In the commentary, they mentioned having only one impossible map/location in the game.
Has anyone figured out what it is? I have a few guesses, but I can't be sure; I'm not a wizard.
My first guess would be:
Single player spoiler:
The elevator shaft fall after Wheatley turns on you. It seems like you are falling for a long time, (too long for the shaft to be a continuous pipe in a level) and they specifically mention that situation in the commentary node.
I did actually suspect that they used portals for the elevators between levels/chambers, because the game didn't switch to loading the next level if there was still dialogue (well, monologue) from GlaDOS going on.
I don't think it's doing anything when it isn't loading yet. It's like an animation playing in a waiting room while you wait for glados to finish before commencing loading.
Then you spawn in the next room.
edit: Oh, you meant that 'elevator animation' was done with portals. Possible, I thought the lighting changed a bit though rather than cycle.
Did anyone else feel like the puzzles were easier this time around? I kind of got the feeling that I had to use fewer quick and accurate portal placements, almost as if the game were optimized for joystick control and not mouse. It was a great game don't get me wrong, but I had fewer moments of "man I am a fucking wizard for pulling that off" than I did in the first Portal.
The only real difference I noticed was a lack of any requirement for the double-fling, which I was never a big fan of in the first game, to be honest. I had trouble with that with both pad and mouse, mostly because I'd get confused about which portal I needed to put where as I was flying about (the huge turret room near the end of 1 kept on getting me on that)
I was only stumped on a few points in P2, but having played through 1 already, I was probably coming out well ahead of the 'average' gamer they designed for.
Most points where I was stuck was down to me not spotting a portal surface somewhere.
The spot under the elevator gantry was the biggest sticking point for me.
I breezed through most of the game but I have to admit I got stuck in a couple of places a few times. Like when
You have to use the red goo to slingshot yourself onto a blue spot to get to the cube. It was the first place you had to use that so it got me for a bit. And when I first got to funnels it took me a little bit to use them properly. Mainly that room where you had to use the refractor, the weighted block and your gun to turn them on and off to get to the exit.
How does the big turret room in the first game actually legitimately go? The commentary talks about a battle while flinging yourself about, but I always portal sniped from turret to turret.
Did anyone else feel like the puzzles were easier this time around? I kind of got the feeling that I had to use fewer quick and accurate portal placements, almost as if the game were optimized for joystick control and not mouse. It was a great game don't get me wrong, but I had fewer moments of "man I am a fucking wizard for pulling that off" than I did in the first Portal.
The only real difference I noticed was a lack of any requirement for the double-fling, which I was never a big fan of in the first game, to be honest. I had trouble with that with both pad and mouse, mostly because I'd get confused about which portal I needed to put where as I was flying about (the huge turret room near the end of 1 kept on getting me on that)
I was only stumped on a few points in P2, but having played through 1 already, I was probably coming out well ahead of the 'average' gamer they designed for.
Most points where I was stuck was down to me not spotting a portal surface somewhere.
The spot under the elevator gantry was the biggest sticking point for me.
The only times I became "stuck" in P2 was figuring out how to gather enough momentum for some of the gaps. The game was VERY specific about where you needed to place portals. The first game allowed for more freedom it seems like. While I don't necessarily feel that the series should incorporate more twitch placement of portals to complete puzzles, it would be nice if that were available to the more skillful ala Portal 1.
How does the big turret room in the first game actually legitimately go? The commentary talks about a battle while flinging yourself about, but I always portal sniped from turret to turret.
This is what I do too. I guess you could do it without taking them out, seems like a hassle to me though
Skull2185 on
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
How does the big turret room in the first game actually legitimately go? The commentary talks about a battle while flinging yourself about, but I always portal sniped from turret to turret.
I think most people did it your way. If I recall, the gist of the commentary was that it used to be a huge battle involving flinging yourself about, but the sudden switch to a more active combat feel was extremely jarring, so they toned it down.
