Half Life’s Gordon Freeman Meets Portal’s Chell In A Match Made In Fan-Film Heaven
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With the Half-Life and Portal games, Valve Software has created some of the best gaming experiences of all time, so it’s not surprising that we tend to see a lot of fan films devoted to the worlds of those games. It also doesn’t hurt that both series give the player some diabolically entertaining weaponry: Half-Life’s Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator (or “gravity gun”) and Portal’s Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (or “portal gun”). The games have even hinted quite strongly that both series take place in the same game world. That being the case, many a fan has dreamt about seeing Half-Life’s Gordon Freeman team up with Portal’s Chell. While we may not get to see the crossover of our dreams in the gaming world, thanks to the magic of the interwebs now we can see the next best thing. Check out When Gordon Met Chell.
Director Michael Shanks describes the fan film as being shot “on a budget of absolutely nothing,” and it’s true that the effects aren’t nearly as impressive as in some of the other related fan films we’ve seen over the years (we still love Portal: Terminal Velocity and Portal: No Escape). But it more than makes up for that with a sly sense of humor and some great uses of Gordon and Chell’s signature weapons. Half the fun of these games is playing around with physics thanks to the portal and gravity guns, and When Gordon Met Chell nails that perfectly throughout. I also love the tip of the hat to Gordon and Chell’s notoriously terse natures. Who knew they’d just been signing where we couldn’t see all these years?
Also, I’m just going to come out and say it: Gordon’s beard looks terrible. And I love it.
