The Portal 2 Thread **Warning May Contain Spoilers**

As long as we get a "Portal 2: Prelude" mod then I'll be really happy. That added some serious challenge using the original portal design. If the mod community can put together a well made pack similar to that which really tests the limits of the goo, beams, lasers and bridges... I'd be ALL OVER THAT.

Game was fantastic. Very happy with my pre-order.
 
I love how Valve puts the developer commentary in it makes all of there stuff worth an extra immediate play through for me.
 
This is the game other than SC2 I felt justified paying $50. I'm in love with this game and can't wait for my non-idiot friends to buy it so I can play co-op with them.
 
Ah, I forgot about developer commentary. I'll start my second play through tonight with that turned on. Does it add much to it?
 
csmith811 said:
Ah, I forgot about developer commentary. I'll start my second play through tonight with that turned on. Does it add much to it?
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I think it's really interesting to learn the thought process on stuff and some of the details. For example the manual override on the wall took nearly 100 days to simulate.

My biggest beef with the developer commentary is that you can't save part way through a chapter with it on. This was not a big deal in the original portal as the sections were much shorter but it is kind of a pain if you want to quit mid chapter for a commentary.
 
For everyone bitching about the length....that is easily solved..just blaze a bowl before you play.... at-least doubles the playing time....

Quadruples the co-op if your team-mate is in the same state.....spent hours killing each other in crazy ways.....It would take an extra 30 min to solve a puzzle if we had to rely on each-other in anyway to solve it. haha
 
Just finished SP and MP, and it was wonderful. I really enjoyed the ending song in this game. :D
 
I just finished SP, steam says 7 hours played with a few brain farts by me. I was sort of "meh" until Cave Johnson came in, it was a lot more fun then for some reason.

You can tell they made changes to simplify the gameplay for consoles, basically cutting out most of the critical timing (like the bouncing balls of portal 1.
 
black_b[ ]x;1037155797 said:
You can tell they made changes to simplify the gameplay for consoles, basically cutting out most of the critical timing (like the bouncing balls of portal 1.
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Yeah, I think that probably is the main reason for the lack of timing puzzles unfortunately.

I was also disappointed they removed the suction tubes that were in the previews. They may not have added a ton to the gameplay but it looked like a fun mechanic to toy with.
 
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...-related-surprise-being-deployed-tonight.aspx

Personally if I worked for Valve and actually knew how to apply textures to surfaces with Hammer I would make Portal 2 maps in my spare time but I highly doubt this "surprise" is new coop maps or something, probably just the SDK which is also good because I've needed something new for the last 2 days.

And since I have a boat load of free time maybe now is a great time for my life to become nothing but Hammer
 
It's an amazing game, just not worth 50 bucks imo. Probably 35 bucks at most.

While there are people who specifically hate on Valve no matter what, in this case what I'm seeing is that it's more or less the hypocrisy that players are discussing. Other publishers like EA and Activision release a 6-8 hour game for 50-60 bucks and get criticized and flamed to hell for it, but when Valve does it those same critics go 'Valve rox omg omg must buy' without thinking twice about the hypocrisy of the situation.

Now obviously the Portal games are quality of the highest caliber and comparing them timewise to other games is not ideal - nevertheless it's quite obvious that Valve get a free pass from many critics/players which frustrates people who dislike the price/time ratio that average games are heading towards, and want to see all devs held to the same standards.
 
Uncharted 2 offers a similar amount of campaign gameplay and nobody complains about that one either. Quality trumps quantity any day. The problem isn't necessarily that a game like Black Ops is only 4-5 hours long. The problem is that it came out one year after the previous one and from what I understand the campaign is not anything different than MW and not as high of quality.

But your value assessment is a valid opinion. I can see one thinking it isn't worth $50 (though I found it worth my $45). I can understand one feeling it is too easy. I just can't see complaining about an optional store or a menu screen and basing one's opinion of the game on that alone.
 
Has anyone found any way to adjust the shadow map resolution? There is one cvar that appears to move shadow map rendering into a deferred context (which is disabled by default, so I'm not sure if it's functional), but I can't find anything that would let me increase the shadow map resolution.
 
I got all of the achievements completed. If anyone needs help with any of them feel free to add me: TwinTurboZip
 
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Drexion said:
It's an amazing game, just not worth 50 bucks imo. Probably 35 bucks at most.

While there are people who specifically hate on Valve no matter what, in this case what I'm seeing is that it's more or less the hypocrisy that players are discussing. Other publishers like EA and Activision release a 6-8 hour game for 50-60 bucks and get criticized and flamed to hell for it, but when Valve does it those same critics go 'Valve rox omg omg must buy' without thinking twice about the hypocrisy of the situation.

Now obviously the Portal games are quality of the highest caliber and comparing them timewise to other games is not ideal - nevertheless it's quite obvious that Valve get a free pass from many critics/players which frustrates people who dislike the price/time ratio that average games are heading towards, and want to see all devs held to the same standards.
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I think that people focus too much on the money/time ratio without thinking about the overall value of the gameplay experience. It's not hypocritical to give Valve a pass for a $10/hour game if one thinks that the overall package is enjoyable and of high quality.

The key idea here IMO is that other devs think that it's OK to offer a short single player campaign without offering the quality to back it up. It's not their fault, their sales figures have demonstrated over and over again that they can get away with it without affecting their profit margins. But the standard shouldn't be how long the campaign is. I felt cheated when I finished the COD4 campaign in less than 8 hours after paying full price. I didn't feel cheated after playing Portal 2 and finishing in under 6 hours. price/time is the wrong metric to be rating games by, period. It should be a factor in the overall experience, sure. But everyone has their own minimum value of what they consider acceptable for the length of a game.

Personally, if I spend $60 on a AAA title and get 4 hours out of the main campaign, I might as well have bought a couple of Blurays and watched those instead. Others might recall the days of Starcraft and Civilization with fond recollection of hours upon hours of playtime, without realizing that if the game was crap, they wouldn't have bothered to spend the time in the first place. If Valve is viewed as an industry leader with some responsibility to set a good example, then people should be proud of the example they've put out here. They've demonstrated that short campaigns are perfectly acceptable and even preferred for certain types of games if the game is engaging and stimulating. If someone thinks that the game was too short, then maybe they didn't enjoy the game that much in the first place, and they would probably be ranting about something else even if the game was 12+ hours.

My opinion of Portal 2 is that the density of the content and the overall caliber of the campaign more than make up for the short length. I can't forgive the easier puzzles and some of the gameplay elements, but I don't think that this would be better as a longer game. I don't think that the accusations of hypocrisy are well-founded.
 
Is amazing how they could make a game called "Portal 2", revolving around a portal gun, and yet have the game feel so constrained and limiting.

In the first game, when they had you traveling outside of the test chamber areas, they at least allowed you to feel that sense of power/freedom by seemingly let you go where you otherwise were not supposed to. In Portal 2 that's replaced by walking long straight lines on catwalks with guardrails so high you can't even accidentally jump over them.

So few walls are able to be utilized with portals, that it's pretty much impossible to attempt the wrong path to your goal. In a game spanning 6+ hours, I'm hard pressed to come up with examples where I was testing portals in different spots to feel out a solution to a puzzle. Considering all the new neat tools and game mechanics, there was virtually no ability to get creative with them.
 
When wheatley is going ape-shit and mashing a bunch of testing chambers together I noticed far off in the distance pbody and the other goon standing on a ledge, looking surprised. They then ran in through a door. Seems like they are testing at the same time as you!
 
khanable said:
When wheatley is going ape-shit and mashing a bunch of testing chambers together I noticed far off in the distance pbody and the other goon standing on a ledge, looking surprised. They then ran in through a door. Seems like they are testing at the same time as you!
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But GlaDoS was with Chell as a potato at the time? So it can't be at the same time.

Just beat the game, amazing ending.
 
