Portal 2 Catch-All

So I'm just wondering but should we start a Portal 2 Co-Op thread so people (like me) who want to find some Goojers to play with can find some?

I can't believe the volume of this thread. When I checked Monday, there were 749 new posts. Then another 200-400 each day afterward.

Anyway...does Wheatley come back? I rather liked him.

Hit me up for multi-player. I'd rather like to try it out.

This game is so great.

That's all I've got. That, and getting a free copy of Portal 2 for working hard on getting Portal 2 released is.....what's that one word....

But I gifted it to some lucky guy who couldn't afford it, so it's all good

Jim Sterling rules.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Anyway...does Wheatley come back? I rather liked him.

Do you really want to know?

Spoiler:

Yes. In a big way.

So I replayed Portal with the dev commentaries just to see if I still thought it was harder. I do not. Got stumped many more times in Portal 2. Just placing portals and not having to worry about gels and such made the game much easier. Still going to play through the advanced and challenge levels later.

They also have a setting called Portal Funnel which help you fall into portals more easily (something that I'm pretty sure is defaulted in Portal 2). I'm thinking I just remember it being more difficult because "flinging" was more prominent and more difficult. I was playing with on a 360 and The Orange Box had pretty bad controller support.

4dSwissCheese wrote:

I'll be on in about 15-20 minutes and looking to do some co-op as well.

Well SwissCheese and I finished co-op. I guess it's 5 chapters/worlds then. Really enjoyed the last one. Some devious puzzles in there. We spent a lot of time standing around looking at things, or hitting buttons to see what they did and going from there. I think any complaints about single player being too easy are more than made up for by co-op. Tough stuff. Nothing impossible, but it really takes some thinking, planning, coordination and communication. Glad my bluetooth was working today, I don't think I'd want to do it without voice chat.

Stele wrote:

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. :(

One thing to note for the PC crowd. Voice is not push to talk. It's voice activated. I found this out after my game w/ Stele earlier in the day, so I'm pretty sure he herd me talking on the phone w/ my wife ;).

I think the coop is even better than the single player. There's such a sense of camaraderie when you and your partner (in science) successfully solve the puzzles together. If you have a significant other, you should play it with them.

Radical Ans wrote:

One thing to note for the PC crowd. Voice is not push to talk. It's voice activated. I found this out after my game w/ Stele earlier in the day, so I'm pretty sure he herd me talking on the phone w/ my wife ;).

Haha. I did hear the phone ring. But then I took off my earpiece and went to the bathroom. Sounds like neither one of us heard the other, which is good.

Oh yeah the coop had an awesome tagline at the end as well. Spoilers.

Spoiler:

You saved science!

I think I enjoy that more than the single player end quotes.

Spoiler:

I'm in space!

Just finished Co-op with Xeknos. Holy crap was that fun. I swear to god we spent 20 minutes trying to figure out this one puzzle tried all sorts of stuff, and than we realized what the solution, and smacked our heads.

Such a great game. Definitely play the single player before doing Co-op. I think it is a much better experience that way spoiler wise.

Bravo Valve.

Spoiler:

Can't wait for Portal 3.

Think I'm going to be picking this up this weekend, I have a break next week thanks to a cluster of public holidays. Hopefully people will still be up for co-op by the time I'm through the SP.

Gaald wrote:

Just finished Co-op with Xeknos. Holy crap was that fun. I swear to god we spent 20 minutes trying to figure out this one puzzle tried all sorts of stuff, and than we realized what the solution, and smacked our heads.

Which one? SwissCheese and I had a couple we stared at for a while, but I think only the very last one took us a lot of time, and we overcomplicated the solution.

i38warhawk wrote:

So I replayed Portal with the dev commentaries just to see if I still thought it was harder. I do not. Got stumped many more times in Portal 2. Just placing portals and not having to worry about gels and such made the game much easier. Still going to play through the advanced and challenge levels later.

They also have a setting called Portal Funnel which help you fall into portals more easily (something that I'm pretty sure is defaulted in Portal 2). I'm thinking I just remember it being more difficult because "flinging" was more prominent and more difficult. I was playing with on a 360 and The Orange Box had pretty bad controller support.

I found myself getting stuck way more often in Portal 1 once you get out of the chambers. Portal 2 felt like it did a good job of guiding me. I only had trouble when I was in a large room and/or had to deal with white goo, but the clues were there.