It was pretty smooth sailing but I did get hung up trying to do an insane thing:
In one of the rooms with three reflector cubes, a laser beam up top, and a launcher plate on a raised platform with a portal surface over it, I didn't initially think to do the obvious, correct thing, which was to just drop myself onto the launcher, and instead pursued a psychotic solution that involved building a staircase out of cubes that I could climb up to the launcher, and throwing the cubes into a yo-yo portal pair that sent them bouncing into the path of the laser, causing the incinerating laser beam to reflect at random angles around the room each time it bounced up.
It would eventually have hit the target, by chance. And maybe saw my head off, but that's how science gets done.
Listening to the dev commentary on Portal and Portal 2... the game testers they use are... well they just don't seem to be very smart. Constantly forgetting the techniques and skills that the game just taught them, absolutely refusing to look up... like they're dogs or something(Big Al says dogs can't look up) dying because they constantly shoot the wrong portal (causing the devs to just give up and auto correct your portal usage). i dunno... little worrisome or something, like maybe they should have people who are you know good at games testing them.
Also, some of the Ellen McLain(GLaDOS) commentary make her sound like one of those snooty actor types...
I have to admit, I got stuck on one room
where the dev commentary even said they updated it because people got confused. It was later in the game where Wheatley rips apart a corridor, then throws white paint on the walls (as the dev's said, to remind the user that you can use portals). Then I got into the room, saw the redirection beam, and instantly forgot about using my portals to just portal myself across. I don't know why, but I instantly assumed that I must use the redirection beam to get across the pit.
Once I figured it out, it was a big "duh" moment. And then the devs said they even updated it to remind people! Double whammy!
I didn't get stuck much, and the rest of the puzzles were easy, but sometimes brain farts happen, and the devs tried to fix that. Their playtesters did an excellent job.
Us that the one with turrets behind a glass screen? because I managed to get across the pit but couldn't work out how to get the gel onto the turrets. Worst party was I'd worked out how to get back using the beam but didn't put the two together. Broke down and watched a youtube video of it and then slapped myself because I'd almost done it myself.
It was pretty smooth sailing but I did get hung up trying to do an insane thing:
In one of the rooms with three reflector cubes, a laser beam up top, and a launcher plate on a raised platform with a portal surface over it, I didn't initially think to do the obvious, correct thing, which was to just drop myself onto the launcher, and instead pursued a psychotic solution that involved building a staircase out of cubes that I could climb up to the launcher, and throwing the cubes into a yo-yo portal pair that sent them bouncing into the path of the laser, causing the incinerating laser beam to reflect at random angles around the room each time it bounced up.
It would eventually have hit the target, by chance. And maybe saw my head off, but that's how science gets done.
If your website doesn't let me use it with NoScript, as I choose to use it, then I'm not going to read anything you write ever.
NoScript is the greatest thing.
In the UK, we get redirected to their UK site. If you follow one of the crazy hash links to a specific article: nope, UK homepage. I'm following Lifehacker on Twitter and whenever they post an article link: nope, homepage. It is apathy that keeps me followed.
Yeah I get the same thing in Canada for sites that a have a Canadian home page. That #! that accompanies links on many sites now screws everyone that isn't American.
Us that the one with turrets behind a glass screen?
Yeah, that's the one. It confused the heck out of me. But once I got it, execution was easy.
Then destroying the monitor was a different question. I managed to isolate one turret quite a few times, but either never made it dashing to the platform, or over-launched myself if I tried to attack from the side. I eventually and miraculously got all three painted blue, and one of them happened to bounce over to me instead of the giant pit.
One time, I got two of the turrets bouncing around, one of them shot the last one so it fell over, and I thought "this is it! I can just go grab it!" Unfortunately, it was permanently disabled for whatever reason, I guess because it was shot over?
Us that the one with turrets behind a glass screen?
Yeah, that's the one. It confused the heck out of me. But once I got it, execution was easy.
