Portal 2 spoiler thread

[StarBob]

I bricked my game in one of the first tests, and Glados didn't help me out!

Yes, I noticed them quite some times, in one of the first test rooms you see them 'suspended'.

Couldn't you just hit the button again to get a new box?

So why has no one speculated why a ship was built in a drydock several miles below ground? Usually a drydock is... you know... near water. I mean I guess the point of it was to be teleported or whatever so I guess it's not that crazy... I'm just not sure why they'd even bother calling it a drydock though.

 

[Lanthanide]

So why has no one speculated why a ship was built in a drydock several miles below ground? Usually a drydock is... you know... near water. I mean I guess the point of it was to be teleported or whatever so I guess it's not that crazy... I'm just not sure why they'd even bother calling it a drydock though.

Yeah, I thought about that too. Maybe Valve were just like "eh, lets through them a bone, even if it doesn't truly make sense".

 

[Dinnesch]

Couldn't you just hit the button again to get a new box?

Now that you mention it, yes I probably could Probably didn't realize I could press the button again at the time i played that map.

 

[[Dragoon]]

So why has no one speculated why a ship was built in a drydock several miles below ground? Usually a drydock is... you know... near water. I mean I guess the point of it was to be teleported or whatever so I guess it's not that crazy... I'm just not sure why they'd even bother calling it a drydock though.

It's by no means the least sensible thing Aperture has done, so it didn't really strike me as too odd compared to anything else.

 

[Tacoeaterguy]

Turret song at end of game is

CARA BEL, CARA MIA BELLA. MIA BAMBINA, A TRA CHE LA STIMA CHE LA STIMA. A CARA MIA ADDIO! MIA BAMBINA CARA, PERCHE NON PASSI LONTANA SI LONTANA DA SCIENZA? CARA CARA MIA BAMBINA. A MIA BEL. A MIA CARA. A MIA BAMBINA. A CARA, CARA A MI!

Which translates into this in italian

"My dear, beautiful darling, my child that i admire. To my dear, farewell! My dear girl, why not walk far away from science? My dear, dear girl. To my lovely. To my dear. To my dear. To my child, My dear, dear to me!"

So yeah, I think it's confirmed

Edit: I'm pretty sure this is accurate (Actually I'm not, but I don't want to make an ass of myself if it isn't)

 

[ríomhaire]

My review:
Finished the singleplayer and god that was worth the money. Fantastic. It was brilliant. I'll start off with the story I guess. This game is hilarious. Absolutely fantastically writing and delivery. They could not have gotten better actors in. Also somewhat darker than the original. I was expecting Cave to show up as an AI but hearing him becoming bitter and eventually him dying was just upsetting. I'm not sure if those parts were supposed to be dark comedy or just tragedy. I guess they're the same sometimes. GLaDOS getting ripped out of the system seemed to be done as traumatizingly as they could though Wheatly's sudden insanity wasn't too surprising afterwards.

GLaDOS being made into a potato quickly took all the seriousness out of the situation though. That was just amazing. Speaking of potatoes, I was expecting that giant potato you see with Wheatly was going to come back later in the plot, pretty surprised it didn't. Scrapped idea perhaps? Also a pretty damn novel way to end the boss fight. Also proves the portal gun is pretty damn awesome. Screw the nay-sayers who thought it was impractical and not actually useful in practice!

I really don't get the choir of turrets though. I was just sort of staring at them. It was cute I guess, but to be honest I was focusing more on the box-robot in the background. Those things are so unbelievably cute and sad. I just wanted to hug and comfort them every time I saw one. They were so scared every time you picked them up. I found myself wondering whether they liked being left on the buttons or not and whether I should take them off when I was leaving the test chambers. I wanted one of those at the end much more than I wanted the scorched companion cube (no offence to the companion cube I'm sure it was thinking about me while I was frozen and really cares about me but I just don't feel the same way about it, how do you break that to an inanimate box?).

