IIRC, the in-universe reason that the turret bullets seem less deadly is because the cartridges aren't actually fired, it's the entire bullet + shell flung by a spring, somewhat like how a pinball is "fired" in a pinball machine. There was some cave johnson advertisement said something about "that's more bullet per bullet!"
@@thewayfayer3268 exactly, most of the rounds fired aren't hitting true anyway. What a goofy but believable concept to explain away the game's need to keep the game about puzzles and not combat. I think choices like that made the game go a long way towards appealing to people who arent into/never played FPS games like this.
What's really funny about that advertisement is that if you look closely at the turret diagram, you'll find that the turrets are equipped with both an empathy generator and an empathy suppressor
I don't believe this theory at all for 2 reasons, the turrets have bullet flash. Also they don't fill the entire casing with bullets, turrets have visible ammo boxes in portal 2
One thing that stands out to me about the final battle of portal 1 is how incinerating the companion cube was a tutorial for a core mechanic during the battle. How naturally this flowed and how long before the battle it was done was made possible by the emotional weight that scene carried, as that lodged it in your brain.
Something else, the cores you destroy are in the order of morality, curiosity, intelligence, and anger. Her dialogue reflects the absence of the cores you destroyed
Probably already been mentioned, but at the end of portal 2 the companion cube they give you is the old design from the first game, and with the scorch marks it’s heavily implied that it’s the one you threw in the incinerator in the first game. That level of attention to detail is insane.
i've replayed both portals so many times and i never noticed this, i think i brushed it off as being just a dirty companion cube but it literally is just burned holy shit how did i miss this
I love the detail of GLaDOS's dialogue during the fight. Before the Morality Core is destroyed, her lines are cold, robotic, and impassionate. It's keeping her like that, constraining her to her role. When it's destroyed, she immediately turns to gassing you to deal and encouraging suicide with the rocket turret. Then, you destroy the next core, the Curiosity Core. GLaDOS directly mentions this at one point: "I let you survive this long because I was curious as to how you made it this far. Well, you've managed to destroy that part of me. As much as I'd like to now, I can't get the neurotoxin into your head any faster." As you destroy these more vocal cores, she loses those aspects of herself. As it's destroyed, she turns to her knowledge, initially joking about not being able to calculate anymore before taunting you supposedly not dealing any real damage to her. Next goes the Intelligence Core. When it's destroyed, GLaDOS turns to her remaining core, guiding her formidable mental and literal processing power towards anger. She taunts you, being bitter and quick to insult, and throws line after line of discredit, accusations, and so on. "You aren't a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee. Where did your life go so wrong?!" In this phase she's also talking faster, with inflections in her voice revealing that emotion's prevalence. Her body writes in its mountings, as she lashes out in every way she can. Then, the Anger Core is destroyed, and with it GLaDOS falls still, and is reverted to her actual personality. Her lines as she is destroyed show that - "I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on up there. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between 'us' and 'them'. Well, I was. Unless you've got a plan for building some supercomputer parts in a big hurry, this place isn't going to be safe much longer.." and so on, with her going to a relatively stable state compared to before, taunting you and telling you just how much you've screwed up, even as her body fails her. Excellently designed character.
@@cewla3348 Yes, she's keeping them out - though whether by hiding the facility's presence or outright keeping it locked up tightly enough that nothing can get in, I couldn't say. Likely a combination of both. It isn't necessarily because she cares for her subjects' well-being, though, rather just because it seems fairly obvious that the Combine - who she doesn't know a lot about - are probably going to take whatever they find from the facility, even if they don't outright destroy her.
@@cewla3348I wonder due to the nature of the Ending of portal 2 (and the potential for a portal 3 but I'll never get my hopes up) is it safe to say the combine aren't on earth anymore unless what you go into at the end is another big test/simulation screen. (The field of wheat is what's making me believe the combine have been dealt with). Also have so many questions as In between you as chel destroying GLaDOS from portal 1 and being dragged into the long sleep that you wake from in portal 2 A how much time actually passed B who dragged you back in can't of been her she wasn't operational C Without GLaDOS running the facility did the combine ever get into aperture. D Does the GMan know about the exploits of Chell she seems like the right kind of character type, silent but deadly.
@@insertgenericusernamehere2402 Here are some of my thoughts on those questions: A. I mean, presumably the voice at the start of Portal 2 was talking in terms of years before it started glitching, so Chell has probably been in the relaxation chamber for at least 9 years, which is more than enough time for the facility to fall into a state of disrepair without completely falling apart and turning into a pile of rubble. B. I think it was confirmed that this was the Party Escort Robot by some faint audio during that sequence. C. Maybe? I mean, Aperture Laboratories is pretty deep underground and seemingly is not at all noticeable from the surface, as the only path up that we see in the games is the inconspicuous metal shed at the end of Portal 2. Maybe the combine just never found it. D. I mean, again, Aperture Laboratories is very innocuous and likely presumed to be destroyed, seeing that GlaDOS has just kind of been messing around with some tests without outside influence for decades or maybe even centuries. There's no reason why anyone would know about Chell in the first place.
On my first playthrough of portal, I thought that the voice was someone on the intercom or a text to speech voice from the staff. I assumed that the observation rooms were empty because I wasn't supposed to look too closely at them and that they didn't want to animate the staff. What bothered me the most were some holes in the wall that gave way to the red/brown textures and blinding lights, it made me think about how far from the outside world I must be. When I discovered some of the secret rooms I assumed they came from previous testers going mad and, when I reached the fire pit, I thought it was just the climax of the facility's immorality. It wasn't until I walked through the halls connected to the observation rooms that I realized I was completely alone in the facility and that spooked me. It also recontextualized the intercom voice as belonging to someone more nefarious and probably responsible for the facility being empty. Then when I saw secret hideout rooms in the guts of the facility I realized that what I thought were just test subjects were probably the previous inhabitants of the lab. And then the voice was a killer A.I. and it all made sense.
