Portal 2 now with even more SCIENCE

[Mr Bean]

http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/
Lets start with a review
Portal 1 was the breakout hit of Valve's Orange box despite costing only 20$ and lasting four hours it racks up lots of awards for it's basic but very well written story and fans demanded more. A few years later the same team plus some Valve additions is giving us more.

GLADOS is back with a few new characters and sixty odd new puzzles plus several new elements have been added. And the game's price has been upped to 50$ but per previews it's length has also been doubled and every reviewer who's gotten to play the game say in essence, it's Portal but with more of everything plus hey Co-op puzzle solving which is it's own mode.

We have a final release date which is the 19th of this month or sooner (See the link at the top) because of the Promo Valve is running where if people buy the Potato sack bundle it will increase the bar and if enough people buy it early it means launching the game sooner but I don't hold out hope for that.

Regardless who's waiting and eager to play Portal 2? (I've pre-ordered it a month back)

[Zixinus]

I've pre-ordered it recently. Already pre-loaded it. Now, all that is left is waiting for it to active.

Can anybody PM me if they are GMT+1 (or so) and want to play CO-OP? I don't have a friend who also brought the game.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Pre-ordered, preloaded it last night, and waiting for it to unlock.

[adam_grif]

My preload has been complete since yesterday. I was stoked to play it when I woke up today, but then the countdown just revealed the stupid "you must game to get it early!" stuff. Grr.

[El Moose Monstero]

Is it still using the HL2 engine? I'd like to be able to play this one without dying of nausea.

[Zixinus]

Is it still using the HL2 engine? I'd like to be able to play this one without dying of nausea.

What are you talking about?

[DaveJB]

Technically it's still the Source engine in Portal 2, but from what I understand the rendering and physics modules have been pretty heavily reworked and updated.

[adam_grif]

Source gets a big overhaul with every major Valve game that comes out. There is nearly nothing that hasn't been rewritten since Source came out with HL2. Portal 2 is another upgrade over the last major iteration with Episode 2.

[CaptHawkeye]

Define "big overhaul". Because the grand majority of changes to the Source Engine since it was released in 04 have been little more than cosmetic.

But hey i'm sure Valve loves knowing they can keep peddling games mods of an engine from 04 and charge them full price.

[Mr Bean]

Define "big overhaul". Because the grand majority of changes to the Source Engine since it was released in 04 have been little more than cosmetic.

But hey i'm sure Valve loves knowing they can keep peddling games mods of an engine from 04 and charge them full price.

Yes they can, they can because their "mods" are better than the shit throw out the door every fourteen months by Activision and EA. I don't care if a game re-uses every single bit of HL2's resources and adds nothing new, if the game is quality enough.. it the story is interesting and the controls are tight I'd be happy to pay 50$ for a "mod".

Speaking of mods chances are near 100% we are going to get a HL2: Episode 3 launch day hint in Portal 2.

[Losonti Tokash]

14 months is still a longer development cycle than Left for Dead 2 had.

[Darmalus]

It is one of those things that makes me curious. Why so long? Did someone important die and force them to rewrite large sections? Did they have to untangle a programming clusterfuck? Did Episode 2 under perform and Episode 3 got shuffled to the bottom of the priority list? I wish I knew.

[Zixinus]

It is one of those things that makes me curious. Why so long? Did someone important die and force them to rewrite large sections? Did they have to untangle a programming clusterfuck? Did Episode 2 under perform and Episode 3 got shuffled to the bottom of the priority list? I wish I knew.

My guess would be this one:

Did Episode 2 under perform and Episode 3 got shuffled to the bottom of the priority list?

That, or more endless frustration on Valve's part to deliver on the "release content more frequently" bit of episodic release. I would also guess that they're making a lot more new content.

[DarkSilver]

It's not "Buy the Potato Sack and we'll release the game early" it's "Play the games in this pack, if you don't have them, then here's the bundle at a dirt cheap price for 13 pretty damn fun indie games, and if enough play play these games in the timer, then we release this bad boy early"

It's all apart of the Potato Day ARG Valve had going on.

So, if you have the games in the Potato Sack already, go ahead and play them for five minutes, and help the counters go up and see if we can get portal a day or two early.

[Zixinus]

A question about the whole potato sack thing: if I buy a game featured in the potato sack individually (that is, I just buy the game, not the potato sack) does it still count towards getting Portal 2 released slightly earlier?

[Executor32]

Not buying it per se, but playing it helps fill the completion bar for that game. Unlocking potatoes helps increase the multiplier, i.e. how much all players' play time counts toward filling the bar. Once all 13 bars are full, the game will be released.

[Mr Bean]

Based on current numbers we are on track for a Monday launch

[DaveJB]

I'm surprised that Super Meat Boy is lagging behind so badly compared to the others on the GladOS@Home chart, considering it was apparently quite a popular game. I guess most people probably bought the XBLA and Playstation Store versions.

[DarkSilver]

At the moment, people are co-ordinating themselves in trying to unlock the games - the lowest count totals are receiving the most attentions first - and working their way up the list.

[Zixinus]

I actually find the potato gimmick a bit useless: after all, at best, you only shave a few hours off from the original release.

Still though, it made me dig out Amnesia again. And audiosuft, although for the life of me I can't get a gold.

[DarkSilver]

Gold potato is the 36th potato. you obtain this potato if you obtain the other 35 potatos.

[Kingmaker]

Is it still using the HL2 engine? I'd like to be able to play this one without dying of nausea.

What are you talking about?

Some people get motion sickness from the source engine. I'm not sure why (things I've seen blamed include head bobbing, high fps, low fps, graphical quirks, and specific games). But yeah, I hope they fixed that, since Portal was a blast for the 20 minutes before I had to stop played due to Source-induced nausea and headaches. (Oddly, I'm fine with L4D, but CS, HL, TF2, and Portal all make me sick).

[Zixinus]

Gold potato is the 36th potato. you obtain this potato if you obtain the other 35 potatos.

Gold in audiosurf, not the gold potato. I haven't brought the potato sack. I only have Amnesia, Audiosurf and now The Ball.

[Vendetta]

I'm surprised that Super Meat Boy is lagging behind so badly compared to the others on the GladOS@Home chart, considering it was apparently quite a popular game. I guess most people probably bought the XBLA and Playstation Store versions.

It's also punishingly hard and probably puts most people that try it off after a few levels.

[Mr Bean]

We are no longer on track for an early release because not all games are created equal it seems. Things like the Killing Floor are only half way done despite having four to five thousand people playing it consistently for four days now and it's still only half done. Torki Tori had less than 2000 playing it and it was completed by day 2. There are currently 17k people playing games for credit but it's just not going to be enough, I think they were expecting 50,000 people a day rather than the 20,000 they ended up. It's a nice day but it kinda backfires if people fail to hit the promo in time.

People ran the math and here's is what they came up with a few days ago


Had the times been equivalent the game would be out already but since they widely over-estimated the number of hours (1.2 million really for the killing floor?)

So per the estimates we are now 26 minutes behind schedule
http://www.gamingmasters.co.uk/portal/
IE at current rate Portal 2 will be released 30 minutes late due to the semi insane number of hours that Valve projected.