Portal 2’s existence was only just recently confirmed a few days ago, but details out of Game Informer’s cover story continue to make their way online. Now the entire cover story itself has evidently been scanned, and VG247 pulled a few of the major details.

Portal 2 will, reportedly, take place hundreds of years after the first Portal (pictured), resulting in the Aperture Science labs looking like “a jungle.” Despite this significant time shift, Portal 2 will still somehow once again star Chell, the first game’s protagonist, as the playable character in the single-player game. GlaDOS returns as well, with the (Portal 1 spoiler warning) personality cores you seemingly destroyed at the end of the first game having taken over different areas of the lab.

Meanwhile, as previously revealed, the co-op campaign will be a stand-alone story…that apparently stars two bi-pedal robots. Gameplay-wise, physics will play a bigger role in the puzzles, with one example being using a portal to suck air from a vent in one area into another. There will also be “reflection cubes” that’ll be used for laser-redirection puzzles. Game Informer’s cover story also confirms that Portal 2 will indeed be a full-fledged game, with Valve comparatively calling Portal 1 a “test bed.”

If you’re a Monkey Island fan, there might be good news in your very near future. According to anonymous sources, Kotaku reports that LucasArts is ready to announce a remake of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, possibly as soon as at GDC next week.

This would of course be a follow up to last year’s The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. Like that remake, this Monkey Island 2 special edition reportedly would also have updated graphics and “audio” (which we assume would probably mean voice-overs will be added, like with the first game’s remake). The Monkey Island 2 special edition will also — reportedly — be released on Xbox Live Arcade, PC, and iPhone like the first game, but will also be released on the PlayStation Network as well.

So check back during our GDC coverage next week to see just how accurate all this turns out to be.

It’s time once again to play everyone’s favorite news game: Boarderline-Irresponsible Patent Speculation! On this episode, we have Nintendo filing a patent for what appears to be a new cartridge design for the Nintendo DS…or, maybe a new cartridge design for the heavily rumored DS 2?

The patent was picked up on by Siliconera, and to be honest, there’s nothing in it that specifically proves it could be either of the above. While the included figure shows what certainly looks like a DS, the patent filing states that it’s for “illustration purposes only.” Still, Siliconera also points out this cartridge design — which would, if it’s actually meant for the DS, stick out quite a bit — has the same number of pins as a standard DS cartridge.

That’s all there really is to go on, though, so it’s impossible to say what the mystery behind this cartridge is. Will more be revealed at GDC next week? Or will we have to wait until E3 in June for answers? Or does Nintendo have no intentions of doing anything with this patent at all? Stay tuned!

Scribblenauts was one of 2009’s breakout hits, so it’s no surprise to see a sequel already in the works — and it’s coming pretty soon, too. The latest issue of Nintendo Power reveals Scribblenauts 2 will be released on the DS this fall, just a year after the first game’s release.

According to GoNintendo’s notes from the issue, Scribblenauts 2 will have the sort of additions and improvements you’d expect for a game all about random vocabulary: It’ll have a whopping 10,000 new words, 120 “new and improved” levels, improved controls (one of the major complaints with the first game), a new hint system, a fleshed out level editor, and apparently it’ll focus heavily on adjectives. That last one could potentially open the gameplay possibilities quite a bit, considering adjectives could be used to modify the things you create. For example, maybe you aren’t just able to conjure a T-Rex, but a rotund T-Rex? Or — could you imagine — a delighted T-Rex?

Hopefully we’ll know more soon enough.

The Electronic Software Ratings Board has issued a Teen rating for Lips: I (Heart) the 80s, and inadvertently also announced Lips: I (Heart) the 80s in the process.

This will be the fourth installment of iNiS’s karaoke party game for the Xbox 360, following the original Lips (pictured), Lips: Number One Hits, and Lips: Party Classics. The ESRB rating (picked up on by IGN, via Joystiq) explains what the title makes rather obvious: “This is a karaoke music game in which players sing along with music videos of various styles and genres from the 1980s.” The description also reveals at least two songs that will be included by quoting lyrics from them: The Police’s “Roxanne” and Rick James’ “Super Freak.”

If the game is already rated, that likely means Microsoft will make Lips: I (Heart) the 80s official pretty soon — perhaps with an announcement at GDC next week.

Sometimes, stories about video game addiction are alarmist malarkey to bump up ratings. Other times, they’re just flat-out tragic: The Next Web reports that a couple in South Korea has been arrested for allegedly allowing their prematurely born baby to starve to death while they were busy tending to a virtual kid at an Internet café.

The couple reportedly fed their baby only once a day between 12-hour stretches of play-time with a popular role-playing game called Prius Online, in which they were busy raising a virtual kid. The autopsy report of their baby showed the death was a result of a long period of malnutrition.

“The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,” said South Korean police officer Chung Jin-won. “They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

Even though Valve’s intention to make a Portal sequel has been known for some time, it was still exciting to see Portal 2 officially revealed earlier this week…even if the reveal came with almost no details to speak of. Thankfully, some of those details are already being filled in, as Game Informer reports the game will have a cooperative multiplayer mode, and GameStop’s product listing shows it’ll be a full-priced release.

The co-op mode will evidently be its own stand-alone campaign separate from the single-player mode, featuring two new characters who have to work together to find the answer to each puzzle. No other details on the mode were given, though. Meanwhile GameStop has the game priced at $60 for the Xbox 360 and $50 for the PC, suggesting it’ll be a fuller experience than the original Portal, which was initially released as just a part of The Orange Box.

The fact that Valve will release Portal 2 as a standalone, full-priced retail game is particularly interesting. Many believe part of Portal’s success came from it being a small part of the larger Orange Box compilation, leading many to not have very large expectations of it going in — and then being blown away by what the game actually offered. Now with a full-priced sequel, it’ll be fascinating to see how Valve will meet what are surely far higher expectations.

Enjoying Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s multiplayer mode? Would you still be enjoying it if suddenly all the stats you’ve accrued and weapons and ranks you unlocked disappeared? That seems to be happening to wide swaths of players, as complaints are flooding Electronic Arts’ official Bad Company 2 forums (not to mention a number of other popular gaming forums across the Internet).

Just a quick bit of browsing on the Feedback and Help page for the game shows a number of threads complaining about stats and unlocks being erased. We can also attest to this apparent bug ourselves, as one of our own news writers has had his stats and unlocks vanish as well. So far, all the complaints seem to be with the Xbox 360 version, although it’s still unclear whether PC or PlayStation 3 players are suffering the same problems.

It also doesn’t look like EA has addressed the issue on the forums yet. They have, however, posted a message on the Bad Company 2 Twitter account saying they are “are aware of a drop in players on Xbox 360″ and that “EA is investigating and we will get the game back for you ASAP.” That doesn’t mention anything about stats being erased, though, so it’s hard to say how much that’s actually related. Once we have more answers, we’ll pass them along.

Another Xbox 360 Elite bundle has popped up on Amazon, and it’s a good one. Starting next week, you’ll be able to pick up an Elite bundled with Halo 3 ODST and Forza 3.

Both games are signature exclusives and should keep you busy for quite a while. It will be launching alongside the Final Fantasy XIII Elite bundle, which will be retailing at $399.99.

Both bundles will be launching March 9, but the Forza 3/Halo 3 ODST bundle will be going for $299.99. You can pre-order both of them now.