The game is just filled with fantastic touches. Doug's drawing hidden away. The chambers becoming better and better as GLaDOS repairs the building, Wheatly complete ****ing up of the building in way completely distinguishable from the natural decay from the start and also seeing the 50s and 70s test facilities. On that note seems like the ApertureScience.com history is partially true and partially false. Cave did make his cash selling shower curtains, but he was still alive when they made the Portal technology and didn't go insane and die from mercury poisoning (unless the moon is made of poison and I just realised that they said the white paint was made from moon dust which is why you can portal straight to the moon at the end that's really clever).


As for gameplay. Well it was just great. It's Portal but with more stuff! Loved the white paint. So glad that I didn't know anything about that before I played. Can't wait to see what community mappers do with that. Thought that does lead to the big problem: There are no challenge rooms. Where are the really really hard puzzles? I know they're planning on updates including community maps straight into the game so there will be more challenges in the future, but it'd be nice to have had one or two to dive into after finishing the story. Patience I guess.

Also pretty odd that they didn't include the vents that were advertised. They were probably the least interesting thing in the previews though. It sucks things which makes for some pretty funny moments with sucking up turrets I guess but it doesn't really lead to as interesting puzzles as the excursion funnel does it? Not much of a loss.

Also something I would have liked (but I read that it was not used because it gave playtesters motion sickness) is the sticky paint from Tag. If you've not played Tag (a student project that Valve hired the makers of where the paint mechanics come from) it's paint that allows you to stick to and walk along any surface vertically or even upside-down. Hopefully it's still in the code for community mappers to use. It was my favourite part of Tag.


I must also complement the optimization. I never would have though that the game would run so well on my laptop. It has integrated graphics, is three years old and is half broken and yet I had a decent framerate 90% of the time. I only had problems in the really massive levels. Also thank you Steamcloud. Played the first twenty minutes in an internet café computer (because I didn't think it would run properly on my own PC, which it did) and later installed it on my own laptop and just opened the game up and pressed continue and I was exactly where I'd left it in the café. Brilliant.

The jazzed up loading times were kind of nice too. Not just the [loading] from older Source games nor the same four images repeated ad nausium with some hints at the bottom of the screen like most games. They were almost as nice to look at as the menu backgrounds (few games make me stare at the main menu for so long except the Half-Life universe ones) though it's probably slightly more immersion breaking than the old ones. At least in other Valve games you can see you haven't moved during the loading. Fading in and out makes the levels seem more separate and arbitrary. Especially with so many elevator rides, but not I'm just nit picking. The fact that this has been my longest complaint shows you how little is wrong with this game.


Cannot wait to play co-op with the ball-and-chain and to see what maps we get in the future from Valve and the community.

 

[storm024]

hehehe GLaDOS + lemons + Cave Johnson = yeah!!!

 

[Lanthanide]

I was expecting that giant potato you see with Wheatly was going to come back later in the plot, pretty surprised it didn't. Scrapped idea perhaps?

I think you see it again in the final cinematic, after the first 4 choir turrets and when you rapidly rise up into the main turret chamber. One of the scenes you whizz past appears to have some turrets tangled up into some plant/potato-like growth. It whizzes by quite quickly and is quite dark though.

Where are the really really hard puzzles? I know they're planning on updates including community maps straight into the game so there will be more challenges in the future, but it'd be nice to have had one or two to dive into after finishing the story. Patience I guess.

Play co-op

Loved the white paint. So glad that I didn't know anything about that before I played.

Yeah, I found the white paint to be a nice surprise. And I think it has much more tactical potential than the blue and orange paints, which quite frankly are obvious when you need them. The white paint test took me the longest out of any of paint tests, until I finally realised "hey, I need to get up really high, and that tower has a catwalk on it".

Also pretty odd that they didn't include the vents that were advertised. They were probably the least interesting thing in the previews though. It sucks things which makes for some pretty funny moments with sucking up turrets I guess but it doesn't really lead to as interesting puzzles as the excursion funnel does it? Not much of a loss.

This, and also reserving the effect for the finale makes it much more surprising.

Also something I would have liked (but I read that it was not used because it gave playtesters motion sickness) is the sticky paint from Tag. If you've not played Tag (a student project that Valve hired the makers of where the paint mechanics come from) it's paint that allows you to stick to and walk along any surface vertically or even upside-down. Hopefully it's still in the code for community mappers to use. It was my favourite part of Tag.