I similarly took GladOS's claims at face value to begin with when I first played the game, which made the realization that all the other facility workers were dead a true shock. That's what makes it so important to go through these games blind. While there isn't exactly a 'twist' with either of them, the environmental storytelling makes it important to experience the story at the proper pace.
One thing that I loved about the atmosphere and design of portal 2 is just how breath-takingly massive the facility is. In the first game you’re most confined to the relatively small test rooms until the end when you wander through the other parts of the facility (and those areas aren’t particularly massive either). Then right at the start of portal two you have the sequence where your room crumbles apart as it moves and it gradually unveils just how absolutely massive the laboratory is and this us continued throughout the game. I absolutely love it because it creates an almost hopeless feeling as you realize how near impossible it will be to escape such a huge, labyrinth like facilityz
Fr this is the coolest part of the game for me. The vastness of the facility and the entire way it's built is so insane. I wish other media built on a similar concept.
it also feels exactly like something cave johnson would build. he has this childlike view on how science works, and having an enormous underground facility to do evil lab experiments fits just so perfectly for his logic
Actually, they had portal surfaces LONG before the Moon Rock gel. The moon rocks only enabled the manufacture of Portal Surface Gell, and was not needed for normal portal surfaces. Even ordinary concrete can form a portal surface.
@@mist1373 Except that the video is implying that it was the ONLY portal conductor they found, when they clearly had portal conductors decades before Cave got sick after buying the moon rocks and, apparently, eating some of the conversion gel. You can place a portal on concrete walls that were clearly never intended to be portal conductors.
@@RedwoodTheElf I searched it up, the composition of Lunar rock and Concrete is pretty similar, and it seems like you can make concrete portalable just by adding extra silicon... guess that explains it.
Okay, due to Aperture’s very… loose approach to the scientific method, moon rocks being the best due to something that could be largely recreated WITHOUT them, like concrete + silicon - I could totally buy them overlooking that. “It works best with moon rocks, buy all the moon rocks, we’re no second-rate science makers!”
You can’t just say the neurotoxin puzzle wasn’t a puzzle because it took you ages to solve. Pretty sure that’s the essence of a puzzle regardless of the amount of combinations to solve it.
It might have been simpler than they were expecting but it's still a puzzle, and that simplicity apparently made it harder for them to notice. The way they talk about it sounds like they wanted something that felt more clever, so they were looking for a solution that would give them that.
This guy has good 'retrospectives' but always says stuff that utterly baffles me; like it makes me wonder if he is even conscious, because the logic of what he says is at odds of other stuff he says, and he doesn't realize it
@@pyropulseIXXI I had the same thought at one point in the video where he says he thinks the bigger "old aperture" chambers aren't as good because he felt the tighter spaces led to more experimentation. Then a few seconds later says the smaller chambers are also better because there isn't as much room for interpretation of the space leading to finding the solutions faster. So are they better for the wider experimentation possibilities or because there isn't as much you can do so they're quicker?
Even as a speedrunner of Portal 2, I still find myself watching videos like this. Being able to mindlessly blast through the maps and resite nearly the entire game from memory is one thing, but understanding why I chose to spend 100's of hours and years of my life in this series is another. Portal 1 is the perfect game. Does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. Tests, escape, GLaDOS, end. P2 is more. More everything. Story, testing mechanics, and lore.
Disagree with a lot of the second half, Portal 2 feels so much like a natural evolution. Portal 1 is a good game and incredibly tightly designed.. but I disagree that it gave room to experiment. There was only one solution, and the chamber didn't allow for much more experimenting than that. Doing the only thing you can do will always get you closer to the exit. Portal 2 always made clear how to progress, how to reach the next stage. Gathering all the info about the chamber is how you know the path in both games, even in the chamber you so dislike in the second, it was following the signs to reveal the entire chamber that lead you to the exit.
Portal 2 didn't have much to experiment around either. Most puzzles were you being stuck in a big area, scanning around to spot a white area where you can shot your portals at & rarely paint surfaces with gel.
I actually liked Portal 2 gameplay a lot better than Portal 1. But I now realize that’s only because I’m more of an exploration/navigation gamer than a puzzle gamer in general.
During the development of Portal 2 multiple animation test were done of glados in her portal 1 design and broken. This design confirmed how she is an upside down woman that was bound and gagged. This is pushed further with how Caroline was forced to be glados amd wasn't allowed to have free will until she killed off the staff after being booted up.
i mean that does work, but had u seen the rest of her body in portal 1? it huge and has a ton of junk. with my skepticism i believe they just shrink her down to give her arms or legs to express herself. this is probably why they went with glados redesign in portal 2 to make her more expressive and add more motion. glados probably first originated in look as combine technology. half-life 2 isn't no stranger to using lifeforms or body horror. if there era of portal 1 that was largely half-life 2 based, i believe that most likely contender. but half-life and valve isnt no stranger to dark things like a woman being bound upside down, there's a lot of weird hidden dark shit in valve. so it's possible but i don't believe it unless there's proof. anyways u also have the problem of lore, if they thought of the same lore as they did in portal 1 as they did in portal 2. u could pose that marc laidlaw and other writers knew of the plot to a sequel, but i doubt so. there's so much inconsistencies from what i see. i believe it was just surface level shit and portal 2 had it own stuff written and expanded much later. the black mesa vs aperture has always been present, but the whole story about caroline being forced to be glados? probably surface level shit originally. but there probably was an idea, but not an concept or character. i imagine the writing of the lore was bit like half-life, little contrived but can be improved and expanded. if rattman comics to be included, could it be possible that writers always knew of the lore and plot or were they just expanding and tying it together? idk man, i feel as there's too many loose straws.
