It is important to take a true work masterpiece of a video game, Portal 2, and fully appreciate every single thing that was put into making it. Now we can, as Dark Horse announced its upcoming book, The Art of Portal 2 will make taking a break from the controller totally worth doing.

Community group known as Stabyourself.net has finally accomplished a gamer’s dream: taking two awesome games by two legendary publishers, Nintendo and Valve, and put them into one, stellar game.

The first Portal 2 downloadable content, ‘Peer Review,’ added a new challenge mode and co-op levels. Valve has just announced a second DLC that doesn’t seem to include new levels, per se. Instead, it will bring a full-on in-game level editor. The thought of cooperatively designing levels with a partner is certainly enticing.

Portal 2 gives FPS/puzzle fans plenty to do, but it’s understandable that many players are hungry for new content by now. Thankfully the first downloadable content is not far off. I’m talking September!

As if you didn't already get enough playtime out of your PC version of Portal 2, Thinking With Portals has compiled a "must-have" list of 25 community created co-op levels. These were painstakingly built as entries to the Summer Mapping Initiative, and are sorted on the TWP forum in order of community rating.

The release of Portal 2 is less than a month away, and many of us here at Co-Optimus can't wait. Today, we have a new trailer for your viewing pleasure.  It's 47 seconds of good times.  Wait! There's a catch.  The trailer is in German, which makes it even more hilarious, or possibly a little evil.  I was raised on Indiana Jones films, so to me, it is decidedly evil, in a funny, face-melting kind of way.  It also depicts robots taking human jobs, which is pretty evil, as well.  My knowledge of the German language is about as good as my Japanese, therefore I won't bother to translate for you.  

Are you wondering which console will have the best version of Portal 2?  Valve has insisted that each version of the game is the same across all platforms.  This may not be the case.  For console gamers who value cross platform play, the PS3 version is "the one to get." Why?  Content-wise, both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 versions are supposed to be exactly the same.  Valve writer Chet Faliszek recently explained the differences between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 versions to Eurogamer:

Motion gaming is coming to Portal 2.  It won't be for  the PlayStation Move, and no, it won't be for the Xbox Kinect, either.  Another motion control peripheral is coming to the PC in the form of the Razer Hydra.  Unlike consoles' camera motion controls, the Razer Hydra has a base station that creates an electro magnetic field that can be manipulated by two Wii/Move like controllers.  Players can use the peripheral to stretch blocks and expertly manipulate lasers.  No word on whether these motion controlled levels will support co-op, it may just be a polished tech demo.

Portal 2 will be hitting retail store shelves this spring.  On April 21, 2011, you and a friend can get together for some couch or online co-op action with the two bots from Aperture Science.  EA will be publishing the retail version while the Steam edition is due out the same day.  In a press release EA states: 

There was a time in my life when someone would say "Mac" and "Game" in the same sentence immediately followed by laughter.  In fact, one of my all time favorite spoof videos on the Mac ads come from the Red vs. Blue guys about Mac gaming.  So really it's quite a shock to see the Apple's platform, specifically the Intel systems with OSX getting the biggest digital distribution service from PCs in Steam.