Cave Johnson Announces "Blappeture Mesa"

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Cave Johnson Announces "Blappeture Mesa"


The famed Black Mesa research facility has a new owner.

Something is afoot at blappeture.com [http://www.blappeture.com/]! The Blappeture Mesa site, which came to the notice of the internet at large earlier this evening, sports an oddly-familiar logo and a link to a recording of none other than Cave Johnson, the head honcho of Aperture Science, announcing himself as the new owner of Black Mesa, the cutting-edge research facility that served as the setting of the original Half-Life. He also called for the immediate shutdown of Black Mesa's anomalous materials research "before you idiots end the world."

It's definitely the voice of Cave Johnson [or someone who does an absolutely picture-perfect impersonation of his delivery and management style], but a quick /WHOIS [http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/blappeture.com] reveals that the blappeture.com domain was registered on April 30 by Joe Angry of Madbox, Newfoundland, which, I'm sad to say, is a fake address. Probably a fake name, too. So what's going on?

Alas, it looks like the whole thing is an elaborate troll. While some long-suffering Half-Life fans are continuing to search for the hidden meaning, the general consensus is that somebody is messing with us. Steam forum [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2690456] users, and probably others elsewhere, pointed out that the audio clip is actually an Easter egg found in the new "Perpetual Testing Initiative" DLC for Portal 2, and the rest of it could have been put together by anyone. As a long-suffering Half-Life fan myself, the mere reference to Black Mesa in a Valve game gives me hope that somewhere, somehow, the wheels are turning, but this particular site? It's fun, but I don't think there's anything to see here.

Don't forget to click the Blappeture Mesa logo on the way out, though.



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Dragoon

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Jan 19, 2010
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It probably is fake but it is pretty good. Love the little touch to the logo they put in.
 

Rad Party God

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Feb 23, 2010
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-From, the Mods

That's... very clever... and mean...

Also, if you click on the Blapperture logo... you can see Gabe himself o_O'
 

CleverCover

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Nov 17, 2010
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I saw troll in the title of the group. Maybe I'm not a huge enough Portal fan, but that logo combined looked too weird to be real. I give Valve more credit than that.

Still clicked it anyway, just to hear the voice.
 

Charli

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Nov 23, 2008
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That's a very good recreation but my ears are usually good at this and I can hear some very veeery small differences. But damn if that wouldn't convince me if the website was better and less trolltastic.
 

GreyJedi

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Sep 22, 2009
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Creepiest Gabe-face EVER.
I don't know why it's possible for a black and white drawing to startle me. :(
 

Tony2077

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Dec 19, 2007
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does this mean I'll finally get a game from them i care about or will i drop dead before that happens
 

Prof.Beany

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Apr 22, 2011
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Simple, the aperture science of our universe bought out Black Mesa and is now forcing them to make test chambers along with the rest of us, Multiverse and all that.
All hail the sentient cloud.
 

NLS

Norwegian Llama Stylist
Jan 7, 2010
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Probably fake. Source code says the sound file is hosted over at archive.org. A look over there says it's registered to [email protected].
 

Miles000

is most likly drunk righyt noiw!
Apr 18, 2010
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Half life 3 and Portal 3 will be the same game...

Calling it now!
 

exp. 99

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Mar 31, 2010
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Sounds similar, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the same voice actor as Cave Johnson.
 

Alexnader

$20 For Steve
May 18, 2009
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Well if the audio isn't unique then as it was pointed out in the article, there's nothing really linking this to Valve.

Doesn't stop it being hilarious though, the logo was a great touch.
 

Fasckira

Dice Tart
Oct 22, 2009
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Sounds a bit too fast to be Cave's voice, but then it is apparently from the source files. Meh.

Still, nice little egg even if it is fake! When Im older, I want to be just like Cave Johnson.
 

Lectori Salutem

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Apr 11, 2011
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Blackmesasource (a mod/total conversion) is mentioned in the code and as others pointed out, the audio is downloaded from another website.

Chances of this being something official: pretty damn small.
 

Togusa09

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Apr 4, 2010
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I take the Gabe Newell face to imply it's probably fake, but how long ago was that file available? The site was registered on 30th April, and wasn't the perpetual testing content only out today? I'm open to the idea that it might have snuck out in another update, but people usually seem to catch random files rather quickly.