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Is anyone else waiting for this one?  I didn't expect to get sucked in by a puzzle game right now, especially since I didn't play Portal 1 (which was part of the Orange Box compilation) but after watching and reading up, I'm really excited for this game!  The idea itself is creative and the execution looks incredible.  If you haven't seen this, check it out:

http://ps3.ign.com/objects/064/064329.html (http://ps3.ign.com/objects/064/064329.html)

I think it'll be great from what I've read and seen (I too have never played the first).  But I'm going to have to pass, at least right away.  What's neat is the co-op can be played across PC and PS3.  It's just not in the cards to pick up in April.  I'm intereted to hear more on it though.

Maybe JRD is as he used to like portal (1) a lot.

It will be interesting to read your impressions - I've not seen anything quite like this before.

Portal was a very original and very well executed game concept which I felt was offset a bit by not having a huge amount of replay value, well not for me anyway. There's one solution for each of the puzzles and having solved them there's not much incentive for going through them all again other than to see if you can complete them quicker or more efficiently. There is a kind of "challenge" sequence of puzzles which are unlocked once the game proper is completed, these are some of the same levels already played but with a bunch of twists introduced and made tougher. Maybe number 2 will be a completely different kettle of fish. I guess maybe about once every few months I have another playthrough of Portal, it is a lot of fun - once in a while. I do like the humour in it, especially that goofy song during the end credits :-D From what I've seen, the puzzles in Portal2 looks like they'll be tougher than in the orig.

Yeah, I had really thought about that replay value, but I still think I'll get this one.  Some of the videos of Portal 2 are downright mind-warping  :o.  It's so cool that you can look into the portals and see what's on the other side, or even see yourself entering the first portal as you come through the other side - brings to mind all the little thought puzzles you've ever heard about time travel or the ability to move at the speed of light and what not.  I've actually spent the last hour looking at copies of the orange box on ebay, I would really like to play the original before 2 comes out.

It does provide some sense-confounding moments, like putting a portal on a wall and one on the ceiling and finding yourself looking down on yourself, or having a portal on the floor and one on the ceiling directly above it, stepping into the floor one and finding yourself in an infinite freefall loop. You can actually get out of that though by holding down your move-forward key while you're falling and eventually you'll land on the floor again at the edge of the portal. Many of the puzzles require both lateral and imaginative thinking to solve. I won't give anything away here :-D

If you do get the original, stick with it. For a while it appears to be just a sequence of puzzles, but there's a big twist to it further on.

I think you'd enjoy it, mate. It should be good preparation for #2!

I replayed the original back when they updated it with the radios and that whole strange puzzle that gave hints to the game. Still like the concept and how they are tying it into the Half Life 2 story line, looking forward to the new one, but don't know when I'll squeeze time from Minecraft in order to play it.

D_B, it always makes me smile when I see you mention Minecraft and that you're still happy with it :) Basically because I remember when it was introduced here and how I thought no one would ever want to play a C64 graphics game these days. Good thing there are still games for us out there we take pleasure in constantly playing them :)

Interesting that you guys mention the durability of some old games as I was playing one just last night. Back in the early 1990s a company called Talonsoft was producing a range of games called the Battleground series. These were all turn-based combat strategy games played on a map with a hexagonal grid, just like the military simulation board games of the 70s but with prettier maps. I have all five of their American Civil War ones which I still like to get into from time to time. These games were originally written to run under Windows 3.1 on a 300x200 screen resolution. I've had them since the day and they have run without a problem under every version of Windows ever produced, and in every screen resolution. They even run on my 1920x1080 res widescreen monitor without the graphics getting stretched - just more of the map is visible on screen. I guess because they're relatively simple games with no flashy 3D graphics or animation, they just take every new development in OS or displays in their stride. Of course the unit images and the hexes have gotten smaller and smaller as my monitor resolutions have increased over the years, but the nature of the games is such that it's not important to be able to see the units close up. Every increase in resolution has simply made the games nicer to look at and in fact more playable because less map scrolling is necessary and more of the situation is visible at once.

Some old games just get better with age :-X

But back on topic (sort of), I'll be interested to see how they weave the Aperture story into the Half-Life 2 story. And I'm still hanging out for Episode 3, dammit :D

The previews still describe Aperture as a "company gone mad with science".  I never got in to Half-Life, so I can't comment much outside of that...

They sure are taking their time with HL Ep 3, that's for sure. Scuttlebut is that Gordon will get his hands on a portal gun in some capacity once they release the thing. I haven't checked in a long time to see what the new rumors are, so that might be out of date.

Yeah, Minecraft is taking up a lot of my free time, and it's not really "retro" or "old school" in my opinion, just because the graphics are blocky. It actually takes some horsepower to run the thing, and with a texture pack mod to increase the graphics resolution, it can look quite good. Besides, who can't love a cubic pig? lol

better love a cubic pig than smoke a pubic cig  :-()

Quote from: Art Blade on March 18, 2011, 01:20:58 PM
better love a cubic pig than smoke a pubic cig  :-()

???  Worst mental image ever . . .

Anyway, I broke down today and ordered a used copy of the orange box.  Apparently with the impending release of Portal 2, the orange box has become a hot commodity and it's driving the prices up.  I got mine for $24, but I saw some for more than $40 in "like new" condition, so I guess my price is not that bad for that many games on one disc.  Only downside:  4 - 12 days for ground shipping from Nevada  :D  :-D

I'll soon be portaling it up in search of cake . . . mmm, cake . . .

Quote from: Art Blade on March 18, 2011, 01:20:58 PM
better love a cubic pig than smoke a pubic cig  :-()

^+-+

 ;D

If anyone's interested, here's a link to a flash version of Portal - kind of lame compared to the real thing but still fun for a few minutes . . .

http://www.addictinggames.com/portalflashversion.html (http://www.addictinggames.com/portalflashversion.html)

I just pre-ordered P2.  I had a $20 credit coming to me from Amazon (for ordering KZ3  ;D )  and it was supposed to go towards Motorstorm Apocalypse, which has been delayed due to the horrible events in Japan.   Anyways, Amazon is now offering another $20 credit for pre-ordering P2 so I got 20 off and will get another 20 to spend.  $36 for P2 delivered on release day!  gotta love it.

I never played the first, I may never, but that's ok...this looks like great fun.

PS3 version is supposed to get a free download version for the PC - AND PS3 and PC players are supposed to be able to play Co-op together.  There is a separate co-op campaign in addition to single player.   We may be able to get some good co-op stuff going here across platforms!

Hey this looks great! I just completed microsoft tinker, which was an odd but quite intelligent game. I really enjoyed the puzzles after all these heavy action games. I will check it out when it comes out. Must b cool.

Cheers Binnatics, and welcome!  :-X

My copy of the orange box arrived and I'm about to finish my first playthrough of Portal 1.  It's been really fun so far - I appreciate the wacky story line that keeps getting weirder by the minute  :-X  At any rate, it's getting me psyched for Portal 2!

Hey space, I'm gonna need a co-op partner . . .

mmosu, after you're finished with Portal you might like to give Half-Life2 a look. Some aspects of the storyline may be a bit nebulous to you if you haven't played the original game but it doesn't matter to the gameplay. Just be warned it's not an open world game by any means, it's very linear in fact, but it does have a high immersion factor. I like the way the game's future dystopia setting is depicted, there's aspects of some of the classic FD movies like THX-1138 or Fahrenheit 451. This one's sort of like 1984 meets War of the Worlds. I always thought the character animation and voice acting in it was a cut above, it has a strong storyline and the graphics and sound are terrific for an "older" game.

