[UPDATE] Portal 2 Released Early!

[UPDATE 3] Portal 2 is unlocked on Steam! Get to it!

The GI review in which Ben and Adam slobber all over the game is available here. And no, for the record, it doesn't matter what platform you play it on. Portal 2 plays great on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

[UPDATE 2] We're down to five Potato Sack games to beat the heck out of in order to launch Portal 2 as early as possible.

Want to help? Play any of the following on Steam to do your part to reboot GLaDOS and get back into the deadliest Enrichment Center around.

• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Killing Floor
• Super Meat Boy
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• The Ball

As of this writing, the countdown timer has Portal 2's Steam launch pegged at 2 AM CST tonight. You're less than half a day away from getting your test on!

[UPDATE] Two of the thirteen indie games have been sufficiently conquered in the quest to unlock Portal 2 early on Steam. Eleven games remain in need of pwning. Get cracking, slackers!

1...2...3...Kick It! and The Wonderful End of the World have completed their portions of the calculations for rebooting GLaDOS. Still to go as of this writing:

• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Killing Floor
• Cogs
• Rush
• Toki Tori
• Bit.Trip Beat
• Audiosurf
• Super Meat Boy
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• AAAAAA!!!! (this one is over half way!)
• The Ball

Minecraft creator Notch is doing his part. Are you going to let Notch down? You monster.

[ORIGINAL STORY] Those of us who were eagerly watching Valve's Portal 2 countdown hoping for an early release for the anticipated game must face a bit of disappointment today...and a bit of hope.

Following the countdown's end, the Aperture Science website updated with a new countdown to Tuesday's scheduled Portal 2 launch and a challenge for Steam users. Each of the 13 indie games in Valve's Potato Sack bundle are being tracked on the site. It looks like if enough people play those games, the Steam version of Portal 2 will arrive ahead of schedule.

It's unclear just how much each game needs to be played, but we're now 20 minutes into the challenge and most of the bars have barely moved for each game -- even with Killing Floor, which has the most "current CPUs" by far at almost 4,000.

In some ways, this is a shockingly simple sales move by Valve. People want to play Portal 2 early, and they'll be able to...if they buy and play these other games on Steam. On the other hand, it's kind of cool to see one of the biggest and best triple-A developers supporting a handful of smaller indie titles. Are you annoyed or excited by this stunt?