up, but I'm not sure if it is still valid, as I first saw at least a month ago, possibly two months... This offer depends on having ati or nvidia, though...



If you have one or the other, you can download HL2: Lost Coast and HL2: Deathmatch for free.

http://www.steampowered.com/nvidia/
http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/

Right, Portal isn't working for me.

Each time I attempt to play the damn thing, it notifies me my graphics card isn't recognised by Steam's database. Once I choose to continue anyway, it shows the Valve-Head logo then either goes to the white 'Loading...' screen or just then cuts to black and doesn't respond.

I found a thread on Steam's support forum and tried what it advised (setting up a launch command) but it still has not worked.

If anyone knows how to make this work, I'd be grateful if you could help.

The graphics card I'm using is an Intel Pentium one. Not very computer savvy, so I don't know much else about my laptop

I seem to recall having a similar issue at one point... The cause was actually a program I had running for my graphics driver. Catalyst Control or something like that. Once I got rid of that, the game ran just fine.





Oh, and Intel Pentium isn't a graphics card, it's your processor. Run dxdiag.exe to see your computer's details easily. In XP, Start > Run > dxdiag.exe. In Win7, Start > Search > dxdiag.exe. I don't know about any other version of Windows, as I have not used the run/search features in them. If you're not using Windows, then I can't help you at all.

Alright, I've got that screen up.

Under Display I've got 'Device' and 'Drivers'

Under device the only thing I think may be relevent is: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family.

Nothing explicitly stating 'Graphics Card' but I think that's it.

lol that intel pentium graphics card comment made me laugh, not mocking you or nething, but lol. when your in the dxdiag menu, click the "display" tab.

therel be a box called "device" and in "name" thats where the name of your graphics card will be.

Not mocking me? Yeah...

And I did both of those things, what I posted was the result.

interesting... idk how old is your computer?

Probably about a year, year and a half maybe?

Got bought it last October for my birthday and as I recall it was a pretty new model at the time. Not sure where else I can find out tbh. Think I have the original packaging knocking about somewhere.

Total noob when it comes to anything really

Mmkay... When you open dxdiag, and go to the devices tab, take a screenshot and post it here. Mebbe we can spot something that you're missing...

Before I post, I must ask - can any of this information be used to hack my computer? As I've said before, and as Aries picked up on, I'm a complete spack when it comes to computers, so I'm paranoid n stuff D:

Sorry to be a bother.

I don't think it can, no, but if it will make you feel better, you can send me the screenshot personally. That way, you know if your comp gets fucked, I'm to blame, and can take action against me. Not that I would ever intentionally let something bad happen to anyone's computer...

Alrighty, I'll e-mail you the picture.

EDIT: Screw all this, I'm getting the PS3 version.

its really weird that people who worry about their computers get more virus's then people who dont, ive had my firewall off for years now and have had no virus problems Dx

theariesfantasy wrote:

its really weird that people who worry about their computers get more virus's then people who dont, ive had my firewall off for years now and have had no virus problems Dx

I...don't have any viruses O_o Don't think that's really relevent either...

The only problem is incompatability with Portal as far as I'm aware. But meh, it was free so I'm not going to flip a shit . I'll go batshit if my PS3 version boots up something like Barbie Magic Wonderland or some other bollocks.

Agriagropolis wrote:

I'll go batshit if my PS3 version boots up something like Barbie Magic Wonderland or some other bollocks.

*Prepares his robot British army to go replace copies of Orange Box for the PS3 with Barbie Magic Wonderland*

CURSE YOU VIPER-BAKAAAAA

Mmkay, boys, let's keep the spam outta here....