Portal 2

rite? loading is really inexcusably long

only like an hour in but it is great so far. is there an ilx group on steam?

i have no friends so you guys are my only hope for co-op

is it longer than half life 2/portal 1 loading times?

i am setting up steam account shortly with ps3 so will co op
and yes there is an ilx steam group. what the hell is it called folks?

I am contemplating doing Portal 2 on Steam instead of a console but I'm not sure. Is it going to look way better? I loved playing 1 on a console.

so my understanding is that if you buy it on ps3, you can play it on a pc via steam... right?

http://www.shacknews.com/article/68107/portal-2-ps3-steamworks-features

If they fix the ps3 network issues I'd love to rock some co-op too.

Steam group:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ILG

join! friend! etc.

still not even halfway through watching this playthrough, and the story is amazing.

i just started playing this tonight. how the environment slowly changes and the background hints that are dropped throughout are great.

10 things about portal 2

1 - No game should EVER have this much loading. EVER.
2 - The basic game mechanics hold up real well; it's still fun to work out puzzles with portals
3 - The pacing is PLODDING; I finally reached the twist sequence but MAN it took some time
4 - Script and voice acting and story are the absolute best thing this has going for it so I can see where spoilers are an actual concern
5 - I love the weird human touches throughout, the "save the turret being recycled" achievement was a great moment in gameplay
6 - Weirdly unforgiving platforming; lots of "what's over here oh i'm dead" jumps
7 - Some serious frustration points that could be easily amended by a bit of in-game direction. I've been stuck in a room at least three times where I just end up running in circles trying to find the one place I can shoot to get a portal and there's just no obvious solution. Some of this is poorly designed, which is a bit out of character for valve.
8 - the graphics are just a joy
9 - so's the sound design
10 - sure do wish i could play co-op. thanks for being a sometimes functioning network sony.

11 - potato

12- 100 - NO GAME SHOULD EVER HAVE THIS MANY LOADING SCREENS

I came around to Stephen Merchant, especially toward the end when he has some more interesting material to work with (and I'm sure it helps that I'm not a British and haven't seen Extras), but I can't help but wish Valve had gone with their original pick of Richard Ayoade.

Or Karl Pilkington. He's even the right shape!

Played a bit of the co-op. Good stuff.

12 hours to download? ack, why didn't i set it off sooner. oh well i should prob get out and enjoy the sunshine anyway.

Ha, playing this with a 6 yr old spectator, and on three separate occasions now I've been sat scratching my head over what to do next only for him to say something like "put a blue one over there, then you can go round that bit" and BE RIGHT. wtf kiddo!?

Associated question - this is has a PEGI rating of 12 but so far there's been nothing worse than Stephen Merchant saying 'bloody'. Does it get significantly less kid friendly later on? Maybe I should start a gaming parenting thread.

the loading screens are very quick on my pc /bragging '11

Jim- it's rated 10 and up in the states, and whileit doesn't get especially vulgar (a few "hells" and "craps") or violent it is quite dark in places. More jokes about tumors than your average game, for instance.

loved this game.

loading times are ridiculous for sure but i can forgive that for a game that feels aesthetically whole--just lots of small well planned things that contribute to a meaningful experience. like the evolving aperture logos. and other stuff that would be spoilers.

Every single time there was a long jump (the kind where you jump down from somewhere really really high, shunt through a portal on the ground, pop out a portal from a slanted surface to go forward really really far) I yelled wheeeeeeeeeeeee in delight, I couldn't help it.

That consistent feeling plus the great dialogue made this game for me, plus the damn amazing attention to detail and set design, sound design, these guys are just so good.

There are lot of things that make the game short of perfect - the pacing as forks mentioned, various things that sort of try to live up to the first one but inevitably can't - but this really had plenty to enjoy, and I loved the puzzles with the gels and refractory cubes. The game was just hard enough where I never felt like I needed to go seek a FAQ, but still felt really satisfied whenever I solved a tough puzzle. I feel like that's rarer and rarer these days.

Gonna try to pressure a friend to buy this sooner than later - he's waiting for the next time it goes on sale, and I promised him we'd do the co-op mode together...

More jokes about tumors than your average game, for instance.

― muus lääv? :D muus dut :( (Telephone thing), Friday, 22 April 2011 21:22 (Yesterday)

Kindergarten Cop had no problem with tumor jokes and six year olds.

Is there any reference to the updated ending of the first Portal, ie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXAq34TrVXM

Read Lab Rat -
http://www.thinkwithportals.com/comic/

I can understand the PG rating, the idea of an omnipresent voice constantly telling you how they're going to kill you might be a little much for little ones

Outside of Lab Rat, the only reference/connection to the updated Portal ending is the fact that you start the game back in stasis. Party Escort Bot doesn't get his turn in the spotlight :(

This is probably a side result of my Valve fanboyism more than anything, but the National's song is shockingly decent, kind of pretty, even:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaMEIuTxfwM

Note for the spoiler-averse- it's not one of the game's musical numbers; it only appears in the game playing on a tinny little radio in a hidden Ratman room early on.