Geez, I sound like a salesman, don't I? ::) Sorry about that, I didn't mean to :-()

Quote from: mmosu on March 23, 2011, 04:54:02 PM
Hey space, I'm gonna need a co-op partner . . .

sounds great!

check out this link for some pretty neat videos   http://thinkwithportals.com/media.php (http://thinkwithportals.com/media.php)

Man, I'd be up for that too, except: a) I don't trust my internet connection to hold for long enough (I get a lot of dropouts, which would suck for both parties in a co-op game) and; b) the disparate time-zone factor - usually when I'm online everybody else here is either asleep or at wor - er, their place of employment, and vice-versa.

Still, if you guys do get into it, I'd love to hear your impressions :)

I'm really tempted by Half-Life fragger.  The only thing that prevented me up until now was fear of being totally lost on the story - there have only been a few times I've picked up a series in the middle.

On a related note, I wrapped up my first playthrough of Portal tonight . . . LOVED it!!!  I liked the dark and unexpected twist that the story took in the final part, and the fight with GLaDOS was hilarious (my favorite was the orb with the angry voice  :-())

"This was a triumph
I'm making a note here - huge success"  :-()

Portal - Still Alive Credits Song in Full 1080p HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRlrV8awo0#ws)


Portal: A Day in the Life of a Turret (Machinima) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz2_NkyTv8E&feature=related#)

with any luck I should be getting the Orange Box sent to me as it's next on my Blockbuster queue and it says available...I'm looking forward to Portal to get really primed for P2.  I may check out Half-Life, but I'm not sure I've got much room to look at it right now.

no chance to look at those vids right now, but I plan to... :)

It's really fun space, I think you're really going to appreciate what a well executed little game it is  :-X
It is short - after posting last night, I started and finished my second playthrough.  It only takes about 1 1/2 - 2 hours once you know the solutions, but it's still fun to listen to the story and bounce around the rooms.  :-D

nice to watch those vids, the first one I already knew, but the second was new to me -- fun  :-X :-()

Played around a bit with the "advanced mode" that is unlocked after the first playthrough.  I wasn't trying super hard, but I can already tell that these puzzles are unholy abominations of the original rooms they are based on.  In the very first one what was previously a solid floor has become flooded with a pool of acid, so the amount of "safe" space you have to stand on is less than 20% of what it was in the first playthrough!   :D

If I'm lucky I'll solve these before P2 releases  :-D

Advanced mode is tough, especially the one where your "help cube" becomes a ball. Those balls of plasma or whatever they are just bounce of it at all kinds of angles - nasty :-\\ The first part of the last advanced puzzle is very difficult, iirc it took me as long to figure out a way through that as it took to play the whole regular game first time round...

There's a fun "weapon" in HL2 called a gravity gun (it's proper designation is a Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator) which lets you grab any inanimate object lying around and fire it like a projectile - cinderblocks, barrels, planks, anything. I once dropped a bad guy with an old toilet - talk about getting "canned" :-D This device was apparently what gave rise to the idea of the Portal Gun, you can see its roots here.



[smg id=3224 align=center width=500]


[smg id=3225 align=center width=500]

You can't really tell from these shots, but whatever you fire travels at a respectable velocity and distance, depending on what it is. A cardboard box won't go far or do much damage, but a cinderblock is lethal!

That's cool, I've heard my buds that were in to HL talk about the gravity gun before in hushed, revenrent tones  :-()
It does bear a strong resemblence to the portal gun with the three "prongs" that extend from the muzzle.  The gravity function of the portal gun doesn't allow objects to be fired through, just carried.  I can see why, it would have made a few of the puzzles too easy.  It's the same reason they don't allow you to set a portal by shooting through another portal - originally the game mechanic allowed for this from what I understand, but they quickly realized that it allowed for some overly-simple solutions to many of the chambers, so they took it out.

PS - happy 1,000 posts to me  :-D :-X

congrats on making The Jackal, mmosu  :) :-X 1,000 posts is a good start  :-D

 :-X :-D

Hey mmosu, 1K posts, well done :-X Here, have a kudo :)

Thanks guys  :-() :-X

Turns out Advanced mode isn't as bad as I though it was going to be.  I'm on room 18 right now, it's tough but going well.  I'm going to do a playthrough with the developer commentary next.

go on mate, show them  :-D

Well, I finished advanced mode  8)  As fragger said, the last one was extremely difficult, the room with all the turrets took me the longest to figure out. 
After that I started a playthrough with the developer commentary enabled and that has been very cool  :-X  They use the commentary to draw your attention to aspects of the game development that aren't immediately apparent.  For instance, many of the commentaries deal with how the early levels were carefully designed using feedback from testers to "train" the player to utilize the portals in different ways and also to fine-tune the testing chambers by "pruning away" solutions that creative players came up with that were too easy.  In many instances it seems that adding an extra wall or something simple like that was sufficient to do this.  That is a fascinating process to me, and apparently Valve does a lot of beta testing to get their games so polished. 
Some of the other commentaries dealt with physics issues encountered with the portals.  Especially interesting were two particular clips that talked about the rendering of objects visible on the other end of a portal, and another that talked about the shift in the effects of the force of gravity that must occur at the instant an object passes through a portal.  Both of these issues were a big deal during development, and the solutions they came up with were very cool  :-X 

thanks for your comments, although I'm not interested in the game itself, I keep reading everything you guys post. Those comments about how you enjoyed the game and about how Valve does a great job are interesting  :)

Cheers, Art :)

mmosu, I never checked out the dev commentary - in fact, I don't think I even noticed the option :-[ I should do it, it sounds interesting :-X I hate to imagine the graphical and mathematical challenges the devs would have faced concerning the physics involved in the portal views, especially the angled ones. It's quite a remarkable job, really, what they did.

hey guys, I got my rental yesterday of the Orange Box and got through 16 of the 19 chambers.  I didn't check the difficulty level so I assume it is on normal.  How are the chambers different in Advanced?  I don't get how they could make it more difficult unless they add turrets in all levels, or change the basic level structure.

Dev commentary sounds interesting too.

btw, I love it.  What a cool game, I can only imagine what's in store for P2.  I really like the those changes in gravity issues when you have to jump off something high to have enough speed coming out of the next portal to clear the gap etc.

A really neat one is where you have to do just that been the first time through you won't make the barrier so you have to shoot another portal in the ground while falling so you can go through the portal you just left but at a greater velocity.

The comments from GLADOS are hilarious!

One of my favorites:  Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death.

I found a list here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127708/quotes (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127708/quotes)

I can only imagine this has to be one of mmosu's favorites:

Please be advised that a noticeable taste of blood is not part of any test protocol but is an unintended side effect of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid, which may, in semi-rare cases, emancipate dental fillings, crowns, tooth enamel, and teeth.

 ^+-+

I like this one for a polished finish: "...followed by death."  ^+-+

space, the Advanced levels are the same as the ones you've played already but with clever alterations. Some of the changes are devilishly subtle and some less so, but they all nonetheless impact greatly on the skill level. Nothing so heavy-handed as the addition of extra turrets or enormously radical level reconfiguration! It's generally a case of small changes having large consequences ???

Quote from: fragger on March 31, 2011, 08:11:50 AMhaving large consequences ???

