Quote :

"I assume this is not how they intended for me to beat the companion cube level: Stacked a few things up and just hopped onto the ledge"

yea there are a lot of ways to beat some of the maps and bypass large parts like that. Search for portal speed runs on youtube for some crazy ones. Like that level where you come out the elevator, and the exit is right in front. And to the left are those stairs that collapse. Its possible to fling yourself to the exit and beat the level in like 4 seconds.



[Edited on October 14, 2007 at 11:24 PM. Reason : .]

10/14/2007 11:22:50 PM

Zero Punctuation reviews Orange Box

10/17/2007 12:20:44 PM

I really need to get this shit.

10/17/2007 12:27:28 PM

heh pretty funny review

10/17/2007 12:31:01 PM

^Yahtzee is the greatest

10/17/2007 12:37:08 PM

Haha, awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKg3TUPQ8Sg

10/18/2007 9:40:59 AM

^I tried that out, somewhat fun but not as much as I thought. You can't get killed unless you get hit by a train or crushed. The only sounds the npcs made were the death noises. Half the time I didn't even notice the enemies because their guns made no noise and I didn't take any damage. You can't send them through the portals either which is lame. You can use the portal to get outside the area you are supposed to go, which was fun for about 3 seconds.

The only reason to try this is to find creative ways to kill people. My favorite was in the train depot where the combine guy lights the barrel and sends it down the stairs at you. I put a portal behind him and one at the bottom of the stairs so the barrel came back to him and sent him flying.

Valve is going to have their work cut out for them if they plan to use the portal gun in episode:3. It'll probably be contained to indoor and close quarter environments. On the open levels I played I could skip through most of the level with ease and since the enemy spawns are based on your location I could get around killing pretty much anyone.

10/18/2007 11:44:14 AM

1) don't embed things with autostart on

2) more love for the cube

10/19/2007 9:57:58 AM

Thinking in portals:

10/21/2007 1:33:35 AM

Just finished. Fantastic game for all the reasons others mentioned. Laughed my ass off at the end boss for all the shit it was saying - i'm an orphan and have no friends because no one loves me, etc. Didn't hear it talk about the cake recipe though. I'd love to just hear all it's dialog straight without having to perform activities at the same time.

I wonder if the woman protagonist will join up with Gordon in Ep 3. Maybe even have a cat fight with Alyx! Haven't finished ep 2 yet, but thinking Gordon's going to need portal technology from Aperture to make use of the portal information him and Alyx stole from the Citadel.

I really wish more games were made this well, then i'd feel justified to spend money on them. I tend to categorize games and movies equivalently as entertainment, so I can pay $20 or so for a game that's clever, replayable and worth several hours of entertainment vs. a dvd which I may watch only once every few years and has no interaction.

10/21/2007 3:46:46 PM

10/24/2007 2:49:23 PM

Weighted Companion Cake

10/25/2007 10:41:16 AM

Shit, I thought this thread was about

10/25/2007 11:48:15 AM

nerd

10/25/2007 6:15:09 PM

Quote :

"Didn't hear it talk about the cake recipe though."

The blue eyeball-thing does this when you knock it out of the main structure.

Quote :

"http://www.ApertureScience.com from wiki: "Another possible login credential set revealed within the game is "cjohnson" as a username and "tier3" as a password. This login gives you access to the "NOTES.EXE" program which gives a humourous history of Aperture Science chiefly involving shower curtains. ""

Lol... somebody doesn't like the Navy.

10/26/2007 2:55:18 AM

^Yeah, I played it again and noticed it was the actual eyeball giving the recipe. The first time through I was too busy laughing at Glados' louder angry rants to notice.

I've played through the end sequence a few times now just to hear Glados bitch at me again: "that thing is raw sewage. Why don't you pick it up and rub it all over your face." I really hope Glados plays some future role in a valve game.

10/26/2007 1:43:53 PM

Just beat this game, yesterday. So worth the money!

Now to play Half-Life 2 for the first time, I know I'm behind the times.

10/27/2007 8:36:31 PM

don't forget tf2 there bud

10/28/2007 1:52:02 AM

The Heimlich Counter-Maneuver - A reliable technique for interrupting the life-saving Heimlich Maneuver.

10/28/2007 3:17:56 PM

^^^I'm in that same boat...never played any of the HL games till i bought orange box

10/28/2007 10:49:16 PM

One of the developers over at Bethesda made a pretty awesome level for Portal.

http://bethblog.com/?p=336

11/5/2007 7:28:30 PM

I just picked up Orange Box yesterday for $25 at Best Buy. Tis pretty sweet so far. Are there user created levels you can get for Portal?

11/25/2007 12:50:20 PM

Please tell me you did not just ask that question in a post directly under where I linked to a user created level.

11/25/2007 6:17:57 PM

I guess I saw developer and assumed they mean the game's developers released some new levels whoops

11/25/2007 7:07:33 PM

Where can I find more (good) user-created maps?

Edit: I'm just retarded, nevermind.

[Edited on November 26, 2007 at 2:59 AM. Reason : I'm retarded]

11/26/2007 2:57:25 AM

Great game

Got the Orange Box the week it came out, and just now got to playing this.

Awesome song.

12/16/2007 12:52:40 AM

Great game. I put off playing it for far too long. Possibly the best humor I've ever found in a video game, and there were several times where I would do something mind-bending and shout to no one in particular, "What in the HELL just happened?"

Any connection between it and HL2 Episode 3 will have to be very carefully done, though, since HL isn't really the place for hillarity.

12/17/2007 2:41:41 AM

HL has some funny things thrown in. Portal is a huge spin off from the main story line so any mention of it will probably be an easter egg if anything. The same is in Portal; you only get a few hints of the connection to HL ( the powerpoints on Black Mesa and the Aperture computer's song mocking the destruction of black mesa, their only rival ).

Can't wait to see the next Portal game. Hopefully it will become a separate spin off series for valve.

12/17/2007 2:50:22 AM

Quote :

"HL has some funny things thrown in."

Sure, but they're sparse. Whereas Portal has two main elements that excite players:

1) Mind-bending gameplay.
2) Hilarity.

Hell, they've built up the entire history of Aperture Science around this preposterous (though funny) development history that would seem pretty out-of-place in the generally depressing HL universe.

Quote :

"Portal is a huge spin off from the main story line so any mention of it will probably be an easter egg if anything."

References to Portal itself might be small, but obviously Aperture Science is going to play a big role -- at the end of HL2 Episode 2, they're heading off to Aperture's ship, Borealis. And since Aperture itself is kind of a big joke, I'm curious to see how they integrate it. I'm sure they can do it, because they're fucking geniuses, but it will be a delicate balance.

And that "Still Alive" song is stuck in my head bigtime. I'd never even heard of Jonathan Coulton until about two months ago (when I first heard the hilarious zombie song, "RE: Your Brains" on 88.1), and now my songs of the moment are his work.

12/17/2007 11:14:48 PM

Well it would be awesome to integrate the portal gun into Gordon's arsenal in a future HL2 episode. Gravity gun + portal gun = a lot more puzzles to solve. Gravity gun + weighted companion cube + Combine soldier's head =

12/18/2007 10:54:24 AM

^^ I haven't gotten around to finishing HL2 ep2 yet so I guess I should have kept my mouth shut

12/18/2007 11:58:55 AM

http://aperturescience.com/

updated for the holidays

12/23/2007 12:12:41 PM

Steam now has a free download of "Portal: The First Slice" if you have an Nvidia card.

Contains roughly the first 1/3rd of the game.

1/9/2008 6:35:58 PM

So, it's not a bad game, but it's not really that funny.

1/9/2008 6:43:40 PM

I got the Orange Box for Christmas, but it wasn't until New Years that I was actually able to play this game. Loved every minute of it. The puzzles were on the whole easy, but definitely original. I loved listening to GLaDOS's sarcastic quips and the turrets' messages after getting knocked over. You guys weren't kidding when you said this game was short, though. I think it only took me three or so hours to beat the game on the first try.

I liked doing the advanced levels, and I thought doing the levels with the fewest portals possible was also another interesting layer. Those puzzles were really hard, but I enjoyed figuring them out. I'm not really digging the fewest steps taken or the least time taken, though. That requires too much haphazard movement and pinpoint aiming, and frankly it's too frustrating for me. I completed the first two maps for all three trials, but I'm not going to bother finishing up least steps and least time for the rest of the maps. It's too hard and I'm not sure I have the skill or the patience.

I hope that they make a sequel to this game, and I hope that (maybe in Half Life: Episode 3?) we'll learn more about who Chell was and how she ended up in Aperture Laboratories. We didn't learn anything about her, and given that GLaDOS is a rampant AI, I'm reluctant to trust anything she said.

1/9/2008 7:54:55 PM

LULZ

http://www.gametab.com/news/1163550/

1/27/2008 11:19:22 AM

lawls

1/27/2008 7:11:38 PM

So, can you get a standalone Portal game? I played Half-Life2 and I must be one of the few people that wasn't that impressed. I'm only interested in the Portal bit.

1/28/2008 9:44:37 AM

^Yeah I think you can get just Portal on Steam for like $30 dollar bucks.

1/28/2008 10:39:01 AM

It's actually $20 on steam.

1/28/2008 11:34:12 AM

I stand corrected.

1/28/2008 11:50:17 AM

Best game ever!
Valve finally had gotten new Portal shirts up in their store, and I got WCC one with the Longfellow pastiche on the back.
Love!

1/28/2008 1:12:11 PM

^7 Excellent lols.

1/28/2008 2:13:06 PM

lol my girlfriend made me a plush weighted companion cube for Valentine's Day. It's awesome!

2/14/2008 6:27:59 PM

they sell those at the valve store

2/14/2008 6:37:48 PM

Yeah I know but those are like $30 + shipping and the one she made me didn't nearly cost as much. Plus, she made it.

2/14/2008 11:33:25 PM

Any new stages?

5/4/2008 5:41:32 PM

highest concentration of awesome/hour ever contained within a game.

6/24/2008 10:29:40 AM

two bad that equals 2 awesomenesses

6/24/2008 11:33:02 AM

Greatest. Earrings. EVER!

http://www.livelyivy.com/?p=68

7/1/2008 9:41:17 AM