Portal 2 Catch-All

MannishBoy wrote:

Finished. Fun ride.

Laughed during the credits when Nolan North came up as a voice actor. He's everywhere.

I want to do the co-op, but will be out of town most of the weekend. Hopefully some people will still be co-op virgins next week.

What in the world did Mr. North voice??

Speedhuntr wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

Finished. Fun ride.

Laughed during the credits when Nolan North came up as a voice actor. He's everywhere.

I want to do the co-op, but will be out of town most of the weekend. Hopefully some people will still be co-op virgins next week.

What in the world did Mr. North voice??

Spoiler:

The defective turrets and at least the Adventure Sphere (possibly all three of the spheres).

Also just finished the single player. If anyone hasn't done the co-op and needs a partner, feel free to send me a message on Steam.

I am now getting slightly worried that by the time I'm able to play co-op everybody else will already finish it.

The Fxeni + Sinkwater team blasted through coop in 2 nights. Good times had by all!

It was interesting getting around the mic issues, the systems in place are surprisingly good for helping in those situations.

Oh yeah, Nolan North

Spoiler:

did all three spheres apparently, according to the credits.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Speedhuntr wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

Finished. Fun ride.

Laughed during the credits when Nolan North came up as a voice actor. He's everywhere.

I want to do the co-op, but will be out of town most of the weekend. Hopefully some people will still be co-op virgins next week.

What in the world did Mr. North voice??

Spoiler:

The defective turrets and at least the Adventure Sphere (possibly all three of the spheres).

Wow that's just brilliant. I would've never known.

Just finished the single player. Wow! My expectations were met and exceeded. I loved Merchant and the rest of the cast all the way to the end. I don't know if I've ever laughed out loud this much from a game. Time for some co-op.

From earlier in the thread:

Minarchist wrote:

Speaking of puzzles,

Spoiler:

I didn't seem to have problems where most did (like the three turret room). I did like the sort of "Tennessee Two-Step" solution with the blue gel on that one. The place that irked me more than any other was the huge, huge room (series of rooms?) at the end of Old Aperture, where you have to use the same spot on the ground to jump up twice, solve the puzzle with all three gels dripping straight down, then use the white gel to get all the way up the shaft and to the vault door room. Since this immediately followed the Elevator Shaft room, which was a bit finicky itself, I was totally burned out on the finicky verticality segment in an undefined space part of the game by then. Had those two areas been broken up more I probably wouldn't feel the same way.

I completely agree. That was by far the worst room for me, and I didn't have any issues with the room most people have referenced.

I'm not sure how many others feel this way, but I strongly preferred the story and storytelling in this game to anything I've played in the past couple of years. I like saving the galaxy and discovering the road to Shambhala as much as the next person, but I was so much more invested in this story because of general polish and the manner in which it was told. Excellent writing and voice acting also go a long way.

I find it kind of interesting that Portal 2 is first game since Demon's Souls to make me feel like an absolute bad-ass. Figuring out a tricky puzzle after having a good think is all kinds of awesome.

Omaha wrote:

The best parts were when things randomly went wrong (such as walking through a door and exploding the instant it shuts) :D

My co-op partners can vouch for the fact that I can kill myself on anything in co-op. Acid, grinders, turrets, lasers, crushers, pits, platforms...
I even killed myself with a weighted cube by colliding with it in midair and falling into acid.

Ok, finally completed all single player achievements, a second run through, and the audio commentary. I apologize if I didn't respond to some invites, but I really wanted to complete all that before jumping on co-op.

But I'm finally ready now. YAY!!

Also, I was already madly in love with turrets, defective turret made me fall even more. "I'm different!" LOL

Mex wrote:

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

Any chance we can update Mex's tag?

Stele wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
Stele wrote:

In bad news, PSN has been down for the last 12-13 hours or so. I'm afraid to go trophy hunting without PSN/Steam running, in case it doesn't sync over. :(

Trophies sync. Progress does not.

So if I play offline and get my trophies, when I log back in to PSN/Steam they should count still? I just wasn't sure if it would sync without being logged in, I wouldn't want to have to redo the achievements on PC. So far everything has counted for both. I don't think I've ever played any games without being automatically logged in, so I wasn't even sure if regular trophies counted. I assumed they do, but never tried it.

I was worried about my Steam achievements (I finished the game on PS3 last night while PSN was down), but even though I can't log in to Steam on my PS3 right now, the achievements are listed in the Steam overlay UI within the game, so I'm hoping that means they'll sync across to Steam once I can finally get the PS3 back online. I just hope it doesn't get confused by the fact that I played a bunch of co-op and earned a bunch of achievements on the PC today.

