Poll: Did you really feel sorry for the Companion Cube?

[Onyx Oblivion]

Nope. I didn't feel for anyone in Portal. The only time in all of Valve's games I felt emotion was the end of Ep 2.

 

[Mr. Mike]

Of course I didn't, it's simply a box with a tiny bit of extra detailing on it. I still appreciate the jokes though.

 

[Frankfurter4444]

The atmosphere of Portal was amazingly immersive. In Test Chamber 17, that immersion is especially prevalent in the dialogue GLaDOS speaks and the hidden room showing affection to the Companion Cube. Because I allowed that immersion to take me in, I truly began to feel for the character of the Companion Cube *especially* because GLaDOS had spent the entire level telling me the Cube *wasn't* a character.

So yes, I paused when asked to euthanize the Companion Cube ? probably because she used the word "euthanize." I even went so far as to attempt to find a way to avoid killing it, to no avail obviously. And I, like the Developer Commentary said was the intent, had far more negative feelings for GLaDOS for making me kill the Cube.

And no, this isn't me joking. I don't know about the rest of the Internet, but I personally did feel sorry for the Companion Cube.

 

[Audio]

It was like dragging a heavy suitcase through London Underground. Good riddence.

 

[GreatVladmir]

Um, no it's a bloody cube, why should I feel sorry for a bloody cube!

 

[Custard_Angel]

No. Definately not.

The point of the companion cube was that a robot was attempting to appeal to your human side by basically saying "this is your friend. Love it. Love it. LOVE IT." You weren't supposed to form a connection with it, you were supposed to view GLaDOS as the mad program script that "she" was.

If you say yes, you really didn't get it.

 

[KiLl_RoY]

Companion cube...."goes cry in the corner"

 

[Danzaivar]

I'm glad at least one person understands the context of it.

What I wonder is for the people who don't get that context, what the hell do they find funny about the sequence?

It's like 'The Cake is a Lie'. Anyone who explores the Portal canon enough will know that actually, it wasn't a lie at all. Whoever scrawled the 'Cake is a lie' message... was lying (or mistaken).

I swear most of it is just things like Yahtzee's review saying it's great and funny and all that, so they play through the game shouting 'LOL THIS IS AWESUM' at everything and just go along with any memes that have that mind set...

Which is why these days most games don't bother with wit or good stories, they just get lost on people.

 

[Reep]

Its a freaking box, it has the personality of Master Chief, and i mean come on, people dont really praise him for his character depth, yet people loved this thing.

 

[mihajelko]

I couldn't press that drop button fast enough when I was ordered to burn it.

 

[Sarukin]

For me that cube went straight to hell

 

[Branches]

To be honest, I was so drunk when i played it with a friend of mine, I literally sat there for a minute weighin the pros and cons of throwing it in the incinerator.

 

[Bluelaser]

I was treating the cube a pet.

 

[FightThePower]

Nah, I'm glad I killed that bastard. It threatened to stab me.

 

[MajorKris]

I did at first, and attempted to find ways of beating the system by glitching the game to save it.

But then it stabbed me, so I let it burn.

 

[PsiMatrix]

I did not feel sorry. It was a cube, this was a test by GladOS, I had to get out of that room to proceed with the game.

There's also the developer commentary that gives away the reason you lug it round as people got to the last level and didn't know what to do with GladOS's orbs and so they added it in to help the players. If anything the cube is designed to betray you since it shows you how to help GladOs go back to her psychotic HAL-like state of killing everyone once you drop the first of her orbs into the incinerator.

Then I also saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7NtsV0EhdU

Thing doesn't even get burned. It's all a GladOS scheme to get you to help her.