I doubt they would have implemented and tested such a feature. A lot of work goes into making a feature like that bug-proof, and if it were to be cut entirely (especially early-on, or never developed in the first place) it's unlikely to be in the game. Very rarely across all games in general do completely functional/finished but cut assets remain in the released product.

Especially with so many elevator rides, but not I'm just nit picking. The fact that this has been my longest complaint shows you how little is wrong with this game.

Yeah, I felt the # of level loads was excessive, and also seemed to be longer than they really should've. Probably this is a result of having to code the game within the restraints of the Xbox 360 and to a lesser extent the PS3. Consolification in other words, but at least this was the worst of it.

 

[Darkside55]

You know, I'm normally not one for the 'the protagonist is a mysterious figure's offspring!!!!!' theories, but Chell could very well be Caroline's daughter.

She isn't. Chell was adopted by someone from the facility, definitely male, although that doesn't rule out that there was a female. Caroline had already been turned into GLaDOS before "Bring Your Daughter to Work" day, which kind of rules out that she was even her adoptive mother.

If anything, GLaDOS sang that song for Chell because she might have seen her in that way, after all this time. Remember that as she sings in the ending, "when I delete you maybe I'll stop feeling so bad," the text on the screen reads [REDACTED].

 

[Avoidist]

If anything, GLaDOS sang that song for Chell because she might have seen her in that way, after all this time. Remember that as she sings in the ending, "when I delete you maybe I'll stop feeling so bad," the text on the screen reads [REDACTED].

I heard that as "I'll stop feeling so glad", which to me seems even stronger when coupled with the "Caroline Deleted" bit - GLaDOS is lying that she wants Chell gone in order to give her freedom, worried that if Chell didn't leave right then, she couldn't trust herself not to turn back into the old GLaDOS again.

 

[hakojo]

The timeline is way too vague to make any definite conclusions regarding the relationship between Chell and Caroline; for starters, Portal takes place a few years after the Black Mesa incident, which occured in 200x. The pivotal Bring Your Daughter To Work Day was also in 200x. Chell does not seem to age in stasis, so she would have been more or less the same age in 200x as she was in Portal (and Portal 2), which I'm assuming is between 25 and 30. If this is the correct timeline orientation, then it's entirely possible that Chell was Caroline's biological daughter, because she would have been born sometime between 1970 and 1985, during which GLaDOS was still in the 'DOS' stages and the GL bits were still a ways down the road.

Yet, in Portal 2 we see a display in the Aperture Science Day Care signed by Chell. So either this was a different Chell, or the Chell we know and love magically aged about 20 years after GLaDOS took over the facility. I give up.

 

[Lanthanide]

I heard that as "I'll stop feeling so glad"

With closed captions turned on, it prints out what she is singing, which is "so bad". Having said that however, there are other errors and inconsistencies between the spoken words and the subtitles in other parts of the game. But in this case it's pretty indicative at the lyrics called for her to say "bad".

The pivotal Bring Your Daughter To Work Day was also in 200x. Chell does not seem to age in stasis, so she would have been more or less the same age in 200x as she was in Portal (and Portal 2), which I'm assuming is between 25 and 30.
...
Yet, in Portal 2 we see a display in the Aperture Science Day Care signed by Chell. So either this was a different Chell, or the Chell we know and love magically aged about 20 years after GLaDOS took over the facility. I give up.

It would be good for someone to double check, but I'm pretty sure the "Bring your daughter to work day" banner has been printed out on dot-matrix feed printer paper. Eg the type of paper was was common from 1980 to 1995 for printing, before ink jet and laser printers became more ubiquitous.

This, and assuming the display "by Chell" is by *this* Chell, would indicate that this specific BYDTWD actually occurred sometime during the 80's, and it was a much later BYDTWD where GLaDOS took over the facility. However these observations don't gel very well with Wheatley's comment that "nothing good came from that day".

 

[hakojo]

And if Caroline is capable of empathy, then why would her immediate response to being awakened be to kill everyone in her facility? It's... difficult to work out the detailed inner workings of fictional nuclear powered supercomputers with the stray licks of exposition we've been given.