.. "followed by death" ?  ^+-+

Quote from: Art Blade.. "followed by death" ?  ^+-+

Most likely  :-()

fragger's right about the "devilishly subtle" part - remember the first chamber where you see the turrets?  In advanced mode, turrets in that chamber are encased in metal boxes that prevent them from being tipped over!  CURSE YOU GLaDOS!!!  :D :D :D :-D

And yes space, that is my favorite GLaDOS line  :-D :-X  I LOL'ed pretty hard on that one.

I'm a little stuck in Chamber 18.  Not that I don't know what to do (I think) but that I can't execute it.

I've gotten to the one room where you start off with a huge fall to your left (obviously to get speed into a portal) and the main room has no floor, just deathly water and platforms of various heights.  I assume I put one portal on the first platform and one in the drop.  I've been able to jump into the drop and come out the platform shooting high into the room but from there I can't continue.

My problem is that it takes so long to orient myself and shoot a new portal.  Again, I assume the goal is to get a new portal in a higher platform so when I go back into the one I just came out, I know come out of the higher platform.  My first problem is getting a shot out at the higher platform to make the portal.  The second problem is getting back into the previous one.  I have a hard enough time falling directly into the one from a stationary jump, but after turning about in the air...forget about it.

Is there any trick or is it just in execution?

I got so annoyed I kicked it out and put in Killzone 3, picked up my sharpshooter and laid waste to some Higs  ;D

That's the right solution, and yes it's probably one of the most difficult executions in the whole game.  I find it easier if you enter the drop portal looking down at about 45 degrees from horizontal - that way when you come rocketing out of the second portal, you don't have to adjust the aim so much, just shoot.  It's also much easier if you can quickly move the portals along - bouncing back and forth a few times between two stationary portals increases the chances you'll lose your orientation in the air and start flipping around out of control.  Also remember the order the portals were set in, and when you start make sure you refire the "drop" portal at the 2nd platform, the "1st platform" portal at the 3rd platform, and so on.  It's just like leapfrog . . . just insanely difficult and intimidating  :D

cheers, thanks mmosu.  I found a vid on youtube that showed it done too.  I guess I just need to w@&k on orienting myself quickly when coming out of the portal.  I wish the portals were a bit bigger, or my hips were a bit thinner lol as I actually miss getting through sometimes when falling from a distance.  It's kind of picky on getting you through there.

That level had me stymied for a good while too. I also had a problem with getting the blue and red portals mixed up, so I ended up shooting the wrong colour ahead and landing back on a solid platform way up in the air, then having to portal my way back to the start or reloading :D I felt so happy when I finally got through that chamber, it's arguably the toughest one.

Stick with it space - there's a cool twist to it all coming your way soon ;)

Thanks guys...got through it all now.  Once I forced myself to keep my left thumb off the left stick it all went smoothly.  As long as I only moved/aimed with right stick I could keep bouncing in and out of the portals until I got the shot down. 

Boy does the "escape" go on longer than  I thought!  Great fun though.  I just loved all the stuff GLaDOS says.  The part right where you are to be incinerated is great.

I'm not sure I'll go through on Advanced.  I may just wait to get more Portal fix in 19 days when P2 comes out.  Really a great game, too bad it took me this long to check it out.

GLaD you finally made it through to your victory candescence space, hope the cake was delicious and moist  :-D :-X

Spoiler

I thought the "escape" segment was such a cool way to end the game.  It really gives you the sense that you're cheating the system and making your own way through the facility, especially when you pass through the office areas and also that test chamber the 2nd time and have to come up with a different solution to it.

I highly recommend doing a playthrough with developer commentary - after doing that I have a much deeper appreciation of what a beast this game was to make despite it's short length!   :-X

This game topic is experiencing quite a bit of discussion  :-X

yeah PZ - it's a great game and fun to discuss, I had no idea I'd fall in in love with this little game, I wasn't even sure I was going to get Portal 2 until a couple weeks ago - with Motorstorm being delayed I was perusing April releases and with a $20 credit offered, P2 jumped right into my cart!  Funny how things happen like that.

@mmosu - I did do some of the dev commentary so far, it really is interesting.  This game has gotten me more interested in puzzle type games than ever before and now I'm eyeing echochrome (I and II both look good).

Also, yeah, the escape is cool because it's level design unlike all the other levels, and you're right, you do feel like you are truly escaping....gotta love GLaDOS  "You're not even going the right way!"

This portal must be great, I believe that!! I tried Portal, the first slice yesterday. I had in on my steam-account but never before payd attention to it. It's great to play, first of all because of the nice valve graphics and sounds. Second of all because I like these types of puzzle and also because you really are right into the puzzle. I played tinker a lot and managed to do all these little puzzles there, which caused me some headaches, but here you are the 'tinkerman' yourself. That's even better. Hope I will be able to get it soon enough, don't know when it comes out exactly.  :)

P2 is out on April 19th in the US Binnatics, I've already got mine pre-ordered and ready to go - can't wait  :-X

@ space:  my favorite "escape" line from GLaDOS was "You know you're not even a good person, right? Good people don't get up here . . ."   :-D

On a loosely related note, I finally started a playthrough of Half-Life 2 in the mean time, and I'm really enjoying it even though it's an older game.  Valve games have a high level of craftmanship - a good game remains a good game no matter how long ago it came out, and there's an attention to detail here that even some current games lack.  The story is engaging, the voice acting is superb, and again you get that sense that, even though you're stuck in a pre-determined corridor, there is a world "out there" that events are happening in. 

I think P2 is being released here around the same time. I hope so, so I don't have to be stuck reading about it here for weeks before I get to have a crack at it!

I remember the first time I got a good close-up look at myself through a portal and was surprised to discover just what a hottie I was :-()

Glad to hear you're enjoying HL2, mmosu :) I agree about the immersion value, I think the HL2 world is very engaging for such a linear shooter. I've always been impressed by the real-world physics of the thing too, they're quite remarkable :-X

The physics are pretty good.  I remember one "puzzle" early on - a board balanced on a fulcrum with a bunch of cinder blocks lying around.  I looked at it for a minute and thought "no . . . they don't want me to . . . nah, can't be . . . well, let's try . . . what?! No way!!!".  In a world full of lazily programmed physics in games, I couldn't believe that they actually wanted me to stack the cinder blocks at one end of the board to rebalance it so I could reach the next platform!  Solutions like this happen in games sometimes, but they are usually one of the extra "ninja solutions" that the designers didn't forsee - to actually program this as the main solution was certainly taking the high road!  :-X
My one gripe with the game so far is the vehicle controls - they are very frustrating.  Other than that though, it's been great so far.  I just started the section where you take the dune buggy down the beach to the next outpost and I'm just past the part where you shoot down the gunship with the RPG  :-D

HL2 sounds neat, I may get to it at some point, but I sent my rental back.  I actually started it and it seemed interesting enough, but I just wasn't in the mood I guess.  It'll give a reason to actually pick up Orange Box at some point if I find it used and cheap.  I'd love to have Portal in my collection.

Yes, fragger, you are a hottie in that orange jump suit...  :)

Quote from: fragger on April 05, 2011, 04:37:25 PM
I remember the first time I got a good close-up look at myself through a portal and was surprised to discover just what a hottie I was :-()

Hahaha, I had the same experience yesterday! Thought, "Hey, that's funny, I see a nurse around here" and when I looked around I realised it was myself I was looking at

These Valve guys rellay have sense of humor  :bow

Quote from: mmosu on April 05, 2011, 03:08:11 PM
The story is engaging, the voice acting is superb, and again you get that sense that, even though you're stuck in a pre-determined corridor, there is a world "out there" that events are happening in.