I found that in co-op, my "partner in science" and I solved quite a few puzzles in ways that weren't intended. We found ourselves saying "So what was this cube for?" or "There were two obviously marked surfaces we didn't use". Made us pretty happy to think we're breaking rules.

kexx wrote:
Byrne wrote:

Just read a bunch of rambling on the Steam forum, and I'm convinced that

Spoiler:

Cave's wife was named Caroline. When Cave died, Caroline was turned into an A.I. named GLaDOS and began running Aperture Science.

and I'm partially convinced that

Spoiler:

Chell is their adopted child.

I'm on the same boat. I'm gonna have to play again just to find some more clues!!!

Spoiler:

I'm pretty convinced that Chell is the daughter of Cave and Caroline, not even adopted. The photos side by side make it seem possible and it just feels right to the story.

This additional info makes Portal 2 resonate all the more for me. Perfect marriage of great story, dialogue and problem solving. Everything I look for in a videogame.
However, being familiar with Stephen Merchant kind of took me out of it here and there. The voice seemed simply too distictive. However, J.K Simmons voice acting was perfect, I've been somewhat a fan of his for a while but had no idea until the credits rolled that he was voice acting in the game, and brilliantly I might add. Loved that character.

Still hoping for someone to link to all the developer commentaries so I can listen to them all back to back, but until then I'm working my way through the game with Developer Commentaries, which might be a good thing given the above spoilers.

However, early there was a mention of only one remaining 'impossible space' left in the game. That being a space that couldn't realistically exist within the map space. I'm guessing it was

Spoiler:

the Moon.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Lastly, given the above info as fact, I'd say that would guarantee

Spoiler:

a Portal 3 and it would make it unlikely to be a strong crossover with Half-Life.

Thoughts?

So I was fishing around in the game assets, and found something pretty interesting I think. Behold: Chell's family!

Spoiler:

Okay, so probably not. Have no idea what it is suppose to be really. A Valve in-joke? Something that got cut? Who knows!

Finished around 8 hours. Strong start, strong finish, and some good stuff in Chapter's 5 and 6. Otherwise, I had a problem with some of the pacing, some puzzles are either too obtuse or demand perfection, and the humor definitely wasn't as strong as in Portal. I also expect the unexpected from Valve, especially considering this is a puzzle game, but got pretty much what I expected, with a few exceptions to be sure.

Worst puzzles? I absolutely hated almost all the exclusive blu goo ones. Not sure why; not exited to replay to remember why.

Also, the "old" Aperture pedestal buttons can die a long and painful death in bad art design hell. I was constantly missing those things, and in one puzzle I was stuck for 15 minutes because they placed one in the wall, which was the same color. You stumped me!

Man, I love "x" commentary.

Co-op tomorrow.

Is there a way to skip ahead in the developer commentary. I thought I was done with a section and quit, but it turns out there was still a little bit more. I'd hate to have to play through that whole section again just for a bit of commentary.

Spoiler:

I like to hear the full version of the second to last song. It's very beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPyG...

In an interesting discovery, after beating both single and coop on PS3, when I just started up the PC version I can create a new game from any chapter, or dev commentary in both single and coop.

I guess it links up achievements instead of searching for a save file that says I passed a certain chapter or something?

Thirteenth wrote:
Spoiler:

I like to hear the full version of the second to last song. It's very beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPyG...

I've been looking through the sound files for the exact same thing with zero luck, I believe it only exists in the movie file. Looks like we have to hope that Valve will provide a cleaner/longer version for us, they've released soundtracks before so that might be a possibility.

Finished the single player today. This was such a great game. I'm looking forward to playing it again for achievements. I'm a little surprised I missed stuff because I was looking everywhere. I spent the first quarter of the game obsessively taking out cameras just like in Portal 1 only to realize there isn't an achievement for it. I have some questions about some of the achievements:

Spoiler:

What chapters are the Pit Boss, Final Transmission, Good Listener and Ship Overboard achievements in? Again, I'm really surprised I managed to miss all of these.

How many vitrified doors are there? I only managed to get to three.

How does coop work if you don't play through the whole thing in one session? Can you pick which course to start on?

The lemon rant may be the greatest thing ever.

