Quote from satchmo on August 9, 2011, 8:10 pm

Wow! These videos are professional quality.

I am, however, a bit puzzled why the sock puppet video won the grand prize.

I thought the second place video is the best, followed by the third place video.

Quote from yohoat9 on August 9, 2011, 8:29 pm

satchmo wrote:

Wow! These videos are professional quality.

I am, however, a bit puzzled why the sock puppet video won the grand prize.

I thought the second place video is the best, followed by the third place video.

AGREE COMPLETELY

I honestly think that the sock puppet one shouldn't have even been considered for the top 3, I'm really disappointed in their decision. Number 2 was freaking amazing, anybody who has even attempted flash animation will understand how much effort was put into it.

Quote from andyb on August 9, 2011, 8:34 pm

I thought the puppet one sorta fit the mood of the music.Regardless they were all good.I liked the ending on number 3 too.

Quote from AntiVector on August 9, 2011, 10:31 pm

Like I said on Youtube:

AntiVector on Youtube wrote:

Most of the people bashing this video are entrants of the contest, so I can see where they're coming from. A lot of people entered this with very fine-tuned, serious entries, so it's confusing to a lot of them when a sock puppet wins. On the other hand, criticizing anyone's work, however light-hearted, is not acceptable. This video is certainly the most creative entry, and gives a nice contrast to all of the bleak & over-depressing entries. I consider this a deserved winner.

I think that covers #1

In my personal opinion, I would switch #1 and #2 just because #2 did such a beautiful job of bringing the Portal 1 1/2 comic (as I call it) to life. The way it used the scribble-flicker technique was phenominal, and its use of motion only when needed was fabulous. It presents a very nice way of taking something that Valve made just to connect the 2 stories and gives it its own world, which is why #2 is my favorite. It puts me in mind of a typography, but for the comic.

As for #3, it manages to do the reverse: it transmutes Portal 2 into our story. I've seen many of these live -acton ones, such as this one, but the third-placer actually made Aperture fit in the real world. Making it seem as though it was a real company that made those cubes. Nothing seemed out-of-place. Every little detail (even the Pyro drawing and the medic poster) felt like it belonged there in this world fused between ours and Aperutre's. All the little touches (right down to the ending) made this video a stand-out winner.

There are no undeserved winners here!

Quote from raulness on August 10, 2011, 12:37 am

I think the winner won because it had nothing to do with Portal. People forget that The National isn't some fictional band created just for Portal 2. Odds are, they had a single written out without an album to release it on and through a series of events somehow ended up releasing it in pair with Portal 2. Even if the song was created specifically for Portal 2, I doubt they want to typecast themselves as 'that Portal 2 band'. It's hard to imagine a serious music video consisting of video game lore and gameplay. If you knew nothing about The National and this contest and you saw their video you'd forever associate them with Portal 2.

The song was honestly nothing but a little easter egg in Portal 2. It never played a huge role but I feel that with this contest, Valve kind of pushed it in a different direction. I strongly believe that the band/label had a big say in what video won and they probably wanted a non-Portal video from the beginning. The rules never said it had to be about Portal 2 and they actually pushed the idea that it could be about anything.

All of that said, I wish there would have been a lot more non-Portal videos to compete with the sock puppet one. It was a well-made video but there were probably a lot more interesting and unique concepts out there.

Quote from rellikpd on August 10, 2011, 1:16 pm

Does this mean they will stop wasting resources on stupid shit like VIDEOs and release our damn DLC already??? >:[

Quote from yohoat9 on August 10, 2011, 1:26 pm

rellikpd wrote:

Does this mean they will stop wasting resources on stupid shit like VIDEOs and release our damn DLC already??? >:[

Quote from Will T. on August 10, 2011, 2:19 pm

I'd be lying if I said I loved how Valve "fans" do nothing but complain when they don't get their free stuff immediately (free stuff which, by the way, would cost $$$ from most other developers).

Quote from Rubrica on August 10, 2011, 2:24 pm

Plus, the people who whine are usually the ones who finish the DLC straight away, not savouring it, and then whine for months on end about how the game has 'no replayability', and they usually can't even be bothered to try playing custom maps.