You're right there!!! I think it's the story, so damn fine worked out, so compelling, that is making you able to see the whole world behind those corridors. Did you allready enter "Ravenholm"? I think it's called like that. Damn, all the blood, these raven or crows whatever they are, that scene is truly creepy. I remember being totally absorbed by the game back then... I truly got scared to death when another zombie with an alien over it's head came crawling at me making these nasty noises....
It was the first time I realised that my daughter should not see me play a videogame  :o

Quote from: Binnatics on April 06, 2011, 12:12:03 PM

Quote from: mmosu on April 05, 2011, 03:08:11 PM
The story is engaging, the voice acting is superb, and again you get that sense that, even though you're stuck in a pre-determined corridor, there is a world "out there" that events are happening in.

You're right there!!! I think it's the story, so damn fine worked out, so compelling, that is making you able to see the whole world behind those corridors. Did you allready enter "Ravenholm"? I think it's called like that. Damn, all the blood, these raven or crows whatever they are, that scene is truly creepy. I remember being totally absorbed by the game back then... I truly got scared to death when another zombie with an alien over it's head came crawling at me making these nasty noises....
It was the first time I realised that my daughter should not see me play a videogame  :o

Yeah, but wasn't it a load of fun to pick up one of those saw blades that were laying around and fling it at them to cut them in half? What was that place anyway, saw blade manufacturing central? The things were all over the place.

Yeah, the good thing is you could use them multiple times. I also remember the traps with the gas taps. Great place  :-()

I remember the creepiest of all these alien-dwellers was the one carrying these multiple radioactive spider-aliens around. They allways surprised me with these fast gnashing beasts.

Ughh, I hate those friggin' guys! First time I got jumped by one of those my health dropped down to one and my suit began blabbering something about a neurotoxin detected in my bloodstream, all the while I'm wildly pumping shotgun shells into the floorboards and trying to figure out where the little booger crawled off to - not fun!  :-D

What was fun, however, were those saw blades you all are talking about  :-X  I carried one with me through most of Ravenholm, they're too much fun to not have one handy when 4-5 zombies are lined up in front of you! And again they highlight the exceptional physics of the game - wing one at a wooden wall and it sticks, throw one at a stone wall and it ricochetes around wildly.  I also noticed that if you are holding on to one with the gravity gun and turn your flashlight on, you can move it around to create some cool shadows in front of you - it's details like this that allow me to get sucked in, get them wrong and you may have lost me before your story even gets a chance to hook me.   

Ravenhome is fun :-X I enjoy picking up those gas cylinders with the gravity gun, flinging them at the parasite-controlled "zombies" then watching them staggering towards me in flames >:D I like the kind of gibberish that they blather out in that situation, as though an alien parasite controlling their vocal chords without knowing any English is trying to articulate its pain through them.

I always enjoy the company of that wacko Father Gregory, he's a cool character :-X

You're right about the detailed behaviour of the stuff in the game. I think the whole idea of the gravity gun was revolutionary anyway. It was the first time I realized they really did a throw at realistic display of the effects of gravity. I remember somewhere in one of these sewers you had to salve sort of a puzzle to be able to go on. The clue was piling up some construction blocks on a seesaw in order to reach the hight of the next walkway. Just great to see how every block had it's own contribution to moving the thing. :o

Yeah, that's the one I was talking about earlier  :-X - it seems that puzzle is a memorable one for many players  :-()

Father Gregory is a wild-man!  It took me awhile to figure out who was talking to me, then I finally caught sight of him and was like "Oh you've got to be kidding - a shotgun toting priest!"  The language he uses makes the character cool and believable though - talk of "tending to his flock" and the like.  The scene where you finally part ways in the graveyard was cool too - I stayed awhile and watched him fight the infinitely-spawning zombie guys.  After telling me he feared having delivered me into a far worse place, he eventually backed himself into one of the open mausoleums and set fire to the entrance.  From then on I could only hear gunshots, laughter, and the incoherent screams of burning zombies - it was probably one of the coolest exits I've ever seen a character make in a video game  :-X 

I remember that guy!!! :-X It took me quite a while but finally, yeah, the guy in the graveyard. Man, the game is massive. I also remember this 'alien-guy' who kept telling you clues about the 'filosophical' part of the game. He also helps you out every now and then. I found him in a hole somewhere. Remember when you have to fight a helicopter shooting bombs at you as well as attacking you with a machinegun? It's a tough fight which takes place in a lake. After killing the copter I started looking around for ammo and stuff, and I found a hole in the ground right beside the water. In there was this alien fellow, sitting in front of a fire, talking to himself about ancient alien-wisdom. That was a special moment too.

I think this guy helps you out in great parts of Episode one if I'm right. I gotta replay Half-Life 2 again.
It's just such a great experience  :-X

Right now I'm inside Nova Prospeckt, right after the part where you have to jam something in the giant fan blade to progress through that room.  I feel like I've come so far already and I really have no idea how much further I have to go - not that I want it to end, but I don't have a sense of where I'm at on the story arc - rather I'm just sort of lost in the experience and enjoying it immensely  :-X  I love games that never cut away from first person view, but rather seemlessly trasition from area to area, each new experience blending smoothly with the ones before and after it.  Then all of a sudden, you're playing along and think "Wow, how did I get here?".  When everything continually blends together in this way it greatly deepens the immersion factor, rather then suddenly being plucked out of the action and whisked away to a new location via a cutscene. 

Not to bring us back on topic or anything, but I thought this was funny:

Aperture Investment Opportunity #3: "Turrets" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i-nMWgBUp0#ws)

"That's 65% more bullet per bullet"  ^+-+

That's hilarious ^+-+ ^+-+ ^+-+

"Just try and get close to that baby . . . ha, your funeral!  Dave Johnson, we're done here"   ^+-+

There is a Portal 2 online "comic book" that is being used to bridge the story between parts 1 & 2, told of the point of view from the rat man.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the link to view the first chapter:

http://www.thinkwithportals.com/ (http://www.thinkwithportals.com/)

The cake was a lie!!!! :'(

mine was moist. :-D

Well there will be plenty of cake again soon - we are a week away from release  :-()
Or as GLaDOS would say:
"Now these points of data make a beautiful line
and we're out of beta, we're releasing on time"

I can't quit laughing at these videos:
Portal 2 'Boots Trailer' [1080p] TRUE-HD QUALITY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkmzQoyyXC0#ws)

Well, we are a hotty again, haha! And Aperture didn't loose his way of testing either, haha, not loosing expensive equipment ;)

Can't wait til it's going down. Hope there is some sort of team-coop idea. Anyway, it looks like fun!

"We're between banks here, just make those checks out to cash" ^+-+ :-X

 ;D :-X

PS3'ers and PC'ers should read this (space, this means you):
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1161617p1.html (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1161617p1.html)

My goodness.... Steam on the console  ????

Yeah.  They make it sound so positive, but all I know about Steam is what I learned from you all on here, so to say I'm a tad concerned would be an understatement . . .

my main concern about Steam from reading here had been my natural propensity to prefer discs vs. download only (an ownership hangup I guess - plus those discs are so shiny and pretty!!) and also the potential need to be connected to the net.