Hehe, I have my own theory on Chell's parental lineage:

Chell is actually the offspring of Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance. To those who think it's Caroline/Cave. Looking at her skin texture, she's definitely got a tan, darker hair, nice thick wide lips and a flatter nose, and Caroline's voice sounds whiter than white. Clearly the G-Man wanted the offspring of Freeman, so why not choose Alyx as a mother. He took their DNA and gave it to Aperture to make a little Gordon baby, and then Caroline raised the baby as her own.
 
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So, I'm on my second playthrough now. GlaDOS mentions that she took a visit to the surface and "...didn't see the deer this time...but I saw some humans." Has anybody proposed a theory for this yet? If the game takes place that far in the future, I doubt it would be Gordon/Alyx, although the time travel effect of Portals is still TBD...
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
So, I'm on my second playthrough now. GlaDOS mentions that she took a visit to the surface and "...didn't see the deer this time...but I saw some humans." Has anybody proposed a theory for this yet? If the game takes place that far in the future, I doubt it would be Gordon/Alyx, although the time travel effect of Portals is still TBD...
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If nothing else, it definitely proves the Combine have not been successful. Maybe not surprising but still a pretty big HL plot point to reveal indirectly. Also there is a complete lack of appearances by alien fauna.
 
I've played for about 4 hours and I think I'm most of the way through the campaign. I really enjoyed it at first but it's turned into a complete snoozefest after "the potato incident". It basically just turns into a game about moving along metal walkways and looking up for the one place you can attach a portal. Once the goos come in it's just, "throw a portal here to put orange goo here, blue goo here, and white goo here".

The test chambers that you start out in are small but they're somewhat interesting and Glados keeps the humor going. It loses all of the portal charm after that. I'd give it a 6 out of 10.
 
Campaign was pretty awesome. My girlfriend and I have been really enjoying co-op. Overall, definitely a very enjoyable game. I feel it was worth the money.
 
I will say I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much if Stephen Merchant was not in it.
 
Bankie said:
I've played for about 4 hours and I think I'm most of the way through the campaign. I really enjoyed it at first but it's turned into a complete snoozefest after "the potato incident". It basically just turns into a game about moving along metal walkways and looking up for the one place you can attach a portal. Once the goos come in it's just, "throw a portal here to put orange goo here, blue goo here, and white goo here".

The test chambers that you start out in are small but they're somewhat interesting and Glados keeps the humor going. It loses all of the portal charm after that. I'd give it a 6 out of 10.
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I thought the Glasdos chambers where a total snooze. They were all so simple, like i could take a quick glance, figure it out and finish the room in like 2 minutes. I think i made it through the glasdos rooms in like a hour or 2 tops.
 
I just finished the SP today, I thought it was incredible.

The level of polish here is unparalleled. The writing and voice acting are a several standard deviations better than what passes for story telling in most games today. I LMAO multiple times.

I know Aperture Science is part of the the HL universe, but at times, Portal 2 actually felt like a Half-Life game. It worthily upholds the standard.

Now,
Who else wants to follow the yellow line and do battle with Mantis Men?! :D Here's hoping for a DLC expansion!
 
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Portal 2 is fantastic. And the ads Valve're playing during CBC's broadcast of the Habs vs Bruins game, in double OT mind you, are just awesome HD masterpieces. They're going to sell a metric shit-ton of that game here in Canada with ad placement like that.

I just googled 'Portal 2 increase shadow map resolution' and the only relevant result pointed here. That's as far as I'm willing to go right now with my research, but I'm pegged at 60fps and even better graphics would be awesome. Continue asking that question, phide.
 
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Hey Guys,

I extracted all the music audio files from the .pak (about 1.6 GB of .WAVs) and transcoded them to 320kbs VBR .mp3's (also added a nice Portal 2 logo as the embedded album art) and put them in my Dropbox.

You can find the files here: http://db.tt/8jgUvsj - This will allow you to pick through them individually.

I also zipped them all up, and you can find those here: http://db.tt/N7bGEDH

Enjoy!
 
CKMorpheus said:
Hey Guys,

I extracted all the music audio files from the .pak (about 1.6 GB of .WAVs) and transcoded them to 320kbs VBR .mp3's (also added a nice Portal 2 logo as the embedded album art) and put them in my Dropbox.

