Are Irish and cynic Doug Hopper and Chell? Actual humans? Robots?
Curse you Valve!
That was posted last night at around 11PM EST / 8PM PST. Something’s definitely gonna be happening in about 90 minutes, that’s for sure! Why oh why did I schedule an appointment for this afternoon?
WARNING TO SPOILERPHOBES (of which I am one): Unfortunately, the PS3/360 versions of the game have allegedly been leaked. So I advise everyone who wants to remain unspoiled to stay the hell away from wanton YouTube clicking, including my links above – I haven’t checked them but better safe than sorry. You never know what gets posted by idiot YT commenters or linked in the “Related Videos” sidebars.
And please, let’s keep this a spoiler-free zone? Or at least use blacked-out spoilers if you absolutely must discuss 'em. (But preview first, because many people mess up their spoiler codes and forget to close them properly, resulting in spoilage.)
So yeah, I agree with Tabby_Cat: much of the delight of Portal came from its surprises. There’s no way this game can repeat that, considering we know who GLaDOS is and we’ve all heard Still Alive and so on. But it must have some unexpected delights and I wanna discover them in-game.
Valve has been hyping this game to the skies with its interviews and videos and comic books and so on… I do trust them enough that I don’t think they’d spoil their own customers’ game experiences by revealing too much info, which is why I’ve judiciously watched/listened to the promo stuff they’ve published. Still, you never get a second chance to be surprised by something, so why risk it?
Ooh ran out of editing time, but I just wanted to add: in other news, there’s some fun fanwanking / speculation that was made yesterday about the meaning of all the potato references throughout the ARG – in particular, the way people must “earn” potatoes through playing games, after which they’re rewarded with further clues, and so on. Even though it’s probably not canon and has nothing to do with the Portal 2 plot, I’ll spoiler it just in case:
[spoiler]The idea was derived from the fact that the TF2 hat you get by purchasing the Potato Sack games consists of a potato-aided lantern. You know the old school experiment where you make electricity via a potato? Well, this person on the Steam Forums suspects that GLaDOS – who, as we know, was demolished in the last game – has created this elaborate, ridiculous (but totally Aperture-Science-esque) plot to have humans gather a kabillion potatoes in order to give her the energy needed to restart her system. That’s why there’ve been hints throughout the ARG that the more potatoes we earn, the sooner the “emancipation” (presumably GLaDOS’s rebooting) will be.
I think this is a brilliant theory. It’s whimsical yet Macchiavellian, just like GLaDOS. Plus, though it wouldn’t be referenced in-game, it’s a clever way to create a link between the pre-game activity and “blaming” us for inadvertently restarting GLaDOS ourselves.
True or not, it’s what I’m gonna believe. :D[/spoiler]
That, or potatoes are just T.A.C.O.S.
Hah!
now it’s time for GlaDOS@Home. Basically the more people play the potato sack games the sooner it’ll be released…
If anyone has any of the Potato Sack games (even if you don’t have the full pack). Please pick one and have it idling in your background at all times. If you’re curious why read lazybratsche’s spoiler.
There are claims you can’t have the game in idle but so far it seems to work anyway.
Also if you have a few mins do some of the Potato challenges if you’re not OCD just scan the wiki page and do some of the easy ones.
Valve hasn’t made a bad game in 13 years. Do they and Blizzard have a pact with the devil?
Honest question - does valve really do much game dev these days?
Outside of Portal2 what have they done? HL2 is pretty old, no?
I admit I game very infrequently so educate me.
They’ve made Team Fortress 2 and the two Left 4 Dead games since then.
These days? Valve has always been slow as molasses. It was six years between Half Life and HL2. Blizzard too seems to spend ages on their games.
Shockingly they are both cited as having well polished well made games.
Ahahahah. I am loving the in-between comic.
"If any Aperture Science employee would like to opt out of this new voluntary testing program, please remember, Science rhymes with Compliance.
Do you know what doesn’t rhyme with compliance?
NEUROTOXIN."
I’m not the only person that reads that and hears GLaDOS in their head am I? Or should I assume the party submission position?
Hmmm… It looks like the “early release” might be a midnight release tonight, rather than the “official” 10 am release tomorrow. Lame. For those of us with, y’know, jobs and stuff to do, that doesn’t make a bit of difference. I’m still going to fire up my copy as soon as I get home from work tomorrow, regardless of the “early release”.
We already knew that GLaDOS was a sadistic monster who loved nothing more than subjecting people to heart- and gut-wrenching tests! Should we even be surprised about this development?
We’re really close to done now. I’d recommend that if you want to play a game tonight, play one of the four left:
Come on guys. Yalls have work to do. Get to unlocking that game!
(so I can play it when I get home. Timeszones working in my favor for once! =^^=)
Stupid school…grumble.
But yeah, it’s up now. I’m loving it so far.
So I got the game a few days ago (reviewer’s copy) and finished it last night. Unless something huge comes out, it’s my Game of the Year. Fantastic, fantastic game.
Yeah, finished it in one sitting, it really was amazing. Somehow topped the first one. It was just predictable enough that it didn’t feel needlessly twisty, and just unpredictable enough that it didn’t feel stale.
I sort of saw Whateley going all “a god am I” but I didn’t see him becoming such a terrible GLaDOS ripoff, and I mean in-universe “terrible”, not “terrible” in the sense of him being a bad character after it happens. And while I find sheer incompetence annoying usually, it was done really well, and I laughed when the logic bomb didn’t work on him simply because he was too DUMB to realize there was a contradiction.
The comedy was as good, if not better than the original, and there were some legitimately challenging head-scratching puzzles as opposed to the original’s fairly easy stuff (and ALL of them were fair!). The new mechanics and devices aren’t just gimmicks (except maybe the laser bulb thingies, since they were only in 2 or 3 rooms, but it seems like they’d be a good fit for co-op, which I haven’t played yet), they really force you to think of new creative ways to use your portals.
[spoiler]My only complaint is that the “Old Aperture” areas felt like they went on perhaps just a smidgen too long, but nothing major. This may be influenced by the fact that I got stuck in a couple white gel rooms for perhaps just a little longer than I should have.
And the song at the end was pretty catchy too. It may not top Still Alive, but that’s only really because Still Alive has such legacy value. Musically I think it may be better, but lyrically it’s not quite as amusing. I also thought the half-incinerated companion cube being sent out to join you at the end was cute, though this is what, 200 years after Portal1/HL2? Chell may find her freedom isn’t too great, though she may have hope if GlaDOS was telling the truth about spotting humans. I was hoping that we might get some information on the Borealis, I suspect the briefly mentioned, almost throwaway scene about time paradoxes in Old Aperture may have the answer, but I’ve always been a proponent of the Borealis’ secret being time travel so I’m a bit biased.[/spoiler]
So I’ve also just finished it and very good. One thing though, the spoilers are showing up in the notification email sent out.