I must say as a developer Valve has an extremely positive rep so that is good.  Portal was wonderful and P2 looks even better.  I'm very excited about the cross-platform play as well, so I've got no complaints about what Valve/Steam is doing here.  It's quite revolutionary from the cross-platform play standpoint.

Anyways, from our standpoint (PS3) we're only benefiting, and even getting a free PC copy.  I hope it's not akin to taking candy from the "nice man", but I don't have too many concerns about Steam taking control - Sony has a bit of a control thing it likes so I doubt they'll relinquish much  ;)

I'd not want to give up my shiny disc for Steam downloads even if I did get a free PC version - my connection is too slow as it is, and if I had to download two versions of a game I'd consume my bandwidth allotment for the month  :'(

When you exceed your allotment, the satellite provider has the nerve to punish you by restricting your bandwidth to dialup-level throughput.  Talk about slow and slower (reminds me of dumb and dumber)

Quote from: spaceboy on April 13, 2011, 07:34:27 PM
Sony has a bit of a control thing it likes so I doubt they'll relinquish much  ;)

Well, I suppose that's true.  I've just heard PC'ers on here complain about Steam in the past.  The "free" PC version is a neat idea, but I seriously doubt my clunky old laptop will be able to rock it  :'(

I think it's great news as well. First real-link between PS3 and PC, that's great. And those pics I see around of Portal 2 make it all even better to me.
I did download it through steam dispite of my preference of shiny discs that I can hold. I'm just too damn excited for the game, and I seem to trust more and more in Valve/steamworks as a trustfull organisation.
Maybe you'll be able to donate your PC-version to a friend, since Steam makes that possible. You can enjoy your PS3 version and compete with your PC-using friend for free!

And don't forget about the Aperture motto: They're doing it because they can ;)

Quote from: Binnatics on April 14, 2011, 01:51:49 PM
And don't forget about the Aperture motto: They're doing it because they can ;)

^+-+
Yeah, I hadn't thought about it like that!

I pre-ordered my copy today from a local gaming shop - got to have disk :-() Of course I'll still have to go through the Steam rego and activation process, and if they're true to form I'll probably get hit with an online update off the bat. If so, considering the "speed" of my connection I might get to play the game the day after I buy it ::)

Release date in Oz is 21st April so I'll only be a couple of days behind you guys this time (he says with crossed fingers).

Let's just hope the disc contains more than a redeem code that allows you to download those 5 gigs of game data plus 3 gigs of updates..  :-D

I am pre-downloading it now, the official release date here is 19th of april  :)

But I think I will not be able to start that day, i'm bussy then, so I'll have to wait until 20  :(

We should definitely try the coop version of the game. That sounds great, they say you really have to think as a team, and w%&k together as a team. Wondering what portals are used for in team-strategies.
I can think of some things,   :ideas like having to unblock the path of your teammate, or maybe you can somehow merge two orange portals? That would be amazing :shocked

@ Art: don't even joke about it :-()

@ Binnatics: Co-op sounds intriguing, but my connection isn't up to the task, I fear. I'll have to be content to be a spectator :-() I'll be interested to hear in what ways SP differs from co-op though.

@ Art: What truly matters is the Jacket: We gamers do have our own Library, don't we ;)

@ Fragger: Just give it a try. Would be great. Somehow I guess online play won't need too much bandwidth.
Actually, I've allways been curious what they actually do send and recieve: Only some coordinates + vectors I think, and some extra data concerning the appearance of the other player. It should not be too much.
I hope you can make it. Especially steam should w@&k out a way of consuming less bandwith on online gaming.

It'll be cool to do some co-op with you guys.  I think the Steam overlay on PS3 will allow me to have and see Steam friends. So once I get setup we'll have to friend each other.  Definitely try it fragger, co-op in P2 won't be as taxing as a full on multiplayer shooter I bet.

Indeed, it shouldn't be too bad.  It would be fun, so far space if the only OWG member I've ever played online with (not that I don't treasure our time in the trenches on Helghan space  :-())

Quote from: Binnatics on April 15, 2011, 08:54:19 AM
I can think of some things,   :ideas like having to unblock the path of your teammate, or maybe you can somehow merge two orange portals? That would be amazing :shocked

I think the portals for the two players are always distinct:  "hot" colors for P-body (orange and red portals) and "cool" colors for Atlas (blue and green portals).  Some of the videos have shown different types of unblocking puzzles, but the coolest stuff I've seen so far have been some of the rediculous flings you can do with two players - like setting up an infinite fall to allow one player to reach terminal velocity, and then switching the "exit" portal to somewhere else so they come rocketing out of it, Wwweeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!  :-D

Woweeee, that would be great, haha!  :-X

I have a feeling that the new maps/puzzles are far bigger and more challenging in graphic beauty so that would be great to do!

I think this game will be much bigger then the original. I did a playthrough in one day, only did not complete any challenges yet.

I'd love to try coop on this, but the old dialup won't handle it I'm afraid   :D

Quote from: fragger on April 15, 2011, 09:25:03 AM
@ Art: don't even joke about it :-()

now that made me laugh out loud ^+-+

Quote from: Binnatics on April 15, 2011, 09:51:48 AM
@ Art: What truly matters is the Jacket: We gamers do have our own Library, don't we ;)

not sure what "the Jacket" is.. and the Library.. ? ????

The box, the cover. I do have a little room saved in my library for my favourite games ;)

I will miss my Portal 2 cover there, but since it's a valve production I thought it would be okay to have it downloaded through steam ;)

got it. :) Yes.. I like my jewel cases and the shiny discs  :-X

It's not so much transfer speed as connection dropouts that have me concerned, of which I get more than my fair share :D I'm willing to give it a go though, if someone else is willing to be the guinea pig and we can w@&k around the time zone difference. It's just that in a co-op game, if player A drops out then it's game over for player B as well and I don't want to waste anyone's time or tax their patience.

I guess we can try though, and if it proves hopeless then we'll know for sure. Who knows, I may be pleasantly surprised.

I don't think it will be as simple as "player B" is gone but the host can continue on like it other shooters.  Two players will be required to solve each and every co-op puzzle.  Now if the player with the more stable connection hosts, then maybe fragger can jump back in if his connection fails momentarily and everything will be ok.  Hopefully the game won't sense the lack of second player and end the session automatically.  Come to think of it, since we'll be dealing with cross-platform talk here, will there be a "host" in the traditional sense or will all of this be handled via some sort of MP cloud?

Let's just give it a try. Think we can w@&k out the timedifference sometimes. Not sure about the host question. How will it w@&k when it's a MP cloud? You mean the Steam server hosts the game and you, as a player from any platform, connect to it?
That sounds reasonable, since the PC-software is pretty different contructed as the PS3 software, right?

I really have no idea, just spit-balling really.  I rank rather low around these parts when it comes to tech-savy and understanding how complicated systems like that w%&k.  Heck, back when Art and PZ approached me about becoming a moderator I was nervous about accepting for that very reason - it took them a little bit to convince me that it would all be ok  :-D

On a related note, I got a buddy of mine started on Portal today.  I let him borrow my copy of the orange box and sat there while he played through about the first half.  It was funny cause the solutions are now transparent to me after 3-4 playthroughs, but he was seeing everything with fresh eyes and reacting much the same way I did my first time through.  I was having a good time though keeping my mouth shut and watching him w%&k through it, seeing all of the crazy stuff he would try, each step being a slightly closer approximation until the lightbulb would finally go on and he would solve it  :question  :ideas  :go  :wink 
We had a good laugh - him at the devilish absurdity of the puzzles, and me at him getting more and more frustrated leading up to the moment of enlightenment.  I left him to it after warning his wife to pay no mind to any screams she might hear later in the evening!  ^+-+

 ^+-+

Again great news for the cross-platform debut: Steam will allow PC-gamers to edit maps and upload them so any player (no matter of he uses PS3 or Xbox 360) can play it. Maybe that's why they give a free PC copy when you buy the PS3 version. Now we can invent our own maps and play them together, unregarded what platform we use.  :) :-X

I am hatching allready on some nice maps ;)

Now that's interesting! :-X

I heard back from the shop today, I can pick up my copy on Thursday the 21st :-X

that is great news Binnatics!  Extra replayability with user created content is awesome. :-X   I am SO looking forward to this game.