Then destroying the monitor was a different question. I managed to isolate one turret quite a few times, but either never made it dashing to the platform, or over-launched myself if I tried to attack from the side. I eventually and miraculously got all three painted blue, and one of them happened to bounce over to me instead of the giant pit.
One time, I got two of the turrets bouncing around, one of them shot the last one so it fell over, and I thought "this is it! I can just go grab it!" Unfortunately, it was permanently disabled for whatever reason, I guess because it was shot over?
I don't ever remember having to do anything like that.
In regards to grabbing any Turrents to break something. I didn't feel that puzzle was that difficult, but that is because I had already learned from a friend that splashing blue goop on turrets kills them.
I played Co-op first with a friend who had already beaten the game. I think there were only 2 puzzles in Co-op we found difficult.
The one where you gotta splash blue goop onto a light bridge to be able to bounce up to your friend. We didn't know you could get goop on those things, and did it completely by accident. The other was probably one that required one of you to go far off into another room and have your friend shoot a laser all the way across the map, through some glass into your portals to go through a wall.
Because of doing Co-op and seeing how my friend handled some parts of some of the puzzles, single player was very easy to me. I think I felt like I had no idea how to do a puzzle and just started shooting portals around once. I had to brute force my way through a lot of Portal 1 that way. There were a couple puzzles where I knew what I had to get done to solve it, but it took a while to figure out exactly how to do it.
And I think they were all ones where I had to use the gravity beam to push myself up to the ceiling to get enough momentum to launch myself to where I wanted to go.
Us that the one with turrets behind a glass screen?
Yeah, that's the one. It confused the heck out of me. But once I got it, execution was easy.
Then destroying the monitor was a different question. I managed to isolate one turret quite a few times, but either never made it dashing to the platform, or over-launched myself if I tried to attack from the side. I eventually and miraculously got all three painted blue, and one of them happened to bounce over to me instead of the giant pit.
One time, I got two of the turrets bouncing around, one of them shot the last one so it fell over, and I thought "this is it! I can just go grab it!" Unfortunately, it was permanently disabled for whatever reason, I guess because it was shot over?
I don't ever remember having to do anything like that.
In regards to grabbing any Turrents to break something. I didn't feel that puzzle was that difficult, but that is because I had already learned from a friend that splashing blue goop on turrets kills them.
Did anyone else feel like the puzzles were easier this time around? I kind of got the feeling that I had to use fewer quick and accurate portal placements, almost as if the game were optimized for joystick control and not mouse. It was a great game don't get me wrong, but I had fewer moments of "man I am a fucking wizard for pulling that off" than I did in the first Portal.
Co-op has these pretty frequently. Your buddy firing off portals while you rocket around helplessly triggers this exact feeling.
The best thing is that you can then high five at the end of it all.
Willeth on
@vgreminders - Don't miss out on timed events in gaming! @gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Did anyone else feel like the puzzles were easier this time around? I kind of got the feeling that I had to use fewer quick and accurate portal placements, almost as if the game were optimized for joystick control and not mouse. It was a great game don't get me wrong, but I had fewer moments of "man I am a fucking wizard for pulling that off" than I did in the first Portal.
Co-op has these pretty frequently. Your buddy firing off portals while you rocket around helplessly triggers this exact feeling.
The best thing is that you can then hug at the end of it all.
Anytime we made it through a chamber without my brother killing me, he got a hug.
so he got like... 4 hugs
Skull2185 on
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
0
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
I love how agitated P-body looks during the hug and he gives the little "uh, ok, there-there" pat to Atlas near the end of it.
I get off work at 5pm est. So, I should be good to go by 6pm?
We just gonna do the calibration chamber? I'll go all the way with ya(:winky:) but i'd hate to spoil the experience for you by not having a fresh partner with you.
Skull2185 on
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
They occur in only two (that I know of) specific parts of the game, and it's such a minor damn thing you probably never even noticed it.