Actually, one of the unintended functions of GLaDOS' body is psychosis and the urge to perform tests, hence what happened to Wheatley. Notice how Caroline only started to emerge once GLaDOS was inside the potato.

This, and assuming the display "by Chell" is by *this* Chell, would indicate that this specific BYDTWD actually occurred sometime during the 80's, and it was a much later BYDTWD where GLaDOS took over the facility. However these observations don't gel very well with Wheatley's comment that "nothing good came from that day".

According to the official timeline given by Valve, the BYDTWD where all hell broke loose took place only a few days before the Black Mesa Incident.

 

[Lanthanide]

According to the official timeline given by Valve, the BYDTWD where all hell broke loose took place only a few days before the Black Mesa Incident.

Seems like it would be a good question to ask Gabe - how come in game it looks like the BYDTWD was from the 80's with the printer paper and the experiment "by Chell" clearly as a child, yet the official timeline indicates that the BYDTWD didn't occur until 200x?

 

[Barnz]

According to the official timeline given by Valve, the BYDTWD where all hell broke loose took place only a few days before the Black Mesa Incident.

for the last time, gameinformer "aperture science timeline" page was false. laidlaw confirmed it.

 

[Zephos]

Perhaps I'm nitpicking too much, but was anyone else bothered by the fact the ending was a pre rendered cut scene? I hated it just as much as when Bioshock pulled it, and it seemed uncharacteristically Valve to do so.

If Episode Three/Whatever follows in the Half Life universe pulls the same shit I'll be pissed.

 

[Shakermaker]

Also pretty odd that they didn't include the vents that were advertised. They were probably the least interesting thing in the previews though. It sucks things which makes for some pretty funny moments with sucking up turrets I guess but it doesn't really lead to as interesting puzzles as the excursion funnel does it? Not much of a loss.

I am quite sure they evolved into the blue floaty tubes.

 

[Lanthanide]

Perhaps I'm nitpicking too much, but was anyone else bothered by the fact the ending was a pre rendered cut scene? I hated it just as much as when Bioshock pulled it, and it seemed uncharacteristically Valve to do so.

If Episode Three/Whatever follows in the Half Life universe pulls the same shit I'll be pissed.

Yeah, it was a little surprising. I think it's probably due to consolification - easier just to do it as a cut scene because the player was completely immobile anyway.

 

[Shakermaker]

Great cover of 'Want you gone'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bcKWtyUBp8

 

[Laivasse]

I'm with Darkside in being very skeptical of Caroline being Chell's birth mother. Like toaster, I dislike the idea anyway, but it also seems to be based on flimsy supporting evidence: 'bambina' in the turret chorus and that's it. That line of course leaves it open to interpretation, but my own interpretation of that scene was that it was a) a spectacular reminder of GlaDOS' insanity and b) a gesture of ironic parting affection - not a parental thing.

All the other stuff with GlaDOS rediscovering her sentimental side following learning about Caroline: that struck me as being the generalised confusion of a human personality remembering how she had been transformed into an immortal AI (as suggested by Cave's 'Caroline should run the place' bit). GlaDOS was based on Caroline and remembers her emotions and personality after being unplugged from the facility and reminded, but let's face it she also seems quite 'plug-and-play' in the way her personality can be reconfigured.

for the last time, gameinformer "aperture science timeline" page was false. laidlaw confirmed it.

Not again, another false timeline screwing up everyone's perception of a Valve story In seriousness, though, regardless of supposed canon there are hints which make it look likely that GlaDOS wiped out the facility on BYDTWD.

Wheatley's comment suggests that it was disastrous. The girls' displays look like they've been sitting abandoned since the time they were set up because it seems unintuitive/uncharacteristically sentimental for AS management to be keeping those displays up long after BYDTWD. This struck me as being a reference to the fan speculation in P1 which supposed Chell was captured on BYDTWD. As for the dot matrix paper, you could speculate that AS allowed the kids to make their projects with ancient office surplus or something. (EDIT: Oh I see the 'BYDTWD' banner was made from it. Well who knows. Reusing the same banner? Easiest way to print a long banner rather than make one? It seems too little to base the date on, for me.)

