Monday, May 30, 2011

Still Alive

At the end of Portal, the video game, Jonathan Coulton’s song Still Alive is played as the closing credits roll. It is sung by Ellen McLain who provided the voice of GLaDOS, the artificial intelligence. McLain is an opera singer and voice actress and the only person to have her voice on all the games in the Orange Box. I’ve never heard her singing voice, but the voice of GLaDOS sounds heavily processed. Of course, as the voice of an artificial intelligence I’m sure there was an intent to make it sound vaguely artificial and computerish. And it’s a cool song. The lyrics (which reference game content) are very 21st century. GLaDOS is supposed to be destroyed by Chell, but as the credits roll, GlaDOS sings that she is “still alive”.

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