toblix

Portal 2

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i actually didn't notice the

cave johnson fourth-wall stuff until my second playthrough. it kind of tricks you the first time by being funny enough that you don't think about it.

what i did notice immediately, and which bugged me, was the GLaDOS/Caroline thing. i always hate, hate, hate when the viewer/player is given the same amount of information as the characters, but it takes the characters longer to piece things together. the ideal formula is to give the viewer enough information to make good guesses at where the story should go without being too obvious about it. Otherwise, it goes one of two ways: the viewer gets mad that the characters are stupid and can't figure out the obvious; or that the plot resolution comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with previously presented information, making the viewer feel stupid.

ultimately those are pretty minor points but in a game made by folks pretty much known for creating near-perfect games, they kind of stand out.

I also agree about the load screens. there was at least one point where I ended up cutting GLaDOS off mid-sentence by accident by triggering a loading screen and that strikes me as some kind of failure.

it'll be interesting to see if Valve ultimately patches some of the things people complain about like the static loading screens or the lack of a proper level select (why on earth can't you save while playing with the commentary on? that makes no damn sense to me). I hope they do

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what i did notice immediately, and which bugged me, was the GLaDOS/Caroline thing. i always hate, hate, hate when the viewer/player is given the same amount of information as the characters, but it takes the characters longer to piece things together. the ideal formula is to give the viewer enough information to make good guesses at where the story should go without being too obvious about it. Otherwise, it goes one of two ways: the viewer gets mad that the characters are stupid and can't figure out the obvious; or that the plot resolution comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with previously presented information, making the viewer feel stupid.

I was fine with that part, while it was blatantly obvious what was going on in the story Chell can't talk (which is explained perfectly) and it felt like GLaDOS instantly knew what was up but wanted time to collect/confirm her thoughts. I remember the first time she hears

Cave

she replies then instantly goes "Oh my god" in realization of what had happened which conveys that she knows.

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The thing is,

the moon extravaganza at the end

made me also first think of Chris Remo/Idle Thumbs and the game he will make at Irrational in a few years.

But it was cool and insane and still made total sense.

Slightly annoyed that I missed a few really cool achievements just because I didn't push hard enough.

Borealis reference I should've seen, I was at the frigging door, but didn't get close enough so the sliding doors would open

so I thought that is just a background art and not an actual interactive section. :(

Also the

four singing turrets bit

, I was there checking out the place and didn't really think with my brain that

you can use the laser and portals to shoot the turret behind the grill to get to Ratman's secret room and see the four turrets practising.

I'm a bit sad that there was no Half-Life 3 revelation, with the exception of Borealis dry dock

Did you guys have any problems sometimes starting to think only with the new ways of completing the puzzles, sometimes I forgot that I can just actually use the portals and not always rely on the other stuff?

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Did you guys have any problems sometimes starting to think only with the new ways of completing the puzzles, sometimes I forgot that I can just actually use the portals and not always rely on the other stuff?

I had the exact opposite problem where i'd be trying to solve a puzzle the old way and then stop and think "Oh wait, there's a gel here, I must have to use that." and 9/10 times i'd be right.

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Chell can't talk (which is explained perfectly).

it is? I must've misses that - what is the explanation?

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it is? I must've misses that - what is the explanation?

Brain damage due to being too long in hybernation

is the official explanation I think.

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Did you guys have any problems sometimes starting to think only with the new ways of completing the puzzles, sometimes I forgot that I can just actually use the portals and not always rely on the other stuff?

Yes! Almost every time with that round beam that carries stuff, I forgot that I can just make a portal and walk through it. Only when I thought I was stuck, I remembered I can do that.

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Yes! Almost every time with that round beam that carries stuff, I forgot that I can just make a portal and walk through it. Only when I thought I was stuck, I remembered I can do that.
They mention that in the dev commentary. It's the reason that they had a simple navigation puzzle right before one of those chambers. To remind players that they could use the portal gun traditionally for navigation.

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If you have an iPad, you should check out The Final Hours of Portal 2. There's plenty of interesting and cool stuff in there, but also this: "In fact, Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience."

