Portal 2: The Cake Is Still A Lie

[BRC]

I've been stuck at 32% for the last twenty minutes or so

[Worira]

Likewise. I restarted, since it didn't seem to be going anywhere.

[BRC]

Likewise. I restarted, since it didn't seem to be going anywhere.

I did that, then it loaded back to 32% and stopped.

[Bayar]

Apparently, it does load after 32, it just does not show up, just et it do it until it dissapears or something. Busy servers...

[Gralamin]

Got through, played for a bit. It is excellent!

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Weighted Companion Cube(s) no! Why GLaDOS why?

[Jibar]

Okay I'm cool with this from Team Fortress 2. It has its uses, and it's given the game a longer life.

BUT WE DO NOT NEED MICRO-PAYMENTS IN PORTAL 2

WE DON'T NEED TO DRESS UP THE BOTS

THIS ISN'T SOME BIG TEAM GAME IT'S CO-OP

THIS IS STUPID

AND YOU ARE STUPID FOR MAKING THIS

...single player is fine so fine.

[The Linker]

I'm getting this feeling they've got something planned for this game -- specifically co-op -- they haven't told us about.

But anyway--

I'm going to be done single-player within a day or two, I imagine, but I won't be doing co-op for a while (I think, anyway). I'd love to discuss the finer points of single-player spoilers, but if ALL spoilers are unmarked, I'll have to unsubscribe regardless to hide from co-op spoilers.

[mightymonarch]

Spoiler, and possible silly question below:

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Ok, Chapter 5. After you get sucked into the vent with Wheatley, after you destroy the Neurotoxin Source, I load to a black screen. I can still move, kinda, and shoot portals (that go nowhere) and I hear an alarm. I wait for a bit and nothing changes. Glitch or am I not waiting long enough?

[The Linker]

*checks recordings*

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That's odd. No, you should immediately be jutted out of the pipe onto a catwalk when the loading is done. I don't hear an alarm, either.

[Maxymiuk]

And just like that, it's over...

Cue endless speculation.

(could be considered ending spoilers)

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My prediction: Chelle is going to die from white goo poisoning, the way Cave Johnson did.

Also, did anyone else get a Fallout vibe when opening the entrance to the condemned labs?

[Thufir]

...

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I'm sure there were some lines GLaDOS said in the previews/trailers which were clearly directed at Chell, but they didn't happen.
And a test chamber as well, with spiky crushers and propulsion gel, I remember distinctly.

Also, I want more portal puzzles. IT IS NOT ENOUGH.

[littlebottom]

i shall be leaving this thread for a while since erm, i am desperately trying not to open all the spoilers. ill come back when ive actually got and played it some way, have fun.

[Thufir]

Oh yeah, have to say, one issue I had with the ending:

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The connection between GLaDOS and Caroline was never really explained. GLaDOS was trying to think how she knew Caroline, possibly reached a conclusion, and later she said that thing about hearing the voice of a conscience, which might wel have been connected to Caaroline, but there was no definitive explanation; and then at the end she talked about Caroline being 'in here' and I think there was something about 'being Caroline', as if these were things we should already know about.
I just would've liked a little bit of explanation. Particularly because actually I found the glimpses of the history of Aperture Science to be one of the most interesting bits of the game.

[Maxymiuk]

Oh yeah, have to say, one issue I had with the ending:

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The connection between GLaDOS and Caroline was never really explained. GLaDOS was trying to think how she knew Caroline, possibly reached a conclusion, and later she said that thing about hearing the voice of a conscience, which might wel have been connected to Caaroline, but there was no definitive explanation; and then at the end she talked about Caroline being 'in here' and I think there was something about 'being Caroline', as if these were things we should already know about.
I just would've liked a little bit of explanation. Particularly because actually I found the glimpses of the history of Aperture Science to be one of the most interesting bits of the game.

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To me the whole thing seemed pretty straightforward. GLaDOS is Caroline, or at least was at the very beginning. Recall one of the last of Johnson's messages, where he talks about going into AI research and the potential for transfering human consciousness into the machine, and explicitly demands that, even though he won't survive until the technology is developed, his colleagues should perform the procedure on Caroline, whether she wants to or not.

Plus, the earlier instance, where GLaDOS almost unwittingly repeats " Yes sir, Mr Johnson" after Caroline from the recording is kinda a dead giveaway, I feel.

