Portal 2 Catch-All

Posting to both tag the thread, and to share my never-fails solution to any puzzle. If you find yourself stuck, just do what I do:

Spoiler:

1) Get stuck on a puzzle that feels blindingly obvious, only you're too stupid to figure it out.

2) Try in vain to look up a walkthrough solution/hint on GWJ on a Day 1/Day 2 purchase, even though nobody's found a chance to post a solution yet since they're all too bleary-eyed from beating the game.

3) Use a five-year old computer with RAM problems so waking it up from sleep takes forever. This step is vital.

4) While it's trying to load a page -- even Google -- and hanging in a Does Not Respond loop, pick up the controller and fart around until you see the blindingly obvious solution.

5) Obligatory ? and Profit lines here.

I should note that I'm playing on 360, so results for our PC friends may vary.

All that said, I'm loving it.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Had a lot of fun playing with MrWynd last night. I was on PS3 (waiting for the PC version to download) and I think he was on PC. We really got our co-op on, even though I was clearly the better robot (Atlas).

One thing I will say - definitely unrelated - is that if you aren't sure what to do, don't shoot your portals at your teammate's. They might have an idea, or at least be playing with the right idea, and if you keep evaporating their portals you're effectively stopping them from experimenting. That could in turn might stop them from solving the puzzle.

The co-op mode is really well done. Some of the puzzles you can do solo, sure, and some of them are kind of heavy-handed (like passing a block through a hole in the wall). Others really require you to change how you think. You can do a LOT more with four portals than two, and a lot more with two people than one. Something as simple as passing a block up to your partner on a ledge can change how the game plays.

Out of curiosity, how did the PS3 to PC voice chat work, and did you experience any issues with anything?

I don't have a PS3 headset so I couldn't really tell you. Wynd's voicechat sounded like voicechat typically does with no headset: relatively low quality and I usually had no idea what he was saying. I heard him laughing when I was being a total dick to him so that's really the important part. I also had to get up to type messages on my computer so really, I would not recommend you play on PS3 if you have the option. My choice was between playing immediately or waiting for an 11GB download so I popped it in and got going. There was no more to my choice than that.

I was just curious how well it was implemented. I don't have a PS3 anymore. Sounds like they got it working okay.

muttonchop and I did cross-platform last night with no problems. I do have a wireless keyboard plugged into my PS3 though. So I was able to hit select and type in chat to him with very little delay. The only reason we didn't get to test voice was that my bluetooth headset battery was dead. It must have been left on standby last time I used it for killzone 3 and died. But I could hear his voice fine, although it was a little quiet coming through the speakers compared to the main game sound.

My headset is now charged though, so I'm ready to play with anyone this afternoon and test some more.

SP down. I like the

Spoiler:

Turret opera

Scratched wrote:

SP down. I like the

Spoiler:

Turret opera

I loved all the little details there:

Spoiler:

Like the Animal King in the background, and the fat turret also showed up in one of the elevator tubes near the beginning of the game.

I just picked this up last night and I'm enjoying it so far. If anyone is looking for someone to play co-op with, feel free to friend me up. I'm playing on PS3, but I do have a headset.

Scratched wrote:

SP down. I like the

Spoiler:

Turret opera

What's really impressive is that I'm 99.9% sure it's an original piece.

Spoiler:

I ran through my extensive catalog of classical Italian pieces and couldn't find anything approaching it. I caught several phrases that are used elsewhere, but there's one that stood out: "lontana da scienza", which roughly translates "[stay] away from science." It's from scratch. Very cool. (Also, the 1, 5/7, 6-, 4 chord progression was really uncommon in Italian opera, but super common in today's music.)

*Don't watch this unless you're done with the game*

The whole dialogue from the best character in the game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL35k...

Yeeeah, I'm a blackbelt in pretty much everything... Karate, JUjitsu, bedroom...

Just checking, is anyone else finding that enabling the developer console counts as a cheat (even though sv_cheats is 0) and disables achievements and unlocking chapters?

I'm stuck on the same 3 turret room people have mentioned a couple of times. I've been on it for an hour.

Mex wrote:

*Don't watch this unless you're done with the game*

The whole dialogue from the best character in the game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL35k...

Yeeeah, I'm a blackbelt in pretty much everything... Karate, JUjitsu, bedroom...

All three of them were totally awesome

I need to run back through and wait on everyone and everything. I waited a few times just to see how many lines there were without repetition, but got too antsy to finish the rest of the game. (Steam says it took me 6.6 hours total). Found a couple Rat King caches but obviously wasn't hunting them unless they were fairly obvious. Can take my time next time (maybe for the dev commentary runthrough).