There are bigger problems surrounding the BYDTWD scenario, though. To start with, there are a couple of problems with the idea that Chell was harvested by GlaDOS as a child. The first is that she's obviously not a child at the time of the games, although GlaDOS perhaps could have allowed her to age while unconscious. The bigger problems are thrown up by the Lab Rat comic, so it depends how canonical that is supposed to be; in the comic, Rattman is in possession of files, featuring a photo of an adult Chell, which appear to have been compiled before Chell entered cold storage. The same file has a record of Chell being asked why she should become a 'research volunteer', which causes all sorts of problems with the childhood BYDTWD takeover scenario. Also, a mute response to being asked whether police would search for her if she was missing implies she wasn't under the guardianship of any Aperture employee at that time.

If GlaDOS took over the facility on BYDTWD when Chell was a child, then why/how could Chell have possibly come back later in adulthood to 'volunteer'? If GlaDOS didn't take over the facility on BYDTWD then what's with the stuff that suggests she did? Colour me confused.

Perhaps I'm nitpicking too much, but was anyone else bothered by the fact the ending was a pre rendered cut scene? I hated it just as much as when Bioshock pulled it, and it seemed uncharacteristically Valve to do so.

The transition to the cut-scene was a tiny bit jarring, but made up for by the excellence of the turret aria. The problem with Bioshock's endings was not that they were cut-scenes but that they were awful shite.

 

[Adabiviak]

I just finished my first play through last night, and I kept getting requests from Steam friends for help with some co op achievement since I haven't played co op yet, so I set my Steam status to "offline". Does that prevent me from getting achievements? Can you even beat the game without getting the 'Stranger than Friction', 'Tater Tote' and 'Lunacy' achievements, or did I do them wrong?

 

[ríomhaire]

I am quite sure they evolved into the blue floaty tubes.

I think both were shown first around the same time but I'm not sure.

 

[de_azn]

"Caroline \c(a)-roli-ne, car(o)-line\ as a girl's name is pronounced KARE-a-line, KARE-a-lin. It is of Old German origin, and the meaning of Caroline is "free man"."

source: http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Caroline

Hmmm. It's probably nothing but I found this to be very interesting.

 

[Lanthanide]

Wheatley's comment suggests that it was disastrous. The girls' displays look like they've been sitting abandoned since the time they were set up because it seems unintuitive/uncharacteristically sentimental for AS management to be keeping those displays up long after BYDTWD. This struck me as being a reference to the fan speculation in P1 which supposed Chell was captured on BYDTWD. As for the dot matrix paper, you could speculate that AS allowed the kids to make their projects with ancient office surplus or something. (EDIT: Oh I see the 'BYDTWD' banner was made from it. Well who knows. Reusing the same banner? Easiest way to print a long banner rather than make one? It seems too little to base the date on, for me.)

There are bigger problems surrounding the BYDTWD scenario, though. To start with, there are a couple of problems with the idea that Chell was harvested by GlaDOS as a child. The first is that she's obviously not a child at the time of the games, although GlaDOS perhaps could have allowed her to age while unconscious. The bigger problems are thrown up by the Lab Rat comic, so it depends how canonical that is supposed to be; in the comic, Rattman is in possession of files, featuring a photo of an adult Chell, which appear to have been compiled before Chell entered cold storage. The same file has a record of Chell being asked why she should become a 'research volunteer', which causes all sorts of problems with the childhood BYDTWD takeover scenario. Also, a mute response to being asked whether police would search for her if she was missing implies she wasn't under the guardianship of any Aperture employee at that time.

If GlaDOS took over the facility on BYDTWD when Chell was a child, then why/how could Chell have possibly come back later in adulthood to 'volunteer'? If GlaDOS didn't take over the facility on BYDTWD then what's with the stuff that suggests she did? Colour me confused.The transition to the cut-scene was a tiny bit jarring, but made up for by the excellence of the turret aria. The problem with Bioshock's endings was not that they were cut-scenes but that they were awful shite.