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I might have to go back and watch it again, but I didn't think the

Cave Johnson

stuff was 4th wall breaking. Sure, it was heavy handed, but I thought it fit since

all his employees had to go through that test and Cave had been shown to make audio logs he shouldn't have made. Quote: I pay the bills here, I'll talk about the control group all damn day. When I took into account his mental state due to his illness, it fit for me.

My favorite line from that section is when

he says "There'll always be a limo waiting for you," at the end of the 1st Old Aperture Science section. The way you're guided to the condemned exit just made that line feel forlorn. It gets me every time, and it's because it's more subdued and tied to your environment.

In general, I liked the approach of presenting a bunch of test chamber overseers, because they garner different reactions despite key similarities.

Brain damage due to being too long in hybernation

is the official explanation I think.

It was a funny joke, but I don't actually buy this. She doesn't talk because she's a silent protagonist. Having

brain damage of the speech centre of her brain

is far too convenient. The only "negative" effect of the sequel transition being the loss of an ability she's never used and never would have used is a bit contrived. It would be like Episode 3 starting with the combine cutting out Freeman's tongue.

I would've bought her being mute in general far more than this Portal 2 specific reasoning.

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"In fact, Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience."

That's weird. Did that quote/sentiment come from Gabe?*

* Kasavin

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It was a funny joke, but I don't actually buy this. She doesn't talk because she's a silent protagonist.

There's a few references to her not being able to speak throughout the game. It's just the designers' way of acknowledging the weird Valve/mute protagonist thing they have going. It's about time they dumped that, but they made fun of it here, giving the player a reason for her silence if they needed one.

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From what I am gathering here, I should of looked harder for easter eggs/hidden sections. The only 'hidden' thing I found was the

coffee mug room

.

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I actually liked the

Cave and Caroline parts - partly because J.K Simmons has such a great voice, and partly because it created a break and a fresh set of characters - Merchant had a lot of dialogue during his sections, and I was rather pining for the cool introductions and the the space and the silence of the testing chambers (even then, GLaDOS was talking and narrating a lot more). But it also had something which I think the original Portal had a lot more of, although it's hard to quantify, which is pathos.

The different ages of Aperture were an obvious way to introduce new gameplay elements programatically, but there was something simultaneously very broad but quite touching about the intertwined stories of Cave and Aperture, through the utopian early 60s (where everything is IRRADIATED! For SCIENCE!) to the increasingly embittered and bankrupt 70s. It's funny, and it's silly, but it's also sort of sad.

To be honest, I found myself playing for the narrative, the aesthetics and the character notes rather than the gameplay itself, quite often. Which was still fun, but in the single-player mode it still feels like, however many extra elements there are, they still need to be assembled in a single, particular way in most cases. It's almost like a crossword where getting the elements in the right place is the game, and bouncing triumphantly through them is just the bit at the end where you look at the completed crossword with satisfaction. Without the novelty of the whole setup, which was such a kick in Portal, it felt like quite a "cool" experience, in a McLuhany way - sometimes more like a participatory movie than a pure gaming experience. I'm looking forward to spending more time on the 2-player, which seems like a more chaotic and immediate experience.

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Brain damage due to being too long in hybernation

is the official explanation I think.

My issue with this is that she couldn't talk in the first one either (sans hibernation, story-wise, but she may have been prior) and at the end of 2 GLaDoS calls her

". . .you (a word I forget) dangerous mute. . ."

so I really don't know what the deal with that is.

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I actually liked the

Cave and Caroline parts - partly because J.K Simmons has such a great voice, and partly because it created a break and a fresh set of characters - Merchant had a lot of dialogue during his sections, and I was rather pining for the cool introductions and the the space and the silence of the testing chambers (even then, GLaDOS was talking and narrating a lot more). But it also had something which I think the original Portal had a lot more of, although it's hard to quantify, which is pathos.

The different ages of Aperture were an obvious way to introduce new gameplay elements programatically, but there was something simultaneously very broad but quite touching about the intertwined stories of Cave and Aperture, through the utopian early 60s (where everything is IRRADIATED! For SCIENCE!) to the increasingly embittered and bankrupt 70s. It's funny, and it's silly, but it's also sort of sad.

I loved all that stuff as well. I just didn't like that

Cave

's narration turned into a personal audio diary without any narrative reason is all. You didn't end up

in his personal office

to hear that stuff, nor did you flip a switch on the PA system to change over the broadcast to start emitting his private files or anything -- no story reason explains the change -- but somehow you still end up

hearing his dying wishes

broadcast publicly, and presumably on loop, to any test subject wandering the halls of Aperture. Again, not the end of the world. It was super entertaining through and through, but that stood out for me.

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My justification for Cave's

sudden dive into the self-expressive loony-bin, was the moon-dust poison addling his mind in some way.

I really, really liked Cave Johnson, so much. J.K. Simmons has such a voice it makes me happy to listen to him. Similar to say, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones or Jeremy Irons.

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That's very true - I think I rationalised it to myself on the grounds that

at that point Aperture and Cave are both desperate and insane - robots are replacing humans, employees are being forced to run the tests, posters are warning people about the possible arrival of a variety of federal agents. so, Cave's internal narrative has broken into his audio recordings, and the distinction between instructions to test subjects, communications to employees and his stream of consciousness has broken down. You're right, though - there's no reason why he would be recording the announcements, but I just about rationalised it.

That's probably partly because System Shock, Deus Ex, Doom 3 and the like have conditioned me uncritically to accept that people leave small audio or text logs scattered around (one per device), which contain a surprising amount of soul-searching and very little procedurally useful information.

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Apparently the devs likened the rivalry between Black Mesa and Aperture Science as "the snobs vs the slobs". (Kind of like Caddyshack.) Aperture Science being the lovable slobs.

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That's weird. Did that quote/sentiment come from Gabe?*

* Kasavin

I interpreted it like that, though it's not explicitly stated.

One of the main reasons I would miss playing Valve single player games is their absolutely fantastic level design. Ever since Half-Life they've been the best at level design, in every respect. Textures, layout, you name it. Like mentioned about, they're able to evoke strong feelings just through level design alone, even when there's nobody around but the player. The exit locations, for example, with elevator doors, huge "elevator to surface" signs above them, thoroughly barred. The enormous caverns with endless towers of abandoned, crumbling structures. The rat man dens. When opening the giant vault door to the abandoned test sphere labs, behind it is a smaller door with a guard chair next to it – funny, but also sad, just like the whole game, really. The puzzle rooms were the least interesting places in the game (though obviously they had to be there.) It was much more exciting when you got the chance to catch a peek of some hidden machinery before it managed to position itself perfectly, or when they mixed it up in whatever way.

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I will point out the river/speedboat section of HL2 and invalidate your entire argument, Toblix. :yep:

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I will point out the river/speedboat section of HL2 and invalidate your entire argument, Toblix. :yep:

Oh man I loved the speedboat section, once you get that gun you know the Combine is in for some serious shit. And that helicopter battle at sunset is one of my favorite parts in the game.

Also when it say's "isolated single-player experience" do you think they mean a single player experience with very limited to none character interactions?

Even though you pick up potatOS and Wheatly

the Aperture Science facility is a pretty isolating place, where as in Half Life 2 you meet plenty of named characters as well as an ordinary rebel dude on the ground and explore a variety of places.

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I will point out the river/speedboat section of HL2 and invalidate your entire argument, Toblix. :yep:

This is the segment that's referenced the most often when people are critiquing HL2, so it's probably the worst part, but I honestly don't see it. To me, HL2 was an unrelenting torrent of awesomeness. I've probably been everywhere in that game, and I love every little cranny. I'm probably overestimating their attention to detail, but their design seems so incredibly detail oriented, thorough and deliberate.

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I will point out the river/speedboat section of HL2 and invalidate your entire argument, Toblix. :yep:

That's one of my favourite parts of the game!

Also what is this rat man thing? Did I miss something in Portal 2?

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