About The Final Stand 2:
The Final stand 2 is a game (though can’t you imagine one – set perhaps during the Seven Hour War, trying to escape as the facility collapses and the Combine invade the test chambers?), it’s a book. It covers how Portal was created, the complex gestation of the sequel, and the personalities involved at every step. The book is interesting, revealing a lot of behind the scenes info. You learn what a complicated business creating a computer game is, especially a Valve one, and something of the stresses involved. For even at a company like Valve, creating a game is hard work, and it takes its toll. The book makes what use of its computer nature as it can, embedding videos and interactive content. They do not add that much overall though – the pictures and words are what matter.Very interesting interactive book, worth a read, especially if you can focus on it better than I could, but that’s my problem. There’s an issue, however. As the years have gone by, it started falling apart. Many interactive elements outright don’t work, whether it be for the broken interface, or for a server that’s presumably not been managed for around a decade and complains about database errors.Regardless, what does work has proven to be very interesting. As a fan of the Portal franchise that occasionally rummages through various official and fan wikis of Valve games, I was delighted to see interesting content I haven’t seen before.It’s worth getting at such a low price, although it’s in a broken state.
