Portal 2 Catch-All

Those vids are great, especially the excursion funnels (watched it again when I realized what was going on). I like the new mechanics they show. Some folks might consider them spoilerish though.

I liked the gels, but I do share some concerns of the tractor beams needing some split second timing. It probably won't end up being a big deal though, I'm sure that there is some dispenser with infinite cubes in case you lose the first few.

I like how you can see the care that valve goes through to gradually teach the player in these shown items. You start out with "Faith Plates" that send you jumping from place to place, but they are fixed in the level and uncontrollable. Then once you are comfortable with the idea of powering up your jump to solve puzzles they bring in the repulsive goo that you have to place yourself.

I wonder what kind of post-release support this will get, especially as it's a multiplayer title. I've got mixed feelings on how much they should explore all the mechanics and all possible combinations of them in devious puzzles in the singleplayer. Should they keep the game concise and only as long as it needs to be without drawing it out, especially if there's a story in there.

I love the writing in the intro slides.

New footage, release date (Feb 9, 2011), and news that Stephen Merchant has taken over voicing the character of Wheatley — rockpapershotgun.

lostlobster wrote:

New footage, release date (Feb 9, 2011), and news that Stephen Merchant has taken over voicing the character of Wheatley — rockpapershotgun.

Sweet, Portal 2 by holiday 2011!

mrtomaytohead wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

New footage, release date (Feb 9, 2011), and news that Stephen Merchant has taken over voicing the character of Wheatley — rockpapershotgun.

Sweet, Portal 2 by holiday 2011!

IMAGE(http://pw0nd.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.jpg)

Hello co-op.

GLaDOS seems a bit more vicious this time around.

Via Rock Paper Shotgun:

Press Release wrote:

VALVE ANNOUNCES SHORTEST DELAY IN VALVE HISTORY

Valve today announced that Portal 2 — the sequel to the ground-breaking title that won over 30 game of the year awards, despite missing its original ship date — will now be available the week of April 18th, 2011. This two month slip not only marks the shortest delay in Valve’s proud tradition of delays, it represents the approaching convergence of Valve Time and Real Time. Though this convergence spells doom for humanity, it will not affect the new Portal 2 release date.

For more information, please visit www.thinkwithportals.com

Downside, it no longer releases on my birthday. Upside, it now releases during a time I won't be utterly crushed by new games.

DAMN YOU VALVE!!!

(in other news, they did say there's something to be announced for L4D2 on Friday - http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=... )

Bummer, but upside for me is now I have less time to wait to play it.

This two month slip not only marks the shortest delay in Valve’s proud tradition of delays, it represents the approaching convergence of Valve Time and Real Time. Though this convergence spells doom for humanity, it will not affect the new Portal 2 release date.

Goddamnit Valve, i love you.

Arf.

Very cool Handheld Portal Device replica that you can buy at the Penny Arcade child's play auction:
IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4110/5198423169_fc70486671_z.jpg)

That's real? It looks like a nice 3D model. Very nice

Damn, that's gorgeous. I'm betting it ain't going to go cheap.

This is a little crazy: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/18/po...

PC and PS3 cross-platform multiplayer? Plus, the PS3 version comes with keys for the PC/Mac version. I may actually buy the PS3 version of this. I'll get Portal 2 for PS3, PC, and Mac. I never buy games for $60 anymore, but I'll pay $20 per platform.

Also, the timing of this is crazy coincidental. The PS3 is busted wide open. The Call of Duty guys have already been talking about how their future games will have to include additional security to prevent piracy, weapon unlock hacking, and achievement hacking. How weird would it be if developers started using Steam on the PS3 to prevent piracy just like they've been doing for PC?

I think it's obvious that Valve paid those hackers to break the PS3.

That IS sweet. I would have never even contemplated a PS3 version until I read the point about getting the PC license thrown in.

This is crazy. The first time any of the big three have been even remotely open to something like this. This could also mean that Valve in the future will be able to bypass Sony's sluggish certification process when updating Portal 2.

It's also a brilliant strategy by Valve. There are so many gamers out there who are afraid of PC gaming for one reason or another, but if they can get just some of those PS3 Portal 2 gamers to just TRY Steam and see it in it's full glory this will work out big for them.

I'm also betting that Valve has a sick Steam sale right around the time Portal 2 is released. I can just imagine the PS3 console only owners trying out Steam for the first time and being mind blown, "I can get Mirror's Edge...for 2 dollars?!"

Wow. I was definitely not expecting that. I have a few PC-less buddies I can play co-op with now.

You know, thinking through this, I think this is Valve's attack at MS's policies on Xbox as much as anything.

And I don't have a problem with that. Good luck to them opening things up a bit on the cert process and cost situation.

I still don't understand how Criterion got away with giving as much content away for Burnout Paradise as they did.

BNice wrote:

It's also a brilliant strategy by Valve. There are so many gamers out there who are afraid of PC gaming for one reason or another, but if they can get just some of those PS3 Portal 2 gamers to just TRY Steam and see it in it's full glory this will work out big for them.

Yeah, I'm surprised Sony let them do this. They are essentially letting a competing game platform advertise for itself and undermine PSN.

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So, do you need to be use a Steam account to play the game on PS3? I don't see them selling two independent copies for the price of one.

BNice wrote:

It's also a brilliant strategy by Valve. There are so many gamers out there who are afraid of PC gaming for one reason or another, but if they can get just some of those PS3 Portal 2 gamers to just TRY Steam and see it in it's full glory this will work out big for them.

I'm also betting that Valve has a sick Steam sale right around the time Portal 2 is released. I can just imagine the PS3 console only owners trying out Steam for the first time and being mind blown, "I can get Mirror's Edge...for 2 dollars?!"

And then they'll find out that they can't run any of those games on their dinky laptops.

kyrieee wrote:

So, do you need to be use a Steam account to play the game on PS3? I don't see them selling two independent copies for the price of one.

I don't understand this. A Steam account doesn't cost anything. I would suspect you have to have one, but it's no different than free EA accounts being required for multiplayer games.

Also, they already offer multiplatform licenses on Valve games. PC to Mac.

What will be interesting is if they release this like ME2, where it's downloadable from day one via PSN. That way you'd not have to have a retail box at all. It would probably save Valve some publishing costs.

Subscribing, then back to black-out for the next few months.

Certis wrote:

THREAD LEVEL UP!

NEW RANK: CATCH-ALL

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+1 Relevance
+3 Longevity
+10 Resistance to Cleveland

A WILD RANGER RICK HAS APPEARED.

[size=9]just adding myself to the thread ;)[/size]