Yeah, this is definitely going to be a good one!
I read a discussion on the site I found the message about ppl complaining that most game-industries do not dare to bring mod-mapping to their games, because they are affraid people will stick to it too much time and they won't buy the DLC's the company's planning.
That is something to say, but others mentioned that a quite a few games grown enormous in popularity due to the possibilities of creating your own levels / maps.
They also mentioned that it's not done for all gametypes, and I agree with that. Still I think Portal 2 would be the perfect game to edit some maps. Nevertheless I guess it will be hard to figure out something smart and worth playing.

Anyway, practice will do the trick.

I remember I wanted to edit a few races in Fuel. I made terrific race over the tops of the big snowy mountain in the south-western corner. On paper it looked great. Riding it with a friend it turned out to be crab.

The most important thing that can make map-editing a succes is a great community. Well, I guess steam won't have that kind of a problem.  8)

very true - it won't w@&k for all game types.  On the PS3, Little Big Planet is the quintessential game with users creating over 4 million levels between the 2 games.  We've had fun just messing around in the editor too with no real purpose other than to make crazy things happen.  (Like Rocket Cow!!) 

I'm interested to see what people come up with for P2, but even without it, the game seems to have enough to offer between the single and co-op campaigns.

My edited races in FUEL were horrible - I just randomly placed waypoints along a general direction and wound up having a few strange paths to get.  Not very race-like, more free roam feeling.

That is an interesting way of making races actually. By accident you could find great runs sometimes and if you edit it again...

I remember one funny race I made, on a lake. It was made for the hoovercraft, but somehow e few friends picked fast motorcycles for the race, very funny to see them get into the water  ^+-+

 :-() :-X

I always liked editing maps and I did create races for FUEL, one was a drift course  :)

Wow, a drift course, that is a fantastic idea. I should fire up Fuel again to be able to try it sometimes :)

In the developer commentary for Portal, they talk about never shying away from difficult situations or problem areas because they knew, once the game was out, custom map makers would be stressing the physics system in ways they never imagined.  It takes a lot more game making know-how to design something good and then put the tools in the hands of the user and say "now you give it a try"  :-X

I had a message from my friendly neighborhood Gamestop yesterday - they are actually having a release party for Portal 2 tonight so that they can let people start walking out the door with their pre-orders at the stroke of midnight.  They've done these release parties before but I've never gone - I'm actually considering it this time  :-[

why not.. go for it, mmosu  :) :-X

Probably will, the store is less than half a mile from my house  :)

Cool, mmosu - if we lived in the same town, I'd go with you  :-X

Me too Mmosu, I'm waiting here for the final count-down at steam. That's pretty les romantic :-\\

Well, atm only 6 hour left  :)

yeah I've never been to one myself.  I think my wife would really think I went off the deep end ::) , well, at least if I had w@&k the next day, maybe not so much if I was on vacation.  The point is mostly moot for me as I am typically ordering from Amazon.  $0.99 Release day delivery!  The truck normally doesn't come until around dinner time which is fine since it's always a w@&k day anyways... :)

Looking forward to trying it out tonight!  Can't wait to hear everyone's impressions.

Well, didn't end up going to the release party, as I fell asleep on my couch at around 11pm last night (. . . what a loser . . .), but I did swing by on my way home and picked up my copy this morning (had a light schedule today, was only at the clinic for ~2 1/2 hours  :-X)  First impression on the way . . .

Quote from: mmosu on April 19, 2011, 10:41:26 AM
Well, didn't end up going to the release party, as I fell asleep on my couch at around 11pm last night ...

Age, my friend.... age creeps upon us all.  :-()

Looking forward to your impressions.  :-X

Quote from: PZ on April 19, 2011, 10:43:37 AM

Quote from: mmosu on April 19, 2011, 10:41:26 AM
Well, didn't end up going to the release party, as I fell asleep on my couch at around 11pm last night ...

Age, my friend.... age creeps upon us all.  :-()

Although I'm growing older (and I'm way ahead of mmosu) I still enjoy 24+ hours without sleep particularly on weekends either being out clubbing or at my puter. Usually when I get back late at night from whatever activities I switch on my rig and start a gaming session until the sunlight signals "bed time, already" :) Even during the week more often than not I go to bed like at 3 or 4am and still manage to have a good day at the office  ;D

There was recently discovered a so-called "night owl" gene - carriers are able to get a few hours of sleep a night and wake up just as refreshed and functional as the rest of us after 8 hours.  Who knows Art, maybe you have it.  One thing is for sure though . . . I do not  (:)

All I know is that already as a child I stayed up way longer than I was allowed to, reading books with a flashlight under my blanket at night  ;) I have no difficulty in passing an entire week with no more than 4 hours of sleep per day. Without any alarmclock I'd wake up after like 5 or 6 hours and get up :)

I sertainly don't have that gene. I do stay up late sometimes, especially when a good game caught me by the tail and held me in my chair until 4 or 5 o'clock, but then the next day I regret it. Burning eyes and a bad mood keep haunting me all day.

Actually I like to sleep too, it's most deffinitely one of my hobbies  :-D
Hope I will never suffer from back-pains so much that I can't stay in bed for longer then 8 hours. That would be a nightmare  ;)

Well, back to Aperture Science Laboratories then  ::)

finished up the story,  what an enjoyable game.  There are some pretty interesting side bits if you look for them regarding Chell etc.

Spoiler

I read that Chell's name is on one of the "bring your daughter to w@&k day" experiments but I didn't see it for myself

I hope PSN comes back up soon so I can do co-op, but I still wish to go back and replay single player as well.

Good w%&k space  :-X
I hadn't heard that about the name easter egg, I'll have to look next time I'm through.

The whole PSN situation is driving me CRAZY!!  :D
I've got a portal gun, a license to be dangerous, and no one to play with!  :'(  This is really bad timing to have your network down . . .

Lol, lololololololol, what are you DOING?

Spoiler

Now that's a funny guesture you're making there
[smg id=3242 width=500]
Now okay, okay, you've made your point, can I have my head back now???