My favorite thing in the entire portal franchise is probably the old aperture chapters. The levels are so story-rich, and they did the “Old facility” atmosphere perfectly. The way that you go through the levels so that each time it reveals more story as you uncover more history on the company is very clever. Also, the use of fog in the levels is amazing. The areas look extremely large, until you look behind the scenes and realize the fog just made it look that way.
The ending with the Moon portal is one of the most perfect moments I’ve experienced in a game. The lore and storytelling build it up perfectly, making it obvious in hindsight but not overdoing it and spoiling the ending. The set piece itself is so cinematic and epic. And there was something about the physical act of pulling the trigger while pointing at the moon that I will never forget.
I like how GLaDOS' voice and personality gets warmer and human throughout the two games until she deletes Caroline. potato GLaDOS doesn't even sound like a robot. and the way she rebuilds herself to perfection during the first half of Portal 2 adds personality too.
Something to note about the sound design's relationship with the writing. "Humor and Horror are in bed together" I forget who said that. The two concepts operate exactly the same. They build tension, until it gets released. For example, the classic joke: "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side." Note that the question builds tension. This is held until the listener/reader gets the answer. The same thing happens in horror. Once, when I was playing Alien: Isolation, something happened which I will now make into a similar joke. "Why did the Xenomorph rip the door off of the locker? Because I was hiding in there."
The beauty of portal is the finality of it. How many games are milked to death until you don't even have a memory of what you loved? Portal 1 is short but that's because it does only what it needs to do. It doesn't overstay it's welcome. Portal 2 gave us the last bit of narrative we could want. It tried some new things, told a great story, but they wrapped it all up completely. I can feel satisfied that I had a great experience and can look back on it fondly.
This exactly. A lot of people want Portal 3. But Portal 2 did such a finale, I don’t see it being continued. I’d honestly be concerned if they did a Portal 3, but also excited.
33:57 one interesting thing is that each core is actually removing a personality trait from glados, removing the curiosity core just makes her insult you because she only has intelligence and anger, and once the intelligence core is removed glados just calls you stupid and speaks out of anger until the anger core is destroyed.
epic review. i remember being in 3rd grade playing portal 2 and being completely stumped on a lot of the puzzles. i was kinda dumb. still loved the whole experience, and every line spoken by wheatley is amazing.
I remember about 3rd grade for me too, Portal 2 on the PS3, and i took so long to complete each chamber. I remember I ended up getting stuck in one of the open areas of the old aperture section, due to a combo of a very low res, old tv (probably considered antique in the modern day) and just be being a stupid kid
My favourite part about Portal history is how the concept started as an indie project by students and got picked up by Valve cause of its potential. Really goes to show what Valve used to be. Great video!
I think valve kinda recaptured that sorta thing with half life alyx. what mainline valve games are to me is mostly an attempt to beat, change or revolutionise the status quo of gaming. Alyx's story and gameplay building on half life's world along with writing valve out of a trap with half life three is honestly a genius feat
Replayability is why I love portal 2's community chambers. I get that light bulb click with all new chambers and it makes me happy. Because people find new mechanics to try out or just a cool new puzzle that takes me time to figure out. It provides a level of replayability the first game didn't have. Also I have a companion cube plush and i love that thing so much.
I agree. As much as I'd love a 3rd portal game, itd be very hard to expand on everything like P2 to P1. Making more lore, testing elements, story feels wrong
I personally enjoyed the open exploration sections. The first game was a different experience, focused mostly on puzzle-solving, but the 2nd game almost feels like most of the experience is just an expanded version of the ending stretch of portal 1. Portal 2 definitely tried to go for more story-telling, and I think they nailed it. Besides, if anyone wants the hardcore testing experience again, the co-op mode is insanely fun and something not present at all in Portal 1.
Every single complaint you had about portal 2 was present in portal 1. In fact, when you got to the escape section focused on navigation in portal 1, you completely passed by it and talked about your positives solely instead.
Portal 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, it was really Valve at their best, as much as I’d love a 3rd one I don’t think Lightning can strike… 3 times? But on the real i got into your channel from your inscription review and ever since have been blown away by each video you put out. Can’t wait to watch this all the way through, keep grinding dude!!
Idk, I think a VR portal would be great, and also seems like a practical ask from valve. It's unrealistic to expect them to ever make a regular portal 3, but VR they would most certainly do as proven by Alyx replacing HL3
I personally don't think they should make a third chronological game, since the second one ends on a good note. But it would be cool if they made side stories like Portal Stories: Mel.
This must be the 100th time I've heard of Nerbacular Drop because I keep watching these Portal praise and/or history videos. I never get sick of hearing how amazing this duology is.
Portal 2 is my favorite video game of all time. They do make me feel smart for solving, and I've been able to introduce my dad to the series, and then my son. Plus Portal Stories Mel and Portal Reloaded are wonderful fan made games.
I never understood the "impossible to solve" chamber. The orange portal is so obvious, it could easily be a "get up here" sign. "gamers hardly ever look up" Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. But it opens as soon as the player enters the chamber and it's right in Chell's FOV. It's impossible not to notice.
i'm beginning to realize portal was that game that taught me everything. it's the reason i can get used to game mechanics so quickly. it taught me how to be observant.
Portal is just one of those games that is just destictive It's hard to make a game like it without coming off as a clone or fan game It's kind of like games such as Sonic or Doom There aren't many games like it and if there were it comes across as a clone or a fan inspiration And i like that
what you're basically saying is just that you can't copy portal's mechanics without seeming like a portal copy which yeah, that's obvious, but games can be inspired by portal and still have their own unique identity, like superliminal's puzzle solving and dimension warping is definitely inspired but it's not a clone of portal. It has an identity.