Just beat singleplayer for the second time, this round with a 360 controller and commentary turned on. Only took me about 4 hours this time. Oh what a difference knowing puzzle solutions can make; I think I actually solved one of the puzzles completely differently than I did the first time. Weird how that happens.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I have some questions about some of the achievements:

Spoiler:

What chapters are the Pit Boss, Final Transmission, Good Listener and Ship Overboard achievements in? Again, I'm really surprised I managed to miss all of these.

How many vitrified doors are there? I only managed to get to three.

Spoiler:

You get Good Listener during the escape with Wheatley, if you listen to GLaDOS and go to the "final test" instead of following Wheatley (she kills you with neurotoxin). I think you get Pit Boss from Wheatley's first test, because that's also where you get Dual Pit Experiment. I don't know how you get Pit Boss, though. I'm still looking for the others.

Stele wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Just finished Co-op with Xeknos. Holy crap was that fun. I swear to god we spent 20 minutes trying to figure out this one puzzle tried all sorts of stuff, and than we realized what the solution, and smacked our heads.

Which one? SwissCheese and I had a couple we stared at for a while, but I think only the very last one took us a lot of time, and we overcomplicated the solution.

Spoiler:

It was one of the light bridge levels. It was out in the open you are faced with some rather large steel girders. The exit is straight in front of you but raised high and several feet away with nothing connecting to it which meant you had to vault yourself there. The solution was for you and your partner to fly through the air at the same time colliding in midair so that you could fall straight onto the landing. We kept trying to do it one at, and looking for ways to slow the persons momentum before the final portal launch.

muttonchop wrote:
iaintgotnopants wrote:

I have some questions about some of the achievements:

Spoiler:

What chapters are the Pit Boss, Final Transmission, Good Listener and Ship Overboard achievements in? Again, I'm really surprised I managed to miss all of these.

How many vitrified doors are there? I only managed to get to three.

Spoiler:

You get Good Listener during the escape with Wheatley, if you listen to GLaDOS and go to the "final test" instead of following Wheatley (she kills you with neurotoxin). I think you get Pit Boss from Wheatley's first test, because that's also where you get Dual Pit Experiment. I don't know how you get Pit Boss, though. I'm still looking for the others.

Spoiler:

Ship Overboard is probably when you find the hidden door that leads to the dock where the Borealis (half life 2) ship was. You have to fling yourself up to the highest level of the control room when you first encounter 1970s aperture.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Spoiler:

What chapters are the Pit Boss, Final Transmission, Good Listener and Ship Overboard achievements in? Again, I'm really surprised I managed to miss all of these.

Bare Bones:

Spoiler:

Pit Boss - Chapter 9
Final Transmission - Chapter 2
Good Listener - Chapter 4
Ship Overboard - Chapter 6

Don't be afraid to die!

Big Spoilers:

Spoiler:

Pit Boss - After you escape Wheatley's spike trap, stick around on the catwalks. He'll ask you to jump into the pit, you can figure it out from there.
Final Transmission - Chamber 6: Grab the radio from the garbage, then portal jump through a broken window into the room you can see from the raised exit area (above the diagonal plates you portaled through earlier)
Good Listener - Covered above
Ship Overboard - There is a hidden doorway behind a cabinet in the beginning of the 70s area, just check the corners of all the office rooms until you find it. This is also the location of the last 3 vitrified doors.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Spoiler:

How many vitrified doors are there? I only managed to get to three.

Spoiler:

Six, split into 2 groups of 3 each.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

How does coop work if you don't play through the whole thing in one session? Can you pick which course to start on?

Yes, there is a short training course the first time you play co-op, then you are put into a hub area from where you can select what course and level to play. If both co-op partners have gone through training, you start at the hub area right away. The courses unlock sequentially, up to the furthest progress of either co-op partner. It works out very nicely.

I have maney hats also but did not bringe them.

Gaald wrote:
Spoiler:

It was one of the light bridge levels. It was out in the open you are faced with some rather large steel girders. The exit is straight in front of you but raised high and several feet away with nothing connecting to it which meant you had to vault yourself there. The solution was for you and your partner to fly through the air at the same time colliding in midair so that you could fall straight onto the landing. We kept trying to do it one at, and looking for ways to slow the persons momentum before the final portal launch.

Oh god, that took us like an hour. We did the exact same thing before figuring it out.