Dear Weighted Companion Cube, It’s not you; it’s me.

By Head881

Portal.

No other game released in 2007 was quite the sensation that Portal was. Portal is a unique, puzzle-focused first-person shooter that clocks in at about three hours of length and, if my thorough reading of the internet is any indication, everyone and their mother has played it.

Portal has spawned a number of internet sensations since its debut. Probably the most significant, in terms of pop-culture, would be the wonderful end-credits song by Jonathan Coulton “Still Alive.” If you haven’t heard the song, you should find it and listen to it…now…and after you do, you should wait feverishly for the track to be released for Rock Band.

Another internet sensation created by Portal is the character of GLaDOS. GLaDOS is your malevolent benefactor-slash-tour-guide-slash-tormentor. She/it is a brilliantly personified, homicidal computer system that… conducts science… for those who are still alive. Also, she/it has cake. Which is another internet sensation… and a lie.

Finally, the last major internet sensation birthed from Portal is: the Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube. “Companion Cube” or “Cube” for short. As you can see from the provided picture, the Companion Cube is a cube…with hearts on it. Apparently making it distinct from the Aperture Science Weighted Companion-less Cubes littered about the testing facility.

While reading over some of the coverage of GDC ‘08 the last week, I came across an interesting quote from the “Developer’s Rant” section of the conference.

Clint Hocking said: “It doesn’t surprise me that the most meaningful relationship we had in a AAA title this year is with a fucking cube.”

Now, I’m taking the quote slightly out of context, as he was talking, primarily, about how people went to see “The Lord of the Rings” not because of the nifty effects or the stunning locales, but because of the powerful bond between Frodo and Sam. From there, he rather quickly moves to the statement above, that the strongest bond between the player and a game this year occurred with a “fucking cube.”

I’m sorry, but when GLaDOS piped in that I was the Test Subject quickest to dispose of the Companion Cube, I smiled. I thought, in a Psycho Mantis sort of way, that Steam was tracking how long it took each player to dump the cube in the Memory Hole and rewarded my quick-thinking with an appropriately hilarious audio quip.

Unfortunately, it appears that every player gets the same message no matter how long it took to barbecue the cube.

Regardless, I simply do not understand where this internet-wide love of the weighted companion cube comes from. I do understand anthropomorphizing inanimate objects, I do it all the time. I feel bad for my car when it doesn’t work. I have pangs of guilt when I throw out an object I loved as a child, imagining it had feelings of neglect and uselessness. So, I get the need to become emotionally bonded to an object.

However, I simply don’t get the cube. The player encounters the cube for a total of one puzzle room in Portal. The map itself takes five to ten minutes to figure out the first time (if you’re me…I don’t know if that is fast, slow, or appropriate). The cube is used to safely traverse a section of map with a deadly energy ball and, if I remember correctly, weigh down one button.

That’s it.

From there a whole internet meme has been spawned. Companion Cube plushies were made and sold out. T-Shirts have been created, professing the wearer’s love for the cube. Developers are ranting about how the relationship between the cube and the player is the most emotionally-relevant in a game from the year 2007. I’ve even read about people spending an inordinate amount of time trying to save the cube from its fiery fate and, I ask you, why?

Have the long years as a single person chilled my heart to love? Can I no longer feel compassion for others? Have I died, fundamentally, somewhere deep inside my soul? Am I flawed as an individual because I hucked a six-sided object with hearts on it into a furnace without a second thought, laughing a black laugh when GLaDOS taunted my callousness?

No, no dear reader. There’s nothing wrong with me.

There’s something wrong with you.