@@yuriMartyr yeah i know but you saying that makes it quite clear that you noticed that those games are like doom, either making them inspired games or clones
As someone not very into puzzle games, the fact that I love Portal and Portal 2 so much in spite of my lack of interest in puzzle games says something. Valve has the magic touch (when they make games of course lol)
The fact that players only got interested in puzzle games when Valve made them and published the first one as a bonus in a pack people bought for another game says something yeah, but not about puzzle games nor Valve.
I will still get over how much of an impact Wheatley's betrayal left on me, like literally after that part I was so freaking depressed but I quickly moved on when I landed into old Aperture
I think it's unfair to criticize a puzzle for not being able to be solved twice. It's the nature of solving something, be it a puzzle or a mystery that once you know it, you know it.
For anyone who feels like they aren't getting as much out of Portal 1's puzzles, I highly recommend the challenge/advanced maps. They let you re-experience the same chambers with way more creative and and niche challenges. I never got to experience the puzzles as a kid (without being told the solutions) so trying to get gold medals on every single challenge map, when I was older, finally gave me the opportunity to experience the exciting "light bulb turning on" moments (to quote the video.)
there is high replay value in portal 1 tho, i've played the game for 50 hours trying to get my completion time under 20 minutes without going out of bounds or any major glitches (in fact i only use a single glitch) and i recently did manage to do it and honestly, figuring out how to skip chambers made me feel much smarter than finding their intended solutions in my first playthrough did
Omg I will never forget the first time I played portal 2, and the ending came up, and I realised I could see the moon, and I was waiiiiiit no. Maybe omh pure perfection
From one of my favourite series to another one. Lad, keep this up if you're enjoying them, you're definitely doing these essays really well. I'd personally love to see Infamous or even Prototype, some of my other personal favourites or even Dead Space or Arkham. Either way, no complaints just keep them up.
I actually like puzzle games more after I know how to solve the puzzle. While I'll never be able to re experience the sense of "ah ha!" quite like the first time, it allows me to appreciate the puzzles in a completely new way, and I like to test myself on how fast I can solve the puzzles. I guess that's also one of the blessings of having a poor memory is while I can remember what to do, I still have to think about what I'm doing too a puzzle and I still have to figure out what I did, so it keeps the feeling of "Ah ha!" alive in my brain while I get why other people would have trouble going back to a puzzle game after you know what to do. What I love about Portal and the second game is that while I did have to look up what to do on occassion, I never felt like I had to have a guide on stand-by versus other games. I never felt frustrated. I would also say while Portal 2 leans into it more, there is instances of humor within the first game, but like the story telling, the humor is a lot more subtle. Overall, Portal is definitely right up their with Sonic, Mario, Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon as my favorite game series. It's definitely in my top 5.
Whenever I looked at GLADoS especially after playing and defeating Portal 2 I always saw it as a human figure, but not any human figure. Caroline is actually in there, surrounded by metal, and wires. And as the years have gone on all that remains inside now is simply a skeleton. Edit: I also like to think theres more lore connection to this, with Cave Johnson's death probably being shortly after the AI started being looked into they rushed a lot of things. And as the brain is one of the first few things to start decay Caroline's death was a big worry, with what I like to imagine when GLADoS is being replaced pretty much the last few seconds of Caroline being forced into the machine, pretty much her tomb. And being trapped inside it, with the screams being when the actual sentience connection started. And once the minds done. What's the need for the body to be preserved?
oh god oh god oH GOD OH GOD WHY HAVE YOU PUT THIS IN MY MIND I CANT UNSEE IT but actually where would the body be? like the glados chassis is massive but its filled with wires and circuits and servos and motors unless theres a specific area
@@dhl-96 I wanna say like the "middle" part if that makes sense, that or probably somewhere closer to her base. I also realized that most likely when we see her in portal 2, because she was destroyed, the skeleton of Caroline were finally able to actually decompose instead of sitting inside a metal shell forever.
Something I feel is worth noting about level 9 in the first game is that it's the elevator arrives right after you complete it, while in every other chamber, the elevator is already there when you reach the end, almost as if it's foreshadowing that you'll have to jump down that shaft later in the game.
6:40 we might not be going up or down at all. Glados could be simply moving the entire test chamber room out of the way and placing the next one. Then simply opening the door.
Quick thing but the some skin stuff is actually unlock-able. I never bought anything but found out one day I had the cube hat. I think I read somewhere that you can unlock a few other things via achievements but I’ve got almost 200 hours on this game with most of the achievements unlocked now with just a time trial and some co op ones and haven’t gotten anything else
17:40 Hexcells Infinite has this effect, you may remember the unique shapes of levels, but the exact logical process for solving it will be forgotten. Plus its level generator, hence 'Infinite'
It's easy to point at valve for the microtransactions, and while controversial I feel like microtransactions are fine as long as they are cosmetic only and not pay to win. However, EA has experimented with this feature far longer than valve did in fifa way back in 2006 or 2007 or so
what about mobile games? i never see anybody talk about being a potential inspiration. although i dont know any mobile games from early 200s that did microtransactions back then.
@@isaiahsimmons5776 There WERE no games doing mtx back then because the phones were much weaker and games had to ve simple Mobile games are not an inspiration, plus , valve did not invent mtx nor did ea. What ea DID invent is random drop lootboxes, however it was indeed popularised by valve what with tf2 and csgo unboxings
48:26 I never knew that was a thing. It definitely sounds like the zombies from half-life 2, but I'm guessing it's either just Valve reusing voice actors or a coincidence. I did get stuck at old aperture as well to something that should've been obvious: I've looked all around for an entrance only to find out it was a random slightly opened door that I'm pretty sure I already tried. I don't think that was even supposed to be a puzzle.