You can find the files here: http://db.tt/8jgUvsj - This will allow you to pick through them individually.

I also zipped them all up, and you can find those here: http://db.tt/N7bGEDH

Enjoy!
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awesome! Thank you!
 
CKMorpheus said:
Hey Guys,

I extracted all the music audio files from the .pak (about 1.6 GB of .WAVs) and transcoded them to 320kbs VBR .mp3's (also added a nice Portal 2 logo as the embedded album art) and put them in my Dropbox.

You can find the files here: http://db.tt/8jgUvsj - This will allow you to pick through them individually.

I also zipped them all up, and you can find those here: http://db.tt/N7bGEDH

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

Awesome.. didn't even think to check those out.

portal2_want_you_gone.mp3 - That's probably the best one in there :D.
 
I have to say Mike Morasky did a fantastic job with the soundtrack. While there were some awesome tracks in the HL games, I thought overall that music was one of Valve's weaknesses. I'm excited to see what Morasky can do with future HL soundtracks.
 
drako said:
Yeah, I think that probably is the main reason for the lack of timing puzzles unfortunately
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Wouldn't it be because of the multiplayer aspect? If your playing something that needs precise timing on 50ms+ pings (or worse) it's going to be massively fustrating. That would happen on PC just as badly as on consoles.
 
Bigbacon said:
I thought the Glasdos chambers where a total snooze. They were all so simple, like i could take a quick glance, figure it out and finish the room in like 2 minutes. I think i made it through the glasdos rooms in like a hour or 2 tops.
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The glados test chambers seemed like an extended tutorial, or way to get back into the Portal mechanics as well as a way to setup the narrative. They exist predominately for setup and introduction.
And once you get beyond those, it's a perfect slow build as Valve is masterful at showing a new mechanic, letting you play with it in isolation for a room or two and then weaving it into what you've already learned.

There's never a stretch of more than few rooms between learning something new, or getting a new toy to play with. So every 20 or 30 minutes they're adding new ways to interact with the world which is something the original never managed to do.
And every few chapters you get to these big open rooms where you're blasting through 6 or 8 steps and applying all those little tricks you've built up in one awesome sequence.

The first game transitioned from a puzzle game to more of chase / escape style once you broke out of the test chambers. This games stays much more a puzzle game throughout. Some of that I think is just because they want to have your attention while their injecting the little story elements along the way (hence the use of catwalks and such to split apart the action rather than having extended sequences like the original).

The white 'portal anywhere' gel was an outstanding addition. The first half of the game feels very directed in that the 'right' place to put your portal is always a big white spot on the wall with a spotlight on it. I wish tremendously they would have more use of that in the single player.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Wouldn't it be because of the multiplayer aspect? If your playing something that needs precise timing on 50ms+ pings (or worse) it's going to be massively fustrating. That would happen on PC just as badly as on consoles.
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Valid point for the coop, but there weren't really any timing puzzles in the single player either.
 
Bankie said:
I've played for about 4 hours and I think I'm most of the way through the campaign. I really enjoyed it at first but it's turned into a complete snoozefest after "the potato incident". It basically just turns into a game about moving along metal walkways and looking up for the one place you can attach a portal. Once the goos come in it's just, "throw a portal here to put orange goo here, blue goo here, and white goo here".

The test chambers that you start out in are small but they're somewhat interesting and Glados keeps the humor going. It loses all of the portal charm after that. I'd give it a 6 out of 10.
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So what you are really saying is you don't like the Cave Johnson character. Well not everyone is gong to love up but giving this game anything less than a 9/10 is just silly. Without a doubt it's the best of the year so far.

Your description sounds like you have not played the co-op? If that is case you have only played half the game and passing judgement prematurely:eek:.
 
My god some people here are impossible to please. Portal 2 is one of the finest pieces of media I have experienced. It's a good game, has a great story, excellent dialogue. I havent laughed this much at anything sober in forever. Also, the ending was excellent. The whole thing reminded me of a playable Pixar movie. And the animations, the sense of scale, it's just a damn good game.
 
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