Please? (http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2213.msg39496#msg39496)

That is really too bad, the network thing. Weird that it takes so long. A worldwide gaming network getting down like this should cause not only SOME nervous breakdowns... Good thing there is still single player. Looking forward to do some coop though, hope to meet you guys online soon  ;)

I'll have to look for Chell's name next time around too :-X

Actually, I'll look this time around - after this forum session I'm going to kick off a new game. I've just got to go through again, there's too much to look at in one run :-D

PSN being down has given me time to put another playthrough of SP to bed, but man, I want see the MP story!  :D  It's really bugging me that they haven't released any concrete info about the outage - Was there a successful hacking attempt?  Have all of our credit card numbers been compromised?  While PSN is a "free" service (unlike Xbox Live which one must subscribe to) I bought a PS3, in part, because I expected there to be good online support.  I feel that purchase forms a contract of sorts with the parent company, since they use their "free online support" as a selling point, and they have an obligation to provide said services to those who buy their systems and software.  But right now we're in the dark, no info, no date when we'll be back up and running - heck, I'd take a solid "Go F yourself" at this point!  >:((

here's the latest rumor:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/25/rumor-rebug-custom-firmware-enabled-free-psn-downloads-for/ (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/25/rumor-rebug-custom-firmware-enabled-free-psn-downloads-for/)

Quote from: fragger on April 25, 2011, 06:29:14 PM
I'll have to look for Chell's name next time around too

I found it, I posted a screenpic of it in a spoiler here (http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2213.msg39527#msg39527)

Btw, have any of you guys checked out the Extras item in the main Portal2 game menu? There are some funny trailers and clips there (some have been posted here already) but the last one is a kind of interactive trailer for an upcoming movie called "Super 8". It's a film by J.J. Abrams (LOST, Cloverfield) about a creature that apparently gets loose during a train wreck while being transported from Area 51. The interactive trailer is only short, but it's interesting. I didn't know what it was at first, maybe an ad for a new game as the trailer is presented game-fashion, but a check online revealed that it's actually a film.

Have to check that out  :-X

@ space:  good info, sounds plausable, just wish Sony would confirm or deny regardless of how embarassing it is for them.

As of yesterday, still no ETA for being back up.

So meanwhile I've been "exploring" Aperture's facilities a bit working on getting all the single player trophies.  I've only got a few left.  I have been bouncing around with chapter select by picking New Game and then choosing the chapters I need to replay.  One of the trophies (Overclocker) is doing one of the chambers in 70 seconds.  It's pretty fun to w@&k on it and get your timing perfect. 

I was quite curious for that 'under 70 secs' trophy. Didn't try it myself so far. I'm going to take a look at the missing trophys as well. I want to do the multi with friends, since with other players it's not so fun. I played today with a guy who allready knew the clue, and was rapidly frustrated when I didn't get it that wuick. He was just giving me advices like a madman with these signs for non-headset-users and it was pretty frustrating. You GOT to have a headset, and it should be perfect if both players are new.

Man, that PSN downtime is so bad I just read about it on my local (Rio de Janeiro) general news site!  ???

Hope it gets back soon so we can have a glimpse of what P2 MP looks like  ;D

no doubt JRD - it's bad news.

@ binnatics - I agree that co-op with another fresh player and preferably of the friendly variety would be the way to go.  If it was a friend like from here or some other people I've played with and they didn't rush me too much it'd be ok too I bet.

There are two big time saving tricks in the under 70 seconds trophy...

"think ahead"

Spoiler

place a portal for the laser to exit before hitting the button for your redirect cube

"wait for it"

Spoiler

when you press the button for the cube just wait for it (you can even catch it) it'll bounce across the faith plates and come right to you

I'll be waiting with opening these spoilers until I tried it myself space, but I will after some trying ;)
Hope that damn network will be back online soon. Did this ever happen earlier, I mean like this, worldwide for so many days?

no, nope, never.  apparently some personal info was stolen (at least names and passwords, and maybe credit card info but that hasn't been confirmed).

@%$# thieves, they have to make life miserable for everyone else >:((

But it shouldn't ground a network for days on end ::)

they probably had no other way to prevent those millions of PS cameras from broadcasting live all day long..


OK OK OK  8-X >:D

I posted a separate topic on the PSN hacking with pertinent information and the discussion can move there, we can go back to talking Portal 2 here.

here is the link..a must read for PS3ers...
http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2222.0 (http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2222.0)

Cheers, space :)

Good job locking / splitting topics here, fragger  :) :-X

Thank you, Art :) And thank you, space :)

Indeed - the bright yellow text in the moderator comment box really catches the eye.  Nice job  :-X

And thank you, PZ :)

I think I finally got a clu who GlaDOS bribed to have her portals show up here at OWG! Great job on the design fragger!!! A kudo for you!!!  :-X :-X

Sorry mate, I'm not too sure what it is you're referring to there. If you mean the Portal 2 banner, that actually wasn't my doing. But I'm very flattered if you thought it was :)

I may have to do something else to earn that kudo you so kindly gave me... Here, have some cake... :-()

[smg id=3271 align=center width=400]

Finished a second playthrough. Much quicker on the second go-around, it makes quite a difference to the game duration once you know how to solve the puzzles and negotiate some of the tricky bits. Still loads of fun and lots to look at :-X

I also picked up on a bit more of the dialogue. There are so many quips and one-liners that I didn't get them all at first. I like this one from GLaDOS when she's trying to cripple Wheatly with a paradox while avoiding it herself:

"This... statement... is... FALSE (don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it...)"

How long did your first playtrough take, fragger?

Quote from: fragger on April 30, 2011, 03:20:30 PMI may have to do something else to earn that kudo you so kindly gave me... Here, have some cake... :-()

;D :-X

Quote from: fragger on April 30, 2011, 03:51:19 PM
"This... statement... is... FALSE (don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it...)"

Then his response: "Umm, true.  Yes, definately true"

GLaDOS:  "It's a paradox you moron, there IS no right answer!"

 ^+-+ :-X

Then she asks him something like "Don't you realise this whole facility is about to blow up?"

Wheatly: "Ahh... I'll say false..." :-()

@JRD: At a rough guess, the first time through took me about 20 hours total. There was one spot that took me at least a couple of hours to figure out, only because the answer was staring me in the face and I just didn't look hard enough. I tried all kinds of nutso moves until it clicked...  :D Second 'thru took about half that time. Still, it's quite a bit bigger than P1, which I can do in just a couple of hours now.

just finished my SP playthrough. I'd say it took me probably 20 to 25 hours, and I too had one puzzle that delayed me significantly. Another puzzle sported a glitch of sorts which took me a lot of time to realise.

The solution was annoying to figure out: Already using a velocity jump (fall deep down into one portal and come shooting up out of the second one), "all" I had to do was turn around at the peek of the jump, look through some sort of grid wall (which was preventing me from continuing) and then, that was the solution, spot a white surface on the floor behind that wall and shoot a portal into it.  :D I had been trying to get into there "somehow" and of course couldn't find a way in.

The glitch in a different puzzle was that despite seeing a tilted surface I thought suitable for a velocity jump to where I wanted to go, it didn't register with my portal gun from that perspective.  Later I found a different location where I could see that surface again, this time it was clearly white and immediately showed my portal I shot into it.  >:((

However, I liked playing it  :) Some nice elements of surprise in that game  :-X

Congrats on completing the game Art :-X Glad you liked it, and good on you for having a go :)

I think I know where that place was where you got stuck. I got stuck there too for a bit, but then really got stuck for those couple of hours a little further on (upwards) shortly afterwards. It's where there's some white gel splashing down behind a smallish box-like structure and there's a kind of vent above it with a portal-wall just visible through it. I missed spotting that bit of wall time and time again :D

Cheers :)

There were a couple of really cool puzzles, well thought out, and usually you were able to see everything needed. So yes, a few were real bastards  :-D I'll show one in the screenshot spoilers :)

Quote from: fragger on April 30, 2011, 03:20:30 PM
I may have to do something else to earn that kudo you so kindly gave me... Here, have some cake... :-()

Ahhh, the cake... it looks delicious  :) You definitely earned it now ;)

Just one thing regarding my time I spent on the SP bit of the game: I "wasted" quite some time just horsing around and playing with the elements. Not always solution-orientated but for the sheer fun of it. And I wasted time away from my keyboard, leaving the game on.