I feel like portal doesn’t get less fun when you replay the game, just different. I won’t have the lightbulb flicker on above my head, but there’s joy to be found in how efficiently you can solve puzzles again, and seeing how fast you can blast through the game, as some chambers can be solved in multiple ways or better ways. While bhopping is an unintentional mechanic, it does feel great to speed through chambers before GLaDOS can even finish her sentences
16:36 > Talking about how the game's a breeze on subsequent playthroughs If you really crave for more Portal puzzle solving, you really should check out Portal Reloaded (if you haven't already ^^;)
If we had another Portal game, I think we should play as Caroline. She could have backed-up a failsafe into a testing robot, similar to how GLADOS survived the end on 1.
12:03 Th prongs are 3, you just cant see the third due to perspective 24:11 When i first played this game at like 8 years old i genuinly thought that those where accidentally ledft there by the devs and that the facility was full of them including ones i cant access
i understand your complaints about old aperature without puzzles but honestly i LOVE IT it makes you get creative with portals and all the gels they introduce also for a game made A WHILE ago its outstanding
I'm surprised this has such low views ! You deserve way more subs and the amount of editing, the quality, everything is so professional. I can't wait to see your youtube channel grow more!
Portal 1 and 2 are the games I'm really looking forward for playing with a Dark Mirror like VR set. Just imagine launching yourself using the portals, GLaDOS lines being said directly at you. I don't know how they'd handle the part of making you mute without freaking you out (because Chell's role as "mute protagonist" isn't supposed to be scary, it's just a narrative choice).
just because something has comedy doesn't mean it can't have a dark atmosphere, like, did everyone forget about the atmosphere and music in old aperture?
The stuff about the companion cube talking and stabbing, is likely to do with rattman, his Schizophrenia may have led to him thinking the cube can talk, and threaten to stab him Edit: spelling
I love Portal. It's one of my all-time favorite games, and I don't mind replaying it, even though the experience is exactly the same, just because of the atmosphere and the witty writing. I don't care for first-person shooters, so Portal was literally the only reason I bought The Orange Box (I even tried to play Half-Life 2 and gave up on it pretty early on, but I've played through Portal at least half a dozen times). I also bought the game individually on Xbox Live just for the extra content. Portal 2 was also fantastic. It's a shame we never got a Portal 3, and at this point, we never will.
If you're getting bored of replaying the game casually, might I suggest speedrunning it. It is one of the best games to speedrun, and is an incredibly rewarding way of replaying the game. It also adds quite literally infinite replayability, as you can always improve your times or try different categories.
This video is two weeks old (probably closer to three weeks), and boy am I glad to say that the Still Alive challenge maps are no longer exclusive to the Xbox. They have been included in the Nintendo Switch version of Portal for the Portal: Companion Collection. A collection that has been out for two weeks.
47:04 I played Portal 2 before Portal, and when I got to that part I thought it disappearing was a special feature of the companion cube, bc it looked different than the other cube and I didn't know the reference
@@coinmanthenolife ever played portal reloaded? It uses a third portal in order to not only change the appearance but helps with puzzles. If you haven’t you should check it out!
For someone whom changed his nickname and internet presence to Portal due to how much I enjoyed both games, you just... ..... TEST RESULTS ARRIVED: GAINED A NEW SUBSCRIBER.
57:00 That last part of the chamber honestly stumped me when I first did it. The part of going through the conversion gel from the pipe was simple, but i didn’t notice the portalable surface on the other side of the room until i looked it up on a walkthrough. Every other puzzle save I think the last Wheatley test i was able to solve on my own with enough reasoning except that one. Other than that, I have pretty much no complaint between either game. For Portal 2, I genuinely can’t even care about missing the ambience of 1 because I’m just so attached to the emotional story there and how well it does it
Watched/Listened to it all the way through. I can't say I was paying complete attention, but it was good listening to your in-depth, historical review! 👍🙂✌
This video was so refreshing. I dont remember how long its been since I last ran portal as intented, as opposed to speedrun strats. Lovely explanation thank you
You can't make good puzzles different every time. That's just something puzzle games have to live with. They aren't very replayable and that's ok. But this is where levels and even entire episodes made by fans come into play. They made a great puzzle mechanic and people used it to make great puzzles. When you're done playing the actual game and are still craving more, you can turn to fan creations. Anyway I don't think it makes sense to call Portal's low replay value an issue when that is something intrinsic to all puzzles. Jigsaw isn't really a puzzle, you're just matching pieces together. A fun experience, but totally different to puzzles that have a specific setup, rules, and a solution. We shouldn't focus on replay value in genres where that idea doesn't even apply. This being said, I do think Portal 2 is more replayable than 1 because of the frequent change of setting and focus on story. That's something you can enjoy experiencing over and over and get the same enjoyment out of, as opposed to puzzles. So I guess Valve was concerned about replay value. I personally would have enjoyed pure puzzle solving just the same, but I wouldn't want to replay it if it wasn't for the story and the more open areas.
I agree. Portal is one of the closest to perfect games I’ve played and it’s not my favorite. I don’t think I will ever forget it. I play it once every year or so. I might never get sick of it.
IIRC, the in-universe reason that the turret bullets seem less deadly is because the cartridges aren't actually fired, it's the entire bullet + shell flung by a spring, somewhat like how a pinball is "fired" in a pinball machine. There was some cave johnson advertisement said something about "that's more bullet per bullet!"
60% more bullet per bullet. Comedy in games is severely underexecuted.
Also the literal dumping of ammo into the turret casing wouldn't help either, almost definitely some bullets that get fired the wrong way
@@thewayfayer3268 exactly, most of the rounds fired aren't hitting true anyway. What a goofy but believable concept to explain away the game's need to keep the game about puzzles and not combat. I think choices like that made the game go a long way towards appealing to people who arent into/never played FPS games like this.
