Portal II

[Wizard CaT]

Seriously all I see is people from this board playing Portal II, and some with the potato sack even. Thoughts?

I only conquered the co-op so far, but I had a blast playing with my friend. No spoilers, but the ending was good too. I'm glad they didn't try to recreate a Portal 1 experience either. But then I only played a little Single player so far.

Most confusing thing is the Portal store. I mean the coop isn't that long, maybe 7 hours, I don't know why I'd go buy items for it. My TF2 caused a free Mann Co. hat, but I don't know why'd I'd buy anything.

[mwchase]

I've gotten to the second... some kind of sphere. Evaluation sphere? Those things. I can't wait to recover the small robot that is opposed to the large crazy robot in charge of the facility. Unfortunately, I seem to have hit a puzzle that I can't figure out. Nothing special, just some really inconvenient glass, and no clear idea of where I'm going. Also, I have schoolwork and shit, so I may have to wait a good week before I have any more time.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

I have been playing now for 11 hours, I am probably about 60% through the game, as a rough guess. Maybe 70%, depending on the comments some reviewers have made despite trying to avoid spoilers. No one should give any spoilers for this game: it is too damn good.

That is the bottom line - Portal 2 is utterly, magnificently, fantastically good. Great. It is a work of true art.

So, why 11 hours, when many (jerkshits) report that the main game only takes four to six hours to finish? They are full of shit, one, and two, this is a game to savor.

This is my advice to you, in playing Portal 2: SLOW DOWN. Treat the game as an adventure game, not as a puzzle game. Look, really LOOK at everything. Study the world with a Holmesian eye, a detective's eye. You will be rewarded. Vastly rewarded.

Only a fool would rush through Portal 2, treating this phantasmal wonder as just another series of four dimensional puzzles. There is drama here, a surprisingly tearjerking story amidst the comedy of a wacky science business built on shower curtains and asbestos.

Savor every precious moment. Take your time, the puzzles can wait, the story is, amazingly, the best part of Portal 2. This is a story game, it is experiential literature. Read it.

Give it 11+ hours and it will give you wonder, and awe, and sorrow and silliness in great measure.

Best game I have played in years. And I am not even done with it yet.

Also - DO NOT play the co-op until you finish the main game. It is... best that way. Slight spoilers in the co-op, that is why.

[Coda]

Also: Do everything you're told to do at least once, even if it's an obviously bad idea. (Save your game first, of course.) There are a number of achievements and funny reactions you can get that way.

[mwchase]

I seem to be near the end. Steam says I have been playing for three hours. Steam is a liar.

I may have to start over again after finals, but I should be done in the next few days, if I actually am near the end.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

Also: Do everything you're told to do at least once, even if it's an obviously bad idea. (Save your game first, of course.) There are a number of achievements and funny reactions you can get that way.

I know exactly what you mean, and these moments are hilarious. Or poignant. Or both.

Some things I loved best, listed in non-spoiler manner (If you haven't played it, you won't know what I mean)

The 'I Am Different' philosopher.

Katheryn's Flux Capacitor

The James T Kirk Maneuver

The Turret Symphonic Orchestra Opera House

Wheatly peeking.

The Sistine Concrete

Moonlight

Chell's science project

Caroline Was, and Is

Sixty Dollar Seventies

The Picture Of Dorian Johnson

Combatator Vitrified

The Not Hermit Crabs

"Yes sir, right away Mr. Johnson!"

The UP Upper Peninsula Pioneer News

Being Number Two

Flinging Into the Wheatly Screen

Logo Historico

"We should have been researching A.I. thirty years ago!"

Gel. Just Gel. Oh god the Gel. Whiteout.

Cosmic Ray 'Spalation'

"Pack your box, you're fired!"

"You can get another wad of cash into your bindle"

"This body is so huge! Ah-Hah-Hah-HAH!!!!"

The open door heart room

4000 m

1.5 volts

"Then just do it for her, I don't care, that's an order."

"I love Space!"

Holmes and Moriarty

"You came back? I wasn't expecting that..."

[mwchase]

I have beaten the single-player campaign (the end credits are amazing). I'm going to need to budget my time for a ten-page paper and a rush-job comic book, and then finals, I suppose, so does anyone similarly pressed for time need a co-op partner in a few weeks, or would they be willing?

Edit: Oh, also. I've played through the first chapter of commentary, and one of the nodes mentions that, during development they cut everything up and portaled it together, resulting in a vast maze of rooms with impossible dimensions. After they finalized the layout, they removed every spatial impossibility but one. Does anybody have a hint about where that room is? The game is... a bit big.

[Coda]

Jenny, I was specifically referring to "Well then. I didn't expect that to work." Amusing little easter egg there.

mwchase, Ginny could use a coop partner (I want to play with her but I can't shell out another $50 for another copy of the game) but she's going to want to do it sooner than that.

[mwchase]

Well, if breaking it up some is okay, I'm free Friday through Monday nights until May, at which point things start to... change. I don't know if that works, and my main priority, is, like I said, end-of-semester-panicky schoolwork.

[Wizard CaT]

I have been playing now for 11 hours, I am probably about 60% through the game, as a rough guess. Maybe 70%, depending on the comments some reviewers have made despite trying to avoid spoilers. No one should give any spoilers for this game: it is too damn good.

That is the bottom line - Portal 2 is utterly, magnificently, fantastically good. Great. It is a work of true art.

So, why 11 hours, when many (jerkshits) report that the main game only takes four to six hours to finish? They are full of shit, one, and two, this is a game to savor.

Best game I have played in years. And I am not even done with it yet.

Also - DO NOT play the co-op until you finish the main game. It is... best that way. Slight spoilers in the co-op, that is why.

Well it definitely sounds like you beat it now. I don't get all your liners, but all is good. The people claiming a 4 hour play time simply can't TELL time. The Steam timer doesn't work, and even the achievement time stamps will have story specific achives time stamped in the wrong order even. Only idiots would think the game wasn't worth the $40-50 they paid.

I don't understand what you mean by saying to do the single player first. I bought Portal 2 as the two pack to force my friend to play with me and we did the coop first. I didn't see any thing that spoiled anything in single player for me.

To me Valve did the coop in a great way. As it was a completely separate storyline, there was no problems with her playing through single player while I was at work.

[Coda]

I made this, had to share:

[Marr]

Only just got around to Portal II, just found the portrait... Didn't Jennifer once theorise, way back when the Orange Box was released, that GladOS was, in a messed up kinda way, Chell's mother?

Holy shit.