Particularly entertaining and time-consuming was the chamber when I saw the white stuff for the first time. The area was all dark and I couldn't see a way out and there didn't seem to be a way out using portals. Without knowing whether or not it was a good idea, I jumped down into one place all walled up and it had a pipeline that ended there and white stuff came out splotching the ground below it. I had no idea what it was good for, I took a shower beneath the opening and then it dawned on me. Hehe, I kept shooting portals into it and painted the entire map snow white as far as I could reach.

That alone may have taken me around an hour or so, just having fun trying to reach the last dark spots in it and smother it in white paint  :)

You can read more about my experiences here:

Quote from: Art Blade on May 01, 2011, 03:17:23 PM[smg id=3279 type=link align=center width=400 caption="Portal2 SP 005"]

I wasn't too sure what the story was with that stuff either at first. Then when I found out, I still didn't know where to direct it and so like you I squirted it all over the place :-()

@ Binnatics: ^+-+

 :'( Here's my sob story, that sort of has a happy (though expensive) ending.

Bought Portal 2 at Best Buy Sunday, for the intro price of $30 - woohoo!

Got home, installed it. Of course, it won't run until it updates and of course, it can't update on my slow connection at home. Back to minecraft I guess.

Monday, I lug the computer into w@&k and hook it up to the internet there and let it update. 200 MB later it says it's ready to play. Great. I lug the computer home and after supper, fire it up and load Portal 2.

Cool, I look at the videos, though I've seen most of them, then set my controls the way I like them, glance at video & audio settings and then decide to try the Super 8 demo mini-game whatever it is.

After 10 seconds, screen goes black and sound starts to loop. Uh Oh! I let it sit for a few minutes, then hit the reset button after trying the usual ALT+TAB, CTRL+SHIFT+ESC and CTRL+ALT+DEL tricks. Computer reboots. The system error dialog comes up and I report the problem, it says to try updating my video drivers, which is strange because I have the latest from nvidia. Oh well.

I fire up Steam again and run Portal 2. I get to the intro room where you have to look at the ceiling, then look at the floor, then.... black screen & sound loop. Double Uh-Oh.

Reset again. Computer reboots. Weird, better look on the forums see if anyone else has the same issue. I fire up IE and look on the steam forums and see that this is a known problem. Uh Oh, black screen, system unresponsive..... Reboot.

Hmmmm..... computer is rebooting, but the screen is still black, I hear the windows login sound, but the screen is still black. Seems it's stuck. After doing some tricks in the dark so to speak, I get the system shut down and powered off. I start it up and boot to safe mode. Seems to w@&k OK. I do a clean re-install of the newest nvidia drivers. Seems to go OK, except it says it didn't install the physx or ntune or control panel, something like that. So I reboot to full mode and install the drivers again. Black screen. Triple uh-oh. Hard reset again.

System reboots and nothing, black screen. Safe mode nothing, etc. It's now late and I need sleep. I shut it down.   :D

In the morning, I lug the computer back to w@&k to fool with it when I have the chance. It still boots to a black screen, monitor says "Check signal cable" as if it's getting no signal from the card. I pull the card and put it into another slot, no good. I put the card into another computer, nothing.

Does it seem to you that Portal 2 somehow fucked up so bad it ruined my $400 video card? Seems that way to me, though I've heard there is no way to physically damage hardware through software. The fan on the card works fine, it's power lights come on, it just outputs no signal. Steam forums are split, some users say it's not possible, others say it is. Take your pick. Steam support is it's usual helpful self, like "Delete everything in your steam folder and download all content again" Yeah, well, have you tried doing that on a 4K (at best) dialup connection? Heck, even on the high speed at w@&k, that would take about a day.

Then there's the issue that if you try to verify the Portal 2 files, it will say some files (18MB worth) didn't pass verification and will be re-aquired. Guess what? After re-quiring them, try running verification again, and it says the same thing, over and over.

So, in the end, I've just decided to finally buy a new computer, and went all out. $2600 all out. Good thing I can order it on the account at w@&k, and pay back my boss over time, with no interest. I plan on picking up a sub-$100 video card to put in the old computer just so I can sell it to someone.

So, no, I haven't played Portal 2 yet.  :-\\

Wow. That's a horror show. I have never seen nor heard anything like that -- except when I heard something in my computer go BANG! followed by another sharp POP!  and the smell of burnt plastics and something else not smelling exactly healthy, and of course my screen went all black. And the PC died. That was two computers before this one and obviously it was a hardware malfunction to put it mildly.

Regarding that super-8: I too checked that and it opened a steam window so it was something not running on your computer and it took a couple of moments to get to see the start screen of that which didn't even look interesting so I switched that off.

Good luck with your new machine, D_B, and don't touch that super-8 :)

Just to be curious, have you ever tried to verify the Portal 2 files? I wonder if it's just a bug in the verification process. A lot of people on the steam forums have the same problem.

Lol, what a story. I allready read your new rig specs, but I'm surprised to hear this story. I would have never thought that Portal 2 was actually too hard to handle like this. It more sounds like a malfunction in the software install, so it somehow blows you graph card by, don't know, overprocessing or something. But that goes far beyond my knowledge of computers.
I remember once having to do these 'tricks in the dark' like you told, and that was because I forgot pulling a jumper out of my mobo when I wanted to upgrade to another videocard.

The only graph-card-crash I ever survived was different: I got all sorts of artifacts in my screen once I fired up a game. Coloured dots, weird triangles through the 3D world I was in, somehow allways starting from a certain point in the invironment like a streetlight or a car-bumper.
When I reported that to my hardware store they said I could change it for a new one because it was obvious that the card had crashed. That was a good service, that's for sure.

Well, with your new rig, anyway, you're gonna have loads of fun! Portal wil be damn fine also, that's for sure  ;)

Quote from: Dweller_Benthos on May 05, 2011, 01:04:12 PMhave you ever tried to verify the Portal 2 files?

When I'm in the mood for a black screen I will. :-D

I've never been brave (or foolhardy) enough to try doing anything like file verification through Steam. I try to have no more interaction with them than whatever it is I need to do to get a new game up and running, i.e. activation and installation. Having a slow connection like D_B's, I'm reluctant to get into anything else with Steam - that is, anything I don't need to do and which might result in hours of DL-ing stuff and eating up a good chunk of my ISP's DL allocation. If a Steam game is working, I'll gladly leave it alone - until those $%@&# updates appear that go and do their thing without asking for my say-so first, and which prevent me playing the game until they're complete. Those might be tolerable if I had a lightning connection speed, but since I don't, they ain't. I've still got some pending updates for Half-Life Episodes 1 and 2. One day when I have a few spare hours to kill, or should I say one month when I have a few spare days to kill, I'll let them continue...

D_B, sorry to hear about all your woes, you have my comiserations. For your sake, I really hope you enjoy P2 when you're finally able to get into it ::)

Apparently, from what I read on the steam forums, it's SUPPOSED to fail file verification os it can download that 18MB file  AGAIN as part of the DRM. Sheesh.

Anyway, I bought a $80 geforce 210 card to get by with, and it runs P2 fine. I had to crank down the graphics a bit to get a decent frame rate, but it works.

 :)