What's really funny about that advertisement is that if you look closely at the turret diagram, you'll find that the turrets are equipped with both an empathy generator and an empathy suppressor
I don't believe this theory at all for 2 reasons, the turrets have bullet flash. Also they don't fill the entire casing with bullets, turrets have visible ammo boxes in portal 2
One thing that stands out to me about the final battle of portal 1 is how incinerating the companion cube was a tutorial for a core mechanic during the battle. How naturally this flowed and how long before the battle it was done was made possible by the emotional weight that scene carried, as that lodged it in your brain.
You get to take REVENGE!
Something else, the cores you destroy are in the order of morality, curiosity, intelligence, and anger. Her dialogue reflects the absence of the cores you destroyed
I've been playing this game over and over for years and you just blew my mind
I NEVER REALIZED THIS
i'm sad because with portal 2, i saved the companion cube but glados killed it...
Probably already been mentioned, but at the end of portal 2 the companion cube they give you is the old design from the first game, and with the scorch marks it’s heavily implied that it’s the one you threw in the incinerator in the first game. That level of attention to detail is insane.
i've replayed both portals so many times and i never noticed this, i think i brushed it off as being just a dirty companion cube but it literally is just burned holy shit how did i miss this
the companion cube is different in portal 2?
i like how portal treats it aesthetic.
@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 Yes, very different designs between cubes in each game
@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 yes! Portal 2 added a glowing ring on each face of the cubes (standard and companion)
I love the detail of GLaDOS's dialogue during the fight. Before the Morality Core is destroyed, her lines are cold, robotic, and impassionate. It's keeping her like that, constraining her to her role. When it's destroyed, she immediately turns to gassing you to deal and encouraging suicide with the rocket turret.
Then, you destroy the next core, the Curiosity Core. GLaDOS directly mentions this at one point: "I let you survive this long because I was curious as to how you made it this far. Well, you've managed to destroy that part of me. As much as I'd like to now, I can't get the neurotoxin into your head any faster." As you destroy these more vocal cores, she loses those aspects of herself. As it's destroyed, she turns to her knowledge, initially joking about not being able to calculate anymore before taunting you supposedly not dealing any real damage to her.
Next goes the Intelligence Core. When it's destroyed, GLaDOS turns to her remaining core, guiding her formidable mental and literal processing power towards anger. She taunts you, being bitter and quick to insult, and throws line after line of discredit, accusations, and so on. "You aren't a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee. Where did your life go so wrong?!" In this phase she's also talking faster, with inflections in her voice revealing that emotion's prevalence. Her body writes in its mountings, as she lashes out in every way she can.
Then, the Anger Core is destroyed, and with it GLaDOS falls still, and is reverted to her actual personality. Her lines as she is destroyed show that - "I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on up there. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between 'us' and 'them'. Well, I was. Unless you've got a plan for building some supercomputer parts in a big hurry, this place isn't going to be safe much longer.." and so on, with her going to a relatively stable state compared to before, taunting you and telling you just how much you've screwed up, even as her body fails her.
Excellently designed character.
AND the 'them' is the combine. She was saving you from the combine while gathering data, in her own way.
@@cewla3348 Yes, she's keeping them out - though whether by hiding the facility's presence or outright keeping it locked up tightly enough that nothing can get in, I couldn't say. Likely a combination of both. It isn't necessarily because she cares for her subjects' well-being, though, rather just because it seems fairly obvious that the Combine - who she doesn't know a lot about - are probably going to take whatever they find from the facility, even if they don't outright destroy her.
And then Wheatley is such a moron that he can’t notice the added cores affecting him; barring when he says “NOBODY’S GOING TO SPACE MATE!”
@@cewla3348I wonder due to the nature of the Ending of portal 2 (and the potential for a portal 3 but I'll never get my hopes up) is it safe to say the combine aren't on earth anymore unless what you go into at the end is another big test/simulation screen. (The field of wheat is what's making me believe the combine have been dealt with).
Also have so many questions as In between you as chel destroying GLaDOS from portal 1 and being dragged into the long sleep that you wake from in portal 2
A how much time actually passed
B who dragged you back in can't of been her she wasn't operational
C Without GLaDOS running the facility did the combine ever get into aperture.
D Does the GMan know about the exploits of Chell she seems like the right kind of character type, silent but deadly.
@@insertgenericusernamehere2402 Here are some of my thoughts on those questions:
A. I mean, presumably the voice at the start of Portal 2 was talking in terms of years before it started glitching, so Chell has probably been in the relaxation chamber for at least 9 years, which is more than enough time for the facility to fall into a state of disrepair without completely falling apart and turning into a pile of rubble.
B. I think it was confirmed that this was the Party Escort Robot by some faint audio during that sequence.
C. Maybe? I mean, Aperture Laboratories is pretty deep underground and seemingly is not at all noticeable from the surface, as the only path up that we see in the games is the inconspicuous metal shed at the end of Portal 2. Maybe the combine just never found it.
D. I mean, again, Aperture Laboratories is very innocuous and likely presumed to be destroyed, seeing that GlaDOS has just kind of been messing around with some tests without outside influence for decades or maybe even centuries. There's no reason why anyone would know about Chell in the first place.
On my first playthrough of portal, I thought that the voice was someone on the intercom or a text to speech voice from the staff.
I assumed that the observation rooms were empty because I wasn't supposed to look too closely at them and that they didn't want to animate the staff.
What bothered me the most were some holes in the wall that gave way to the red/brown textures and blinding lights, it made me think about how far from the outside world I must be.
When I discovered some of the secret rooms I assumed they came from previous testers going mad and, when I reached the fire pit, I thought it was just the climax of the facility's immorality.
It wasn't until I walked through the halls connected to the observation rooms that I realized I was completely alone in the facility and that spooked me. It also recontextualized the intercom voice as belonging to someone more nefarious and probably responsible for the facility being empty.