Minarchist wrote:

I need to run back through and wait on everyone and everything. I waited a few times just to see how many lines there were without repetition, but got too antsy to finish the rest of the game. (Steam says it took me 6.6 hours total). Found a couple Rat King caches but obviously wasn't hunting them unless they were fairly obvious. Can take my time next time (maybe for the dev commentary runthrough).

What the hell, 6 hours? It took me like 10, I guess I'm an idiot : p.

The Dev commentary is awesome but I'm totally burned out on puzzles right now.

Thin_J wrote:

I'm stuck on the same 3 turret room people have mentioned a couple of times. I've been on it for an hour.

There's probably nothing you've missed, just think about how you can use the things in the room to disable them.

Scratched wrote:

Just checking, is anyone else finding that enabling the developer console counts as a cheat (even though sv_cheats is 0) and disables achievements and unlocking chapters?

I've had it enabled from the start and have been getting achievements.

You know, I'm glad the writing didn't fall back on easy jokes or popular memes for the most part, but I also appreciated

Spoiler:

the call-backs to the companion cube and the cake.

Mex wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

I need to run back through and wait on everyone and everything. I waited a few times just to see how many lines there were without repetition, but got too antsy to finish the rest of the game. (Steam says it took me 6.6 hours total). Found a couple Rat King caches but obviously wasn't hunting them unless they were fairly obvious. Can take my time next time (maybe for the dev commentary runthrough).

What the hell, 6 hours? It took me like 10, I guess I'm an idiot : p.

The Dev commentary is awesome but I'm totally burned out on puzzles right now.

11 hrs for me. That's pretty impressive!

EDIT: Also,

Spoiler:

I'm in Spaaaaaaaaace.

I, uh, solve a lot of puzzles. I'd bet there are people who got through it faster than me, though.

Speedhuntr wrote:
Spoiler:

I'm in Spaaaaaaaaace.

Spoiler:

I know you are, mate...yep...we're both in space.

I think Friday or Saturday I'm going to try to finish up coop and do an achievement run in SP.

Here are sound files for all three, uh, things at the end of the game. Note that these are complete, and pulled from the sound files. The one Mex grabbed was less than half of that particular character's lines.

Just had a great coop run with Radical_Ans. We finished up world 2 and 3, whatever they are called. Coop is really challenging, but you get two brains working on it so it evens out.

Also, had my headset this time, I think we could hear each other great. He probably heard more than he wanted, since there's no push-to-talk on PS3. My cats were definitely making some background noise.

We may have found one other problem with PS3-PC coop. He said he had the TF2 hats selected for his robots, but they weren't showing up on his or my screen. Not sure if any of that DLC store stuff will appear if you are playing with a PS3 player in coop. Would kinda make that a waste of money on PC, or worse, make PC players actively avoid coop with PS3 players.

About the gels and outer space and the ending:

Spoiler:

The white gel comes from moon rocks, so that's why you have to shoot for the moon. The whole damn Moon is Portal-able. Goddamn it Valve! I thought it was just luck

Goddamn game is making me feel stupid even after I finished it

Thin_J wrote:

Finished it

Awesome game.

Bummed there's no individual level select option after beating it though. I really wanted that.

The Dev commentary allows you to select chapters, you could just ignore the commentary if you want =)

I'm about to replay it with commentary turned on and I thought I'd try it using a controller this time...but I can't seem to get it to work. I'm using the wireless 360 pc controller and I'm getting no response. I looked for some sort of "enable controller" checkbox or button but came up short. Can anyone point on the stupid thing I'm missing?

Finished it

Awesome game.

Bummed there's no individual level/puzzle select option after beating it though. I really wanted that. Instead they just give you chapter selection list.

Good to hear about the chapter selection. I was kicking myself for not making more saves and thinking I'd have to replay the whole game for the few achievements I missed. Would much rather focus on a few parts.

One thing I've found out, since for whatever reason it's seeing the game as cheats off now, is that developer commentary mode counts for unlocking chapters and achievements.

I didn't have trouble with that 3 turret puzzle, but I also beat the co-op before the single player, so I had dealt with that problem before. White goo puzzles are definitely the hardest. I always covered an unnecessary amount of surface with it.

Mex wrote:

*Don't watch this unless you're done with the game*

The whole dialogue from the best character in the game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL35k...

Yeeeah, I'm a blackbelt in pretty much everything... Karate, JUjitsu, bedroom...

Happy Explosion Day, gorgeous

Are there any advanced challenge rooms in this game?

Unfortunately not. Hopefully they release an SDK though

you know they will. why else would they have hats and butt flags.

i just hope the updates don't crawl out like the L4D2 updates