The only thing that makes sense to me, is that there were at least 2 BYDTWD.

Because we have the display saying "by Chell" when she was clearly a child, coupled with the dot-matrix printout, indicates that these displays are from the 80s. Going from Lab-Rat, that would be while GLaDOS was still just DOS, and probably before Caroline had been downloaded into it. So for GLaDOS to specifically mention BYDTWD in Portal 1 would indicate at least a second one was held sometime after GLaDOS became sentient - why would she refer to the past (distant, from her perspective) otherwise? The original comment in Portal 1 makes it sound like the BYDTWD events are semi-regular, possibly annual.

It gets a bit muddied with Wheatley saying "nothing good came from that" when he sees the sign. This underlines that something bad did happen on BYDTWD (GLaDOS killing everyone we should assume), but the fact that he says that after seeing the remnants from the 80's day? My only explanation for this is that Wheatley is just talking in general about BYDTWD, and not about that specific one, where clearly nothing catastrophically bad happened.

 

[ríomhaire]

Could be that the BYDTWD was an event since the 80s with them reusing the banner over and over again with the final one happening in 200X which is when GLaDOS was shown off semi-publically for the first time (note: not turned on for the first time) and took over the facility (this would also be after she flooded the place with neurotoxin and they installed the morality ocre). Then a few days later the resonance cascade happens and Portal occurs between Half-Life 1 and 2 as Chell ages in the relaxation vault (but not the relaxation chambers from Portal 2). Possibly GLaDOS has pre-programmed rules about test participant age that she cannot override.

Any problems with this theory?

 

[Shakermaker]

I hadn't noticed this yet.

 

[Majestic XII]

"Caroline \c(a)-roli-ne, car(o)-line\ as a girl's name is pronounced KARE-a-line, KARE-a-lin. It is of Old German origin, and the meaning of Caroline is "free man"."

source: http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Caroline

Hmmm. It's probably nothing but I found this to be very interesting.

Wait! ...Caroline is.... FREEMAN?!

 

[bassport]

Maybe Gordon is her son...

 

[stemot]

I hadn't noticed this yet.

What's it supposed to be because I can't really make it out.

 

[Suicide Machine]

it's gordon

 

[Acepilotf14]

The G-Man.

Really though it's probably nothing.

 

[Darkside55]

"Caroline \c(a)-roli-ne, car(o)-line\ as a girl's name is pronounced KARE-a-line, KARE-a-lin. It is of Old German origin, and the meaning of Caroline is "free man"."

No, damn it, everyone needs to stop parroting this shit. People say this because the germanic name Charles means "free man." But Caroline is a latin name and means "beautiful woman."

 

[Barnz]

reposting, coz someone needs to save the internet:

Spoiler

glados = caroline
caroline means freeman
freeman is gman
gman and alyx get married and have a child, chell.
chell goes back in time (using borealis) to stop the resonance cascade in portal 3
she gets married with eli, and changes her name to azian
they have a child, alyx

 

[Acepilotf14]

 

[StarBob]

That picture needs to be a lot larger, but it seems to be kind of stretching things...

 

[Shakermaker]

*pic*

Wow, that actually makes a lot of sense.

 

[Katamariguy]

reposting, coz someone needs to save the internet:

Spoiler

glados = caroline
caroline means freeman
freeman is gman
gman and alyx get married and have a child, chell.
chell goes back in time (using borealis) to stop the resonance cascade in portal 3
she gets married with eli, and changes her name to azian
they have a child, alyx

 

[Shakermaker]

Eurogamer interviews Erik Wolfpaw: Let's make Caddyshack

We knew we were going to go with some British comedian. You may or may not know this about Americans, but any time we need to cast someone who sounds authoritative and smart, Americans tend to go to British people, because even the dumbest British guy sounds vaguely smart to us. So we really also liked the idea that the dumbest thing ever manufactured by anyone would have this British accent.

 

[Shakermaker]

Alix? That wouldn't happen to be .... Nah, it can't be. Can it?

Original screenshot

 

[Sloth]

I'd say its the wrong spelling of Alyx, so not the one and the same. But a nod towards it.