Then when I saw secret hideout rooms in the guts of the facility I realized that what I thought were just test subjects were probably the previous inhabitants of the lab.
And then the voice was a killer A.I. and it all made sense.
I similarly took GladOS's claims at face value to begin with when I first played the game, which made the realization that all the other facility workers were dead a true shock. That's what makes it so important to go through these games blind. While there isn't exactly a 'twist' with either of them, the environmental storytelling makes it important to experience the story at the proper pace.
You made it sound terrifying
@@wObBlE73 Portal 1 is often described as almost being a horror game.
@@OmniversalInsect yes
@@OmniversalInsectI always thought both portal games were horror-thriller-adventure-puzzle games
One thing that I loved about the atmosphere and design of portal 2 is just how breath-takingly massive the facility is. In the first game you’re most confined to the relatively small test rooms until the end when you wander through the other parts of the facility (and those areas aren’t particularly massive either). Then right at the start of portal two you have the sequence where your room crumbles apart as it moves and it gradually unveils just how absolutely massive the laboratory is and this us continued throughout the game. I absolutely love it because it creates an almost hopeless feeling as you realize how near impossible it will be to escape such a huge, labyrinth like facilityz
yeah and I personally liked that some solutions might be counterintuitive as these sceneries weren't test chambers but just a normal place
aperture labs in portal 2 are fucking massive. this aint no salt mine, this is an underground area the size of alaska and as deep as the ocean
Fr this is the coolest part of the game for me. The vastness of the facility and the entire way it's built is so insane. I wish other media built on a similar concept.
Makes you wonder how much it cost to build it all!
it also feels exactly like something cave johnson would build. he has this childlike view on how science works, and having an enormous underground facility to do evil lab experiments fits just so perfectly for his logic
Actually, they had portal surfaces LONG before the Moon Rock gel. The moon rocks only enabled the manufacture of Portal Surface Gell, and was not needed for normal portal surfaces. Even ordinary concrete can form a portal surface.
What? It is clearly stated by Cave Johnson that the moon rocks were the best portal conductors they found, it wasn't just for the gel
@@mist1373 Except that the video is implying that it was the ONLY portal conductor they found, when they clearly had portal conductors decades before Cave got sick after buying the moon rocks and, apparently, eating some of the conversion gel. You can place a portal on concrete walls that were clearly never intended to be portal conductors.
@@RedwoodTheElf I searched it up, the composition of Lunar rock and Concrete is pretty similar, and it seems like you can make concrete portalable just by adding extra silicon... guess that explains it.
Okay, due to Aperture’s very… loose approach to the scientific method, moon rocks being the best due to something that could be largely recreated WITHOUT them, like concrete + silicon - I could totally buy them overlooking that. “It works best with moon rocks, buy all the moon rocks, we’re no second-rate science makers!”
Concrete does work but not as well
You can’t just say the neurotoxin puzzle wasn’t a puzzle because it took you ages to solve. Pretty sure that’s the essence of a puzzle regardless of the amount of combinations to solve it.
While I agree with you, I still wouldn't say it was much of a puzzle. It feels more like a step to progress the story.
It might have been simpler than they were expecting but it's still a puzzle, and that simplicity apparently made it harder for them to notice. The way they talk about it sounds like they wanted something that felt more clever, so they were looking for a solution that would give them that.
This guy has good 'retrospectives' but always says stuff that utterly baffles me; like it makes me wonder if he is even conscious, because the logic of what he says is at odds of other stuff he says, and he doesn't realize it
@@pyropulseIXXI I had the same thought at one point in the video where he says he thinks the bigger "old aperture" chambers aren't as good because he felt the tighter spaces led to more experimentation. Then a few seconds later says the smaller chambers are also better because there isn't as much room for interpretation of the space leading to finding the solutions faster. So are they better for the wider experimentation possibilities or because there isn't as much you can do so they're quicker?
Even as a speedrunner of Portal 2, I still find myself watching videos like this. Being able to mindlessly blast through the maps and resite nearly the entire game from memory is one thing, but understanding why I chose to spend 100's of hours and years of my life in this series is another.
Portal 1 is the perfect game. Does exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. Tests, escape, GLaDOS, end. P2 is more. More everything. Story, testing mechanics, and lore.
Disagree with a lot of the second half, Portal 2 feels so much like a natural evolution. Portal 1 is a good game and incredibly tightly designed.. but I disagree that it gave room to experiment. There was only one solution, and the chamber didn't allow for much more experimenting than that. Doing the only thing you can do will always get you closer to the exit.
Portal 2 always made clear how to progress, how to reach the next stage. Gathering all the info about the chamber is how you know the path in both games, even in the chamber you so dislike in the second, it was following the signs to reveal the entire chamber that lead you to the exit.
Yeah, he simultaneously complained about Old Aperture being too obvious and too ambiguous
Portal 2 didn't have much to experiment around either. Most puzzles were you being stuck in a big area, scanning around to spot a white area where you can shot your portals at & rarely paint surfaces with gel.
@@CoolioMaister it was focused puzzle design, yeah
Portal 2 is the best game ever
@@Beeean one of the best games to speed run, same with portal 1
I actually liked Portal 2 gameplay a lot better than Portal 1. But I now realize that’s only because I’m more of an exploration/navigation gamer than a puzzle gamer in general.
During the development of Portal 2 multiple animation test were done of glados in her portal 1 design and broken. This design confirmed how she is an upside down woman that was bound and gagged. This is pushed further with how Caroline was forced to be glados amd wasn't allowed to have free will until she killed off the staff after being booted up.