[Thufir]

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To me the whole thing seemed pretty straightforward. GLaDOS is Caroline, or at least was at the very beginning. Recall one of the last of Johnson's messages, where he talks about going into AI research and the potential for transfering human consciousness into the machine, and explicitly demands that, even though he won't survive until the technology is developed, his colleagues should perform the procedure on Caroline, whether she wants to or not.

Plus, the earlier instance, where GLaDOS almost unwittingly repeats " Yes sir, Mr Johnson" after Caroline from the recording is kinda a dead giveaway, I feel.

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Yeah, but it still would've been nice to have that confirmed.
In particular, we never had any indication GLaDOS had realised that. It would've takenmaybe two or three extra lines of dialogue. And it would've been perfectly in character for GLaDOS to assume Chell lacked the intelligence to figure it out.

[Etcetera]

So the singleplayer was, in my opinion, a little weak at the start but got better in the middle. The store for co-op irritated me, perhaps irrationally.

Spoiler Time!

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By far, my favourite part was retro Aperture science, in both the level design and the style. And it had lots of Cave Johnson. Which was good.

I would have liked more information Caroline/GLaDOS thing: it seemed to end a little prematurely.

Those two-headed turret cube crab things are adorable!
Lastly, maybe I'm clutching at straws, but the bit where GLaDOS murders the door mainframe seemed like a reference to Durandal of Marathon fame.

[Bayar]

Man, the whole game is spoilers.


Also, GOTY for sure.

Edit:

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Yeah, but it still would've been nice to have that confirmed.
In particular, we never had any indication GLaDOS had realised that. It would've takenmaybe two or three extra lines of dialogue. And it would've been perfectly in character for GLaDOS to assume Chell lacked the intelligence to figure it out.

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Actually, she does realize it and stops talking midway, then abruptly encourages you to go do the test.

[RPharazon]

Played through the single-player, currently doing a commentary runthrough.

Very, very fun game, very exciting, and it left me scratching my head sometimes. Lots of laughs, surprises and twists. Probably the most fun with a single player game that I've had in ages.

However, a few gripes.

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Why did they remove the "Last portal fired" dot on the reticle? That was super handy. Definitely more useful than the portal location shader effect. I don't exactly look around to try and find where portals are in the middle of a fling.

Also, the grab physics feel super clunky. You can no longer "throw" objects, and any objects you do pick up are just sloppy to move.

The movement controls on irregular surfaces also feel sloppy at times. I don't know how many times I fell into a pit of acid or a bottomless pit because the controls were too sloppy to have fine control.

[onasuma]

I think I may have had hopes to high for portal 2. It was still a good game and all, but I dont think it was as good as the first one and definatly not valves magnum opus as someone suggested a while ago.

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Of course, the ending... Just the ending. Had me laughing out loud throughout the boss fight - I loved the adventurer core. I also did one of those little joyful squeels that you pray no one is around to here in the last 2 seconds of the game. You all know why.

[Khosan]

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I'm in space!

[Fluff & Napalm]

Just beat the single player. If I could have verbalized what I wanted out of Portal 2, this would have been it.

[Aidan305]

The spoiler temptation is getting really annoying, especially since I'm not going to be able to play the game until the end of May.

[The Linker]

...You're not going to find much discussion to participate in, now that the game's out.

This is going to officially become a spoiler thread in a few days, where no spoiler boxes need be used, soooo...

[Worira]

Well, just beat it.

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Was nice of the game to make it up to Phase for being released on Passover.

[Erloas]

I'm fairly glad I didn't get it yet actually. It doesn't seem like anyone at all took longer then 24 hours to beat it. The game had to be short, way too short to justify the price tag.

[Khosan]

I'm fairly glad I didn't get it yet actually. It doesn't seem like anyone at all took longer then 24 hours to beat it. The game had to be short, way too short to justify the price tag.

I managed it in 5 hours. Didn't find a lot of extras, and I'm pretty good with puzzles so I sped through a lot of it.

[Sir_Hobbit]

I'm fairly glad I didn't get it yet actually. It doesn't seem like anyone at all took longer then 24 hours to beat it. The game had to be short, way too short to justify the price tag.

It is very short, but it's also completely fantastic, so I don't regret buying it one bit. And I say this as someone who often buys 50+ hour RPGs and generally enjoys longer games. One of my top favorite games at this point, and I haven't even touched the coop yet.

[Hyudra]

I played it in 8 hours, and I view it worth every penny spent, and I haven't even done the co-op mode.

One of the things to note is that the reason the original Portal was such a gem was because it didn't adhere to the whole "game time = quality". It was just stellar writing, level design and gameplay. Portal 2 does give you more content overall, but it still holds up to (mostly) the same standards.

A few comments, in no particular order:

• Funnier than the first. I was laughing out loud through many parts, especially at the conclusion of the first arc.
• There's so much effort in the details that it's mindboggling. One article I read pointed out that there was a full fledged animation for the turrets being built piece by piece on one of the assembly lines, in a place most players wouldn't even look. Days worth of effort for an incidental background detail. One thing I loved was how there's tons and tons of dialogue for some of the characters which, again, most people wouldn't even chance across. (One character in particular has like, 10+ lines of dialogue if you idle or take too long in a given area.)
• The level design isn't quite as good in some respects. The levels themselves are beautiful, but one area in particular (about two thirds of the way through the game) made me rather frustrated with how narrow it was and how unintuitive it was to make progress. Spoiler below, for what I'm talking about:
  
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  Long of it short, you're supposed to ascend the interior of a pipe/duct which doesn't take to portals. What you're supposed to do, from what I gathered, is use portals to splash the inside with the white goo, which makes it portal-accessible. Trouble is, very little in the pipe actually has the goo stick to it, angles are bad, and since you're using goo to make room for portals to vent in more goo, it's just really slow and really clumsy. To top it all off, the pipe angles at one point, and it's very disorienting because there's no good indicator of 'up' until you find yourself sliding down the pipe (and chances are, losing a goodly amount of progress in the process)
• Further, while it's understandable, there's a lot of areas that are really expansive, but where you're (fairly needlessly) restrained by chest high railings you can't jump over. Said fences also get in the way fairly often when you ~are~ free to explore, too. It makes you very conscious of how linear the game is.
• It's really funny.
• The game feels, at times, like it's trying too hard to push a new 'companion cube' or 'the cake is a lie' meme. Nothing explicit, but I generally got that impression.
• The writing is top notch.
• The gameplay is great, barring that one slow bit I mentioned maybe 2/3rds of the way through (the area leading up to it and the area immediately after are kinda slowish, so it's just one stretch where you spend maybe 30-45 minutes). It's fluid, intuitive, there's almost none of that annoying "hit a panel while you're falling 50 miles an hour through a floor-ceiling portal loop."
• There's several moments of sheer awesome. I don't want to give these away by chance, so here they are, spoilered. Ye have been warned:
  
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  • The return of GLaDOS.
  • "How are you doing? That's nice. I'm a potato."
  • Running through the complex while it's being redesigned/deathtrapped around you.
  • Blue-gooing some 10-15 turrets and watching the chaos.
  • The final portal shot. If you've played, you know the one I mean.

  
  
• The characters are all great.
• The game does reveal some more history/backstory in some areas, which may be a plus, may be a minus, depending on your tastes.
• The number of characters (that is, more than you, GLaDOS and some turrets) does take away somewhat from the 'Beautiful Void' nature of the first game, but the game makes up for this, IMHO, in what it does atmospherically and environmentally. The characters are well done enough that I didn't resent their inclusion.
• The ending song didn't really hit the right note for me, personally. There's apparently two 'hidden' songs, though, so one of them might be on par with "Still Alive" (I've heard good things).

[The Linker]

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Long of it short, you're supposed to ascend the interior of a pipe/duct which doesn't take to portals. What you're supposed to do, from what I gathered, is use portals to splash the inside with the white goo, which makes it portal-accessible. Trouble is, very little in the pipe actually has the goo stick to it, angles are bad, and since you're using goo to make room for portals to vent in more goo, it's just really slow and really clumsy. To top it all off, the pipe angles at one point, and it's very disorienting because there's no good indicator of 'up' until you find yourself sliding down the pipe (and chances are, losing a goodly amount of progress in the process)

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If you get the goo in through the air duct, it'll travel through the ventilation and cover the entire pipe without you having to do much at all. I didn't know that would happen, but the one place you can put a portal pre-paint sends the paint right into that duct. I guess that didn't happen for you.

[Hyudra]

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If you get the goo in through the air duct, it'll travel through the ventilation and cover the entire pipe without you having to do much at all. I didn't know that would happen, but the one place you can put a portal pre-paint sends the paint right into that duct. I guess that didn't happen for you.

I tried and tried and couldn't find a way to pull that off, even going pixel by pixel while zoomed in. So I just made very painstaking progress.

The area leading up to it wasn't scintillating, either (and was the only point in the game I was able to pull myself away to go find food and such without feeling pained).

Even with the criticisms I mentioned, though, I still rate Portal 2 as one of my favorite games of all time. Top 10 definitely. Maybe not top 5.