Barring the current PSN issue (which I won't Female Doggo about in here), the Steam experience on PS3 has been brilliant -- I've played a few co-op games with PC players with full voice chat, and I haven't had any issues at all. It looks great and runs smoothly, too, though I have to admit that even my old PC (3Ghz C2D, 8800GT) runs it much better, with an almost rock-solid framerate even at 1080p.

i38warhawk wrote:

IMAGE(http://nerfnow.com/comic/image/502)
In the Portal dev commentary they spend a lot of time talking about using subtle visual cues to help the player figure out what needed to be accomplish. In Portal 2 they're even better at using different shaped panels and lighting to indicate where a portal needs to go.

Makes the game less trial an error for sure. I can't decide if thats good or bad.

I hadn't made that observation myself, but now that you pointed it out it makes sense. I'd have to go back and play Portal 1 to compare, but it did feel like there were usually just a handful of locations to place portals at.

Finished co-op last night. Wow. Amazing game. I felt co-op gameplay was better than single-player. They need to hurry with more levels.

muttonchop wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
Spoiler:

Yeah, the thing with the moon is pretty much bananas for any number of reasons. The biggest, nerdiest reason being... how exactly does that hole in the ceiling work? The fight takes place very deep underground, as evidenced by the long elevator ride to the surface. Strikes me as very poor design for a huge rift to randomly open in your secret underground base, directly exposing its very heart and mind (unless Wheatley picked a REALLY bad place to hang out). Either way, baffling and surprising way to end the game and one I did not see coming, because I typically do not consider "the moon" to be an option for killing my foes.

Spoiler:

Wheatley is in GLaDOS's chamber, which is the same chamber from the original game. When Chell destroyed GLaDOS in Portal 1, she was sucked up through the ceiling and all the way to the surface. So, either there was always a large shaft leading up to the surface directly above GLaDOS, or her destruction in the first game blasted a hole up to the surface.

Spoiler:

That's not GLaDOS's chamber. Her chamber had a very distinct design, one that makes even the hallway leading there immediately recognizable when you visit it very early in the game (and find GLaDOS there). It had completely caved in with plants growing everywhere. You could argue that GLaDOS fixed it up, except that when you're going back up through the elevator you don't start seeing foliage for quite some time. I think that would imply Wheatley's chamber is significantly deeper in the complex. Then again you do bust through the ceiling and see the moon, so maybe it's not.

LobsterMobster wrote:
muttonchop wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:
Spoiler:

Yeah, the thing with the moon is pretty much bananas for any number of reasons. The biggest, nerdiest reason being... how exactly does that hole in the ceiling work? The fight takes place very deep underground, as evidenced by the long elevator ride to the surface. Strikes me as very poor design for a huge rift to randomly open in your secret underground base, directly exposing its very heart and mind (unless Wheatley picked a REALLY bad place to hang out). Either way, baffling and surprising way to end the game and one I did not see coming, because I typically do not consider "the moon" to be an option for killing my foes.

Spoiler:

Wheatley is in GLaDOS's chamber, which is the same chamber from the original game. When Chell destroyed GLaDOS in Portal 1, she was sucked up through the ceiling and all the way to the surface. So, either there was always a large shaft leading up to the surface directly above GLaDOS, or her destruction in the first game blasted a hole up to the surface.

Spoiler:

That's not GLaDOS's chamber. Her chamber had a very distinct design, one that makes even the hallway leading there immediately recognizable when you visit it very early in the game (and find GLaDOS there). It had completely caved in with plants growing everywhere. You could argue that GLaDOS fixed it up, except that when you're going back up through the elevator you don't start seeing foliage for quite some time. I think that would imply Wheatley's chamber is significantly deeper in the complex. Then again you do bust through the ceiling and see the moon, so maybe it's not.

I'm gonna branch this into the spoiler thread, kay?

I had a blast playing through some of the co-op last night with DanyBoy and Hypatian. The animation on the bots is hysterical, especially when they run into walls, cubes, each other, etc. I laughed aloud as we would do the most ridiculous things. Solving the puzzles was fun, but there is a lot of potential to just screw around. There are a few places I'd like to go back to just to experiment.

Oh yeah, and achievements. Gotta go back for the achievements.

kyrieee wrote:
i38warhawk wrote:

IMAGE(http://nerfnow.com/comic/image/502)
In the Portal dev commentary they spend a lot of time talking about using subtle visual cues to help the player figure out what needed to be accomplish. In Portal 2 they're even better at using different shaped panels and lighting to indicate where a portal needs to go.

Makes the game less trial an error for sure. I can't decide if thats good or bad.

I hadn't made that observation myself, but now that you pointed it out it makes sense. I'd have to go back and play Portal 1 to compare, but it did feel like there were usually just a handful of locations to place portals at.

