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PORTAL 2 SPOILER PARTY

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Johnny C:
welcome!

here is the thread where we collectively lose our shit over this spectacular game + also just hash it out. like bros.

first thing: oh my god that fucking ending. it was jaw-dropping, and i mean like in the literal sense. my mouth was actually hanging open.

second thing: for a humourous game, portal really takes you through like a pretty surprising range of emotions. glados' character arc is obviously really spectacular, but although i guess it's related cave johnson's short arc goes from being quirky and kind of off-the-wall to being fairly tragic (the line that was something like "caroline, could you bring me some more pain pills" hit me really hard for some reason), and wheatley's occasionally fairly menacing and petty and angry and intentionally not funny, which kind of surprised me. valve are really fucking good at writing characters!

third thing: okay this doesn't need to go in the spoiler thread i guess but how amazing is valve's sense of scale in this game? they really aren't happy unless you're pausing to look at stuff every fifteen minutes or so. one of the dev commentaries (which i'm kind of mixed on, this time around) explained that they did initial runs of the game to test the pacing of it by having all the levels designed in separate areas and then rigging them together using hidden portals – as in, you open a door and go into another room, but those rooms aren't actually physically connected. the developer explained that they did this instead of moving every level around every time they wanted to switch the order around, and when they were finished they strung the levels together and took the portals out. all except, he said, one. i think i figured out which part it is – the bit where you fire the portal across the enormous expanse and fall into the trap room – but i have no idea, cause it's hidden so well. anyways, point: massive, clever.

Johnny C:
also w/r/t the moon

-what twigged me wasn't just the white gel, but like i knew the second i saw the moon what was up because of all the weird lunar imagery in the rat man murals. moons fucking everywhere!
-i could be wrong on this but this is a nice touch i noticed in the dev-run playthough: the second time you wake up in the hotel room and the room is all shitty and dark, the art with the sun in it looks like art with a moon in it. they cue you to it from like the first moments of the game. that's pretty spectacular.

Ozymandias:
I love the concept of "Science" that Cave Johnson was obsessed with (and subsequently had forced upon the AIs) and how it would be the destruction of Aperture. You have this device that can create a portal between the Earth and the fucking moon, but what's way more important is test chambers. That's what makes the science. Aperture could've revolutionized everything with any one of their products, but first they had to do more science. I don't know why that intrigues me so much as a satirical concept, but it just does.

But yeah, this game was GLaDOS's. She was the main character and there was an incredible amount of emotional depth to her dialogue and her story. She was genuinely frightening immediately after you wake her up. Like "Oh fuck, I'm so sorry GLaDOS please don't do this." scary, which gradually gives way to simply passive-aggressive and cruel (though one of the commentaries mentioned they originally had GLaDOS that scary through to the part where Wheatly takes over, but testers were TOO scared). Then her pitiful form and journey of self-discovery makes her such a surprisingly sympathetic character that...I don't know. It might be one of the most effective heel-face turns I've ever seen, read, or played. There's a moment near the end where she's talking about how for the longest time they attached different cores and different voices to shout at her and try to control her, but now that she wants to help you it's actually her voice and she's terrified of that and it was just amazing. Though, her solution to that problem was even better.

Scandanavian War Machine:
just finished the SP last night. god. damn.

i actually fired my portal at the moon so i could jump through and escape to my cold space death, rather than die slowly and painfully at the hands of Wheatley. Didn't want Chell to suffer, ya know?

It didn't even occur to me initially that the vacuum would suck him, me, and everything else not bolted down through the portal. But then it all worked out and we got a happy ending. I really did not expect this game to end happily. Not at all.

Now to go through it again with commentary on for the rest of the secrets/trophies I missed the first time. I still need to finish up the co-op too, but with the PSN down for count atm, I have to wait for a splitscreen partner. Either that or download my free Steam version, but that'll take like 12 hours so....I'm not exactly chomping at the bit on that one.

snalin:
I had so much fun with this game. So much fun!

How many of the secret side rooms did you find? They were much better hidden this time around than in Portal, the first I found was by pure accident, and the second one was after looking around for ages for solution to one of the bridge puzzles, and seeing an opening in the wall.

I'm also really amazed with the level design. The chambers were fun, challenging and at times pretty intimidating. What really struck me is that they've grown far, far larger than in Portal (except two of the later chambers), so you don't really see everything once you walk into a room, but you have to look around to get the overview.

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