Three times, all in Chapter 9
The Part Where He Kills You - so you end up on the catwalk and not down where the white gel is dripping
MASHY SPIKE PLATE! - so you don't cut off the excursion funnel
Lunacy - to prevent the vacuum from appearing in the Stalemate Resolution Chamber instead of under Wheatley
If you try to fire blue when you should fire orange, the game doesn't make you shoot orange, it changes your existing orange portal to be blue.
Maybe there are more, but these are the ones I noticed.
They occur in only two (that I know of) specific parts of the game, and it's such a minor damn thing you probably never even noticed it.
Three times, all in Chapter 9
The Part Where He Kills You - so you end up on the catwalk and not down where the white gel is dripping
MASHY SPIKE PLATE! - so you don't cut off the excursion funnel
Lunacy - to prevent the vacuum from appearing in the Stalemate Resolution Chamber instead of under Wheatley
If you try to fire blue when you should fire orange, the game doesn't make you shoot orange, it changes your existing orange portal to be blue.
Maybe there are more, but these are the ones I noticed.
I never would have noticed if they hadn't pointed it out in the commentary. This is an awesome feature.
If you want to play with me after doing the calibration course with Skull so he can get the achievement... I haven't played any co-op...
This is a good idea Joolander! Its not that I don;t want to play with you, but it would probably be more fun for you! Also you'd get the portal professor cheevo if you played with DarkPrimus after me.
Skull2185 on
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
If you want to play with me after doing the calibration course with Skull so he can get the achievement... I haven't played any co-op...
This is a good idea Joolander! Its not that I don;t want to play with you, but it would probably be more fun for you! Also you'd get the portal professor cheevo if you played with DarkPrimus after me.
If you want to play with me after doing the calibration course with Skull so he can get the achievement... I haven't played any co-op...
This is a good idea Joolander! Its not that I don;t want to play with you, but it would probably be more fun for you! Also you'd get the portal professor cheevo if you played with DarkPrimus after me.
I thought you could only get the professor achievement after playing through the entirety of co-op?
If you want to play with me after doing the calibration course with Skull so he can get the achievement... I haven't played any co-op...
This is a good idea Joolander! Its not that I don;t want to play with you, but it would probably be more fun for you! Also you'd get the portal professor cheevo if you played with DarkPrimus after me.
I thought you could only get the professor achievement after playing through the entirety of co-op?
Icemopper is correct.
Huggles on
0
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
Dialogue spoiler:
I came up with a solution that I honestly think works out best for one of both of us.
If you want to play with me after doing the calibration course with Skull so he can get the achievement... I haven't played any co-op...
This is a good idea Joolander! Its not that I don;t want to play with you, but it would probably be more fun for you! Also you'd get the portal professor cheevo if you played with DarkPrimus after me.
I thought you could only get the professor achievement after playing through the entirety of co-op?
Icemopper is correct.
Also, I already went through the calibration course to give T4CT the Portal Professor achievement.
I... made a post saying as much earlier, but it isn't here any more. Hmm.
Posts
My first guess would be:
Single player spoiler:
Huh, I don't recall that room, but I didn't exactly see it from that angle.
Then you spawn in the next room.
edit: Oh, you meant that 'elevator animation' was done with portals. Possible, I thought the lighting changed a bit though rather than cycle.
The only real difference I noticed was a lack of any requirement for the double-fling, which I was never a big fan of in the first game, to be honest. I had trouble with that with both pad and mouse, mostly because I'd get confused about which portal I needed to put where as I was flying about (the huge turret room near the end of 1 kept on getting me on that)
I was only stumped on a few points in P2, but having played through 1 already, I was probably coming out well ahead of the 'average' gamer they designed for.
Most points where I was stuck was down to me not spotting a portal surface somewhere.
The only times I became "stuck" in P2 was figuring out how to gather enough momentum for some of the gaps. The game was VERY specific about where you needed to place portals. The first game allowed for more freedom it seems like. While I don't necessarily feel that the series should incorporate more twitch placement of portals to complete puzzles, it would be nice if that were available to the more skillful ala Portal 1.
Because pulling this off makes you feel awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0iSYB7fubg&feature=related
This is what I do too. I guess you could do it without taking them out, seems like a hassle to me though
I think most people did it your way. If I recall, the gist of the commentary was that it used to be a huge battle involving flinging yourself about, but the sudden switch to a more active combat feel was extremely jarring, so they toned it down.
It would eventually have hit the target, by chance. And maybe saw my head off, but that's how science gets done.
That's a surprise. I didn't notice anything that was odd, but on another playthrough I'll pay more attention.
Us that the one with turrets behind a glass screen? because I managed to get across the pit but couldn't work out how to get the gel onto the turrets. Worst party was I'd worked out how to get back using the beam but didn't put the two together. Broke down and watched a youtube video of it and then slapped myself because I'd almost done it myself.
Heh heh, that sounds pretty funny to watch.
Yeah I get the same thing in Canada for sites that a have a Canadian home page. That #! that accompanies links on many sites now screws everyone that isn't American.
I never finish anyth
Yeah, that's the one. It confused the heck out of me. But once I got it, execution was easy.
One time, I got two of the turrets bouncing around, one of them shot the last one so it fell over, and I thought "this is it! I can just go grab it!" Unfortunately, it was permanently disabled for whatever reason, I guess because it was shot over?
I don't ever remember having to do anything like that.
I played Co-op first with a friend who had already beaten the game. I think there were only 2 puzzles in Co-op we found difficult.
Because of doing Co-op and seeing how my friend handled some parts of some of the puzzles, single player was very easy to me. I think I felt like I had no idea how to do a puzzle and just started shooting portals around once. I had to brute force my way through a lot of Portal 1 that way. There were a couple puzzles where I knew what I had to get done to solve it, but it took a while to figure out exactly how to do it.
It's for an achievement.
Co-op has these pretty frequently. Your buddy firing off portals while you rocket around helplessly triggers this exact feeling.
The best thing is that you can then high five at the end of it all.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Anytime we made it through a chamber without my brother killing me, he got a hug.
so he got like... 4 hugs
preferably one that has not done any co-op yet, since I haven't either
GT is Joolander
Ooh Ooh! I will! I've beaten co-op, but I'll let you solve everything! I want the portal professor cheevo...
This achievement sucks... I mean, really, who's going to want to play with someone who has beaten the puzzles already?
Can we just play the inital calibration chamber together?
whens good? I'm off all day because of finals
We just gonna do the calibration chamber? I'll go all the way with ya(:winky:) but i'd hate to spoil the experience for you by not having a fresh partner with you.
Yessssss, I'll serve as your last resort. I also probably only half remember most of these puzzles.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Three times, all in Chapter 9
MASHY SPIKE PLATE! - so you don't cut off the excursion funnel
Lunacy - to prevent the vacuum from appearing in the Stalemate Resolution Chamber instead of under Wheatley
If you try to fire blue when you should fire orange, the game doesn't make you shoot orange, it changes your existing orange portal to be blue.
I never would have noticed if they hadn't pointed it out in the commentary. This is an awesome feature.
This is a good idea Joolander! Its not that I don;t want to play with you, but it would probably be more fun for you! Also you'd get the portal professor cheevo if you played with DarkPrimus after me.
yeah this sounds good
plus i can eat in between
its a win-win-win
Did anyone answer this? Google isn't helping and I'd like to know where it is.
I thought you could only get the professor achievement after playing through the entirety of co-op?
Icemopper is correct.
It is so good, I laughed a lot.
and I always use orange portal as the "anchor" portal and blue portal as the "mobile" portal, to avoid confusion.
but yeah, the thing they did is awesome.
I do exactly this, because I'm right-handed, so it's easier to remember which trigger to pull when I'm in a hurry.
Also, I already went through the calibration course to give T4CT the Portal Professor achievement.
I... made a post saying as much earlier, but it isn't here any more. Hmm.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar