Portal

Are they in the arcade or are thease made and played someware else?

I beat it. It didn't get hard until the second to last level.. but they're not extremely difficult and the concept isn't too complicated to grasp after a few attempts.

GamerMan wrote:Are they in the arcade or are thease made and played someware else?

Portal is a game included in the Half-Life 2 Orange Box for the PC and 360.

Breaker wrote:I beat it. It didn't get hard until the second to last level.. but they're not extremely difficult and the concept isn't too complicated to grasp after a few attempts.

Portal is a game included in the Half-Life 2 Orange Box for the PC and 360.

Oh wow, that was a blast, though. It was short, for the most part it was easy (those last couple of levels were tricky the first time around), but dang, it was fun. And that end-credits song... LMAO. I heard that they're planning to release map packs later, or something to that effect... I really hope they do, and I'm also hoping the mod community puts out some good fan-made maps, too.

It's not that hard, no... it IS fun as hell, though. I want more! And yes, the song during the credits was just plain awesome.

EDIT: Actually, you know what? Fuck the ending song. It's almost obscene level of catchiness (is that even a word? It is now!), has left me listening to the damn thing for the past half-hour. God dammit.

I love you for your edit reason, DarkDragoonX. Oh so much.

Also, is Portal not included in the PS3 version? Or is it just because PS3 is teh s uck?

I have really been thinking about getting this lately. I'll be honest, I've never played Half-Life at all. But I always hear how great it is. And this game in particular (Portal) sounds fun as hell.

I think I'm going to check when I get home to see if 360 has a demo available, at least to get a feel for how the game plays. Course, I have so much crap to play right now, especially with Mario Galaxy coming in less than a month.. ugg..

P.S. - anyone who has it, can you tell me if the Xbox 360 version controls well? I really do think that's the version I want - partially because I hate booting up my computer, dealing with potential game lag (since obviously it's not going to be optimized to everyone's machines like the 360 version will be), and so forth. Also, Achievements! 😃 But I'm hoping that the controls are at least good without a mouse/keyboard setup.

I have it on the 360 Elite, Warlock. The graphics and controls are pretty nice.

Breaker wrote:I have it on the 360 Elite, Warlock. The graphics and controls are pretty nice.

How in the blue hell are you supposed to do some of the puzzles with two sticks? Especially the end of 18, and some of the time-based challenges.

AlexMax wrote:How in the blue hell are you supposed to do some of the puzzles with two sticks? Especially the end of 18, and some of the time-based challenges.

Very carefully?

I just remember having a lot of trouble with that even with a keyboard and mouse. But apparently people are completing it, so it must not be that bad...

Argg.. I still cannot decide whether I want the PC or 360 version.. a lot of people are saying PC, but 360 also has the nice advantage of achievements and not having to mess with a ton of crap just to play the game. I don't know...

Does anyone know what the mod situation is like on PC? Are there a lot of great mods that would make that version more worthwhile?

Portal has achievements on the PC too.

Yeah but who's gonna look at them? :P Unless they can be combined w/ the 360 achievements

Edit: Haha, this is a good pro for the PC version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKg3TUPQ8Sg

Mod to put the portal gun in HL2. That looks like so much fun.

Finally picked this up today for PC. Does anyone else have a problem with the HUD in HL2 not displaying ammo correctly? Here is a picture (not mine, found it in the Steam forums from one guy with the same problem... but the stupid forum won't authenticate me automatically so I can't ask there right now until "someone approves me" -_-):
http://i23.tinypic.com/1zeuyae.jpg

It's like it's using the wrong font. Anyone know how to fix that?

Edit: Figured it out over the weekend but the boards were down. Apparently it's some graphical bug when you switch resolutions. If you quit out of the game and start it again, it goes away.

Man I want to play this, but I don't have the money to buy the Orange Box at this moment. (I want to get the other games in that too.)

Actually my birthday is coming up so maybe I can ask for that. You guys say it's short, but a puzzle game seems like it's easily moddable. Hopefully, we can get some new fan-made puzzles.

Yeah, Portal is friggin' awesome. It's kind of short, but I honestly think it's not as bad as people claim it is. Had they made it any longer, I think it would have become tedious. And technically, level 19 is really something like 5 or 6 levels. You hit the loading screen several times during it.

Also, people complain that the first several levels are very easy, which I guess is true. I just don't personally see any other way they could have done this. They need to teach quite a bit about the game, and especially stuff like flinging, I'm not sure how they could have otherwise conveyed that. In any case, to seperate this stuff into a seperate tutorial would have really taken away from the story of the game. So I don't know.

In any case, yeah, I'm sure plenty of map makers will do some crazy fun stuff with it.

I've just finished it, and I only got stuck once, on Experiment 18. And that was because I didn't realize that the pole was actually a button I needed to press. Duh.

Awesome game. And I love 'that' song. But two spolierish questions:
[Spoiler]1) Who left all those notes directing you where to go once you broke lose?
2) What exactly was the significance of Black Mesa being mentioned on the projector?[/Spoiler]

[Spoiler]1. You weren't the only test subject.
2. Either just a funny homage to the original series or an actual link between the two somehow. Someone posted a plausible theory over at HalfLife2.net.

What I want to know is, if GLaDOS killed practically everyone in the facility, especially if it was with the neurotoxin, where are the bodies?[/Spoiler]

If you like room 18, play that on the advanced map. I completed those after a few times, but the challenge maps are insane.

Dark Nation wrote:[Spoiler]1. You weren't the only test subject.
2. Either just a funny homage to the original series or an actual link between the two somehow. Someone posted a plausible theory over at HalfLife2.net.

What I want to know is, if GLaDOS killed practically everyone in the facility, especially if it was with the neurotoxin, where are the bodies?[/Spoiler]

[spoiler]Yes, it's connected to Half-Life. I believe the end of Episode 2 shows a connection (I haven't played it, but I've seen pictures of some blueprints with Apeture Science and GLaDOS written on them from that game). [/spoiler]

In any case, if you want some more information:

http://www.aperturelabratories.com/

Type: LOGIN
User: CJOHNSON
Pass: TIER3

Then type "NOTES". This gives a history of the company. You can also type HELP for a list of commands.. APPLY has you take a weird quiz and THECAKEISALIE has some other message.. the rest are mostly worthless.

Or else the wiki article has an abridged version :P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_%28video_game%29

I so want this game!! It looks awesome, and is really creative!:googly:

[spoiler]I believe Portal took place during or before Half Life 1. The charts and graphs show that Black Mesa and Aperture were in competition for funds or resources. How could they compete with Black Mesa or even care if they were destroyed? Here're some other interesting questions... GLaDOS mention there was a morality device installed on her to prevent her from spreading anymore neurotoxin, but there were still no scientists to be found. Or maybe the events you played through didn't take place during HL 1, but the scientists were killed by GLaDOS during that time, and the projectors and equipment stayed running.[/spoiler]

Masamune wrote:[spoiler]I believe Portal took place during or before Half Life 1. The charts and graphs show that Black Mesa and Aperture were in competition for funds or resources. How could they compete with Black Mesa or even care if they were destroyed? Here're some other interesting questions... GLaDOS mention there was a morality device installed on her to prevent her from spreading anymore neurotoxin, but there were still no scientists to be found. Or maybe the events you played through didn't take place during HL 1, but the scientists were killed by GLaDOS during that time, and the projectors and equipment stayed running.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]You're way off. Read the website. GLaDOS went online sometime around 2000 or so (the last date on the website is 1996, and then it says "Several Years Later..."😉. I believe she killed *most* of the scientists in the place probably just before Half-Life 1. The few that were left installed the morality core into her, but she still basically controlled them. Likely she used them all as test subjects for the portal gun, as clearly there were more before you. In any case, Portal, when you pick it up, is several years later around the events of Half-Life 2. The reason those projectors talk about competing with Black Mesa is because they were still running from when she gased all the scientists (don't ask *why* they were still running all this time, but clearly they have been left on for quite awhile).

Now the website also says she went online "on the first annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day". I suspect that Chell, the character you play, is probably the daughter of one of those scientists. GLaDOS frequently mentions bring-your-daughter-to-work day, and other related stuff, probably because it was part of her initial programming. And also because she is crazy :P She also says in the final battle:

"You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee. Where did your life go so wrong?"

Whether or not she was just being crazy, it at least seems like Chell is not a major part of the company. So like I said, probably one of the scientists' daughters.

Other things that suggest this takes place around Half-Life 2:

"Ugh, I hate you. Are you trying to escape? Hahahah. Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. Well, I was."

And makes a reference in the end song about "getting help from Black Mesa" and then that being a joke and "fat chance" - which all suggests this takes place around HL2.[/spoiler]

We totally need to just mark this topic as spoilers at this point 😃

[spoiler]Or we can just mark everything we say with spoiler tags. Heh[/spoiler]

yeah but that's the point.. this topic is kind of becoming one big black box :P

Thanks guys, it all makes a bit more sense now.

Warlock wrote:yeah but that's the point.. this topic is kind of becoming one big black box :P

[spoiler]The black box is a lie.[/spoiler]

This made me laugh harder then anything else I've encountered for a good long while: