We’ve been playing Portal 2 all evening, and whilst we’re saving the review until next week we just thought we’d fire up a quick post to let anyone that’s still confused about the whole Steam thing know that it’s as simple as it possibly can be.
Basically, you can play through the single player game without any bother, using just your PSN account as you would with any other game – you’ll still get Trophies and everything runs as normal. But if you want to go online for some co-op fun, you’ll need a Steam account.
Thankfully, this is done pretty much automatically in-game. If you already have a Steam account you can log in from within Portal 2, and if you don’t, the game will create one for you in the blink of an eye, linking your PSN account with your newly created Steam account.
Once done, you can tap SELECT at any time to bring up the Steam overlay, which shows your Steam friends and lets you do all the cool Steam stuff like chat, view profiles and see your Achievements, alongwith a cute little news portal (pun intended) for all the latest information.
You’ll also earn Steam Achievements as you bag them on PSN, so you’re getting double the goodies for your cash. You’re also given access to the cloud saving offered by Steam, which means you can download your own save on any PS3 and carry on from where you are.
Naturally, such a feature will become more useful once more Steam powered games come to the PS3, but as a first step it’s superbly implemented and a mile away from the way the first Portal was released onto the platform as part of the Orange Box. Valve are clearly 100% behind the game this time.
Portal 2’s out next Tuesday in the US, and next Friday here in the UK. It’s rather good…
FriendlyFiend
So looking forward to this … although there better damn well be cake. Just one thing, isn’t the game actually out in the UK next Thursday, due to Good Friday?
picld
What about digital distribution? As Steam is mostly about download&play would a PSN version be possible too??
cam the man
If it’s not available straight away I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s added sooner rather than later.
Sympozium
Sounds brilliant, hope Sony don’t mind allowing Valve having some sort of Steam app on the XMB, that would be great since there’s some friends that our on Steam alot.
gazzagb
Sounds brilliant, I hope that Valve begin to incorporate more PSN/Steam functionality into all their games.
smokeybeef
I know there’s been talk about how you can’t use the extra Steam key to play your PS3 copy. But what if my friend ties the key to his Steam account instead of doing it to mine? Or does it know whether it somehow know its not the same one as the PS3?