Yeah, it was a bit more obvious in Portal 2... but you know what? I really don't care. I totally enjoyed the game despite the occasionally breadcrumb-like chamber designs.

Besides...

Spoiler:

Being able to make your own white walls offset this quite a bit. Related side-note: Did anyone else spend a long time in the first big room with the continuous stream of white gel, painting the entire room white? It was starting to feel like an epic porn flick by the end...

There. Now that I've beaten P2 SP, I can go back through this thread and finally read all of the spoilers.

An important change to me is the ambient music created by all of the puzzle effects like light bridges and lasers. Subtle, but powerful in giving multiple cues to a success.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I had to do a search for this, so if anyone is playing the commentary and finds the hidden room with the commentary bubble at the end of chapter 3 and wants to know what it is, here is an explination.. What it boils down to is explaining the ARG's background details.

Final Point on Final Slide wrote:

Combined might of internets is terrifying

Got all my hugs.

Even with all the visual cues and fewer portal placements it's interesting to see the different ways people solve the puzzles. I've done 3 co-op runs and so far they have been totally different. I thought I killed myself in strange ways till I played co-op with OG Still got to get some single player acheesements but I'm up for more co-op if anyone is interested.

Oh and evilseed I am still the better scientist. I can save science like a mofo.

If you are on 360, please FR me for some co-op this weekend. I will probably finish SP tonight/tomorrow am and be down for co-op anytime after.

drdoak wrote:

An important change to me is the ambient music created by all of the puzzle effects like light bridges and lasers. Subtle, but powerful in giving multiple cues to a success.

I noticed this last night and it's a great addition.

Valve's music is always great, but I'm wondering now how they would put it into say, HL2 or TF2 based on events happening at the time. L4D sort of has dynamic music, but it's tied tightly to the zombie events.

I was looking into the music yesterday and I came across a really interesting interview with the main composer, Mike Morasky. A lot of the music is procedural and is based off of what they did in the other games that Scratched mentioned. He mentions how some of the environmental sounds / music add to the feeling of accomplishment, meaning that when you're completing more and more pieces of a puzzle, the music starts to fill out. It's as if slight aspects of Auditorium found their way into Portal 2, which is kind of awesome when you think about it.

I'd love for Valve to release an official soundtrack, but that doesn't look like it's in the cards just yet.

SallyNasty wrote:

If you are on 360, please FR me for some co-op this weekend. I will probably finish SP tonight/tomorrow am and be down for co-op anytime after.

Oi, me, me! I'll be home Saturday night around 5pm. I can do science all through that evening and Sunday up until 8pm or so (Game of Thrones party, woo!).

I'm onto chapter 8 now, which seems like it'll be a long one. This seems to have zoomed ahead of Pokemon Black/White in the too-early GOTY race. This pains me to admit, as I so strongly dislike Valve games not named Portal.

Kinda sucks for Valve that the week this comes out and they are doing all kinds of cool things with the PS3/Steam integration is the week PSN is offline for a huge chunk of time. Some people who don't play a lot of online games might assume that Steam is the problem.

Anyone getting the dreaded SourceStutter while playing? I remember getting it with Half Life 2, where it will micro-stutter and replay audio for about a quarter of a second when first loading sounds. It didn't do it much in Chapter One, but it's happening frequently in Chapter Two so far. It's not game-breaking for me but it is annoying. I know there are numerous stutter fixes (one involving bypassing the audio caching system); not sure if any of them work for Portal 2.
Win 7/64
4 gigs RAM
Radeon 5850 (Cat 11.4)
Creative X-Fi Gamer

Blind_Evil wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

If you are on 360, please FR me for some co-op this weekend. I will probably finish SP tonight/tomorrow am and be down for co-op anytime after.

Oi, me, me! I'll be home Saturday night around 5pm. I can do science all through that evening and Sunday up until 8pm or so (Game of Thrones party, woo!).

I'm onto chapter 8 now, which seems like it'll be a long one. This seems to have zoomed ahead of Pokemon Black/White in the too-early GOTY race. This pains me to admit, as I so strongly dislike Valve games not named Portal.

Cool - I will look for you tomorrow!

Puce Moose wrote:

Anyone getting the dreaded SourceStutter while playing? I remember getting it with Half Life 2, where it will micro-stutter and replay audio for about a quarter of a second when first loading sounds. It didn't do it much in Chapter One, but it's happening frequently in Chapter Two so far. It's not game-breaking for me but it is annoying. I know there are numerous stutter fixes (one involving bypassing the audio caching system); not sure if any of them work for Portal 2.
Win 7/64
4 gigs RAM
Radeon 5850 (Cat 11.4)
Creative X-Fi Gamer

Yeah, I unfortunately got that through-out the game. It didn't bug me too much because the narrative--although entertaining--isn't the main focus.