Those animation tests of her movement are so creepy
i mean that does work, but had u seen the rest of her body in portal 1? it huge and has a ton of junk. with my skepticism i believe they just shrink her down to give her arms or legs to express herself. this is probably why they went with glados redesign in portal 2 to make her more expressive and add more motion. glados probably first originated in look as combine technology. half-life 2 isn't no stranger to using lifeforms or body horror. if there era of portal 1 that was largely half-life 2 based, i believe that most likely contender. but half-life and valve isnt no stranger to dark things like a woman being bound upside down, there's a lot of weird hidden dark shit in valve. so it's possible but i don't believe it unless there's proof. anyways u also have the problem of lore, if they thought of the same lore as they did in portal 1 as they did in portal 2. u could pose that marc laidlaw and other writers knew of the plot to a sequel, but i doubt so. there's so much inconsistencies from what i see. i believe it was just surface level shit and portal 2 had it own stuff written and expanded much later. the black mesa vs aperture has always been present, but the whole story about caroline being forced to be glados? probably surface level shit originally. but there probably was an idea, but not an concept or character. i imagine the writing of the lore was bit like half-life, little contrived but can be improved and expanded. if rattman comics to be included, could it be possible that writers always knew of the lore and plot or were they just expanding and tying it together? idk man, i feel as there's too many loose straws.
To me she just looks like a person judging you, having her hands on her hips and looking over you like a teacher would for example
I love how he constantly switches between "this is absolutely not my favourite game" and "this is definately one of my favourite games"
"This game is absolutely perfect"
"I think this is one of the game's biggest flaws"
My favorite thing in the entire portal franchise is probably the old aperture chapters. The levels are so story-rich, and they did the “Old facility” atmosphere perfectly. The way that you go through the levels so that each time it reveals more story as you uncover more history on the company is very clever. Also, the use of fog in the levels is amazing. The areas look extremely large, until you look behind the scenes and realize the fog just made it look that way.
The ending with the Moon portal is one of the most perfect moments I’ve experienced in a game. The lore and storytelling build it up perfectly, making it obvious in hindsight but not overdoing it and spoiling the ending. The set piece itself is so cinematic and epic. And there was something about the physical act of pulling the trigger while pointing at the moon that I will never forget.
I like how GLaDOS' voice and personality gets warmer and human throughout the two games until she deletes Caroline. potato GLaDOS doesn't even sound like a robot. and the way she rebuilds herself to perfection during the first half of Portal 2 adds personality too.
59:07 This chapter is not where you escape from Wheatley.
It's the part where he kills you.
Something to note about the sound design's relationship with the writing. "Humor and Horror are in bed together" I forget who said that. The two concepts operate exactly the same. They build tension, until it gets released. For example, the classic joke: "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side." Note that the question builds tension. This is held until the listener/reader gets the answer.
The same thing happens in horror. Once, when I was playing Alien: Isolation, something happened which I will now make into a similar joke. "Why did the Xenomorph rip the door off of the locker? Because I was hiding in there."
intresting where is that from mister? and is there more?
The beauty of portal is the finality of it. How many games are milked to death until you don't even have a memory of what you loved? Portal 1 is short but that's because it does only what it needs to do. It doesn't overstay it's welcome. Portal 2 gave us the last bit of narrative we could want. It tried some new things, told a great story, but they wrapped it all up completely. I can feel satisfied that I had a great experience and can look back on it fondly.
This exactly. A lot of people want Portal 3. But Portal 2 did such a finale, I don’t see it being continued. I’d honestly be concerned if they did a Portal 3, but also excited.
33:57
one interesting thing is that each core is actually removing a personality trait from glados, removing the curiosity core just makes her insult you because she only has intelligence and anger, and once the intelligence core is removed glados just calls you stupid and speaks out of anger until the anger core is destroyed.
epic review. i remember being in 3rd grade playing portal 2 and being completely stumped on a lot of the puzzles. i was kinda dumb. still loved the whole experience, and every line spoken by wheatley is amazing.
I remember about 3rd grade for me too, Portal 2 on the PS3, and i took so long to complete each chamber. I remember I ended up getting stuck in one of the open areas of the old aperture section, due to a combo of a very low res, old tv (probably considered antique in the modern day) and just be being a stupid kid
Yeah, and just when you think there can’t be better lines, they make every line spoken by Cave Johnson even better somehow!
Yeaaaah. Everything that comes out of Wheatley’s mouth is freaking gold.
Same, but with portal 1!
When you had to destroy the companion cube I actually teared up kinda. I need therapy now.
My favourite part about Portal history is how the concept started as an indie project by students and got picked up by Valve cause of its potential. Really goes to show what Valve used to be. Great video!
I think valve kinda recaptured that sorta thing with half life alyx. what mainline valve games are to me is mostly an attempt to beat, change or revolutionise the status quo of gaming. Alyx's story and gameplay building on half life's world along with writing valve out of a trap with half life three is honestly a genius feat
Portal 2 is the absolute greatest piece of art in all of human history without the shadow of a doubt
Replayability is why I love portal 2's community chambers. I get that light bulb click with all new chambers and it makes me happy. Because people find new mechanics to try out or just a cool new puzzle that takes me time to figure out.
It provides a level of replayability the first game didn't have.
Also I have a companion cube plush and i love that thing so much.
I agree. As much as I'd love a 3rd portal game, itd be very hard to expand on everything like P2 to P1. Making more lore, testing elements, story feels wrong
I personally enjoyed the open exploration sections. The first game was a different experience, focused mostly on puzzle-solving, but the 2nd game almost feels like most of the experience is just an expanded version of the ending stretch of portal 1. Portal 2 definitely tried to go for more story-telling, and I think they nailed it. Besides, if anyone wants the hardcore testing experience again, the co-op mode is insanely fun and something not present at all in Portal 1.
The two player is very challenging. Hubs and I played it, but man was it satisfying
Every single complaint you had about portal 2 was present in portal 1. In fact, when you got to the escape section focused on navigation in portal 1, you completely passed by it and talked about your positives solely instead.
Portal 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