Oh, and a further non-spoiler anti-warning, as it were: none of the puzzles in the latter half of that fan video appear in the full game, so no worries there. They were created just for the promotional videos, to show off new game mechanics.

I believe that The National song also appears more prominently in the co-op mode (got to the end of single player and still hadn't heard it so looked up where it was). Missed the radio with it until playing a couple of bits again for achievements now. Annoyed slightly by the ambiguous test chamber names on a couple of those (wasn't there more than one Test Chamber 10?).

Also guessed both of the twists very early, found Cave quickly annoying and not funny and ok, a couple of the non-elevator loading screens were rather annoying, but otherwise this was fantastic, loved every minute. All the new mechanics were cool and handled very well. Looking forward to when I get a chance to play the co-op.

Loved this! What a great game, despite the long-ass loading times. Best game I've played in quite some time.

i had no issues w/loading time and i'm playing on a 2008 mbp

anyway this was great. obv lacking the sheer novelty of the original, and the boss sequence was boring and easy, but still super fun. the fact that i knocked it out on a weekend day off is a plus imo---more like an "entertainment" and less like a "project"

would love to play the coop but i have no idea how that works

tbh both portals are kinda what i think of when i'm trying to convince skeptics that games are actually interesting and worthwhile---they're puzzling, the plot/acting is v v good, and they're engrossing in a healthy way (v. say angry birds)

V v bummed to discover that there no extra/challenge levels. wtf?!

I have no one to play coop with, and that's like 50% of the experience from the sounds of things

Can you not play online?

I guess? Don't want to play with some random tho.

Join the steam group linked to above. We're slightly less random.

Reading thru some of the entries on the ARG wiki and it's like, these people are insane, or deliberately went about this only to bait the most OCD gamers on the planet.

seriously ambushed by unexpected emotion at the closing scene.

this is better than the first one - such an incredible atmosphere, and the gels etc really gave a whole new sense of physical joy to the puzzles. honestly, what could be more fun than splurging white gel all over the walls of a room?

Did feel like a bit of a goon at times though, quite a few puzzles I solved through sheer dumb luck. Thinking with Portals is hard.

Holmes versus Moriarty. Aristotle versus Mashy spike plate!
Holmes versus Moriarty. Aristotle versus Mashy spike plate!
Holmes versus Moriarty. Aristotle versus Mashy spike plate!
Holmes versus Moriarty. Aristotle versus Mashy spike plate!

^ when voiceover + instant replay collide with slightly annoying results.

I think that was my favourite line in the whole game, but I did only hear it twice. The deer line going into the room for the 70 second achievement, however...

is there some way to bulk-friend all of ILG at once?

xxp Haha! Yeah, same exact thing happened to me at that part.

What other ideas came up for Portal 2 that were eventually cut?
At one point we had a new Gel that allowed players to walk up the side of walls. While this added a new twist to the game, the effect was so disorientating that it made people nauseas.

While working on a first-person game you always have to be aware of that issue so we removed that Gel. We also made changes to frame rate and movement that will help anyone play Portal 2 even if they do experience a feeling of nauseas while playing other first-person games.

This is something that I haven't heard talked about much, but boy did I appreciate it. Pretty much every Source game gave me motion sickness if I played the game in full screen for more than an hour or two - no such issues with Portal 2.

i mean come on here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9jplTRwmdo

^My friend made that Mad Men thing.

got this as an early birthday present :)

i was playing this before going to bed last night and i was really overcaffeinated and couldn't sleep and i was laying in bed for hours playing portal rooms in my brain

xp it's good!

i've been playing it with my girlfriend (who is acting in an advisory capacity on the single player mode) and we both had portal dreams.

I say again: no bonus maps is some bullshit

yeah feeling this ^

actually kinda frustrated with this game, fuck co-op, give me replayability. of which this game has little or none.

what puzzle games have replayability? i mean "get out of this room" style puzzle games.

well the first portal had a new game plus.

ha i had never thought that that would happen point-blank! but of course you are right it would. the doom-quake axis of shooters is so abstract compared to the new ones: nobody least of all john carmack really thinks you're a space marine. you're a floating node.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWjP77TztTQ

5 years after everybody else in the world I have just finished this.

And then immediately replayed the whole thing.

Would like there to be a 3rd person replay view - some of the flying jumps are impressive but you don't really get a sense of distance with 1st person.

still probably my favorite game ever