(Mostly) Free Stuff Friday

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Every time I see some cool stuff for free, I try to make sure you know about it. And if it happens on Friday, so much the better.

Well, sadly, I didn’t see too much in the way of no-cost goodness, I do have a little bit from the folks at Steam.

First up is your free-ness: if you’re one of the three people alive reading this who hasn’t yet played Portal, you now officially have no excuse. As part of an initiative to promote the educational potential of video games, Steam is giving away copies of Portal for PC and Mac until September 20. Just direct your browser to learnwithportals.com.

“Today, innovative educators are finding ways to incorporate Portal and Portal 2 into their classrooms—helping teach physics and critical-thinking skills. It’s eye-opening to see how video games can be used in amazing and unexpected ways to help educate our next generation.”

As a former teacher myself, this has me totally juiced. I’ve got half a mind to send this link to my science teacher friend at the school I used to teach at. Half the kids there already play Portal because they think it’s fun—it’d be fantastic to see how they’d react if the students actually found a way to LEARN from this.

Of course, learning is not a requirement of downloading—that’s right, you can remain a stupid ignoramus if you wish. I won’t judge. You dummy.

But Steam hasn’t stopped there: until Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific, to celebrate the release of the Star Wars flicks on Blu-ray, they’re holding a 50 percent off sale on a ton of Star Wars titles, including Bioware’s Knights of the Old Republic (basically the precursor to the Mass Effect franchise), Battlefront II, Republic Commando, and Empire at War: Gold Pack—each of which are five bucks, except for Empire at War, which is ten.

But. Wait. The Star Wars Collection, which contains all of the above games, plus nine more games in the Star Wars franchise, is also on-sale for half-off. That means the collection, which is typically a cool hundred bucks is only fifty. Not free, but not bad at all.

To celebrate, I’ll throw in a FREE JOKE:

Q: How did Darth Vader know what Luke got him for Christmas?

A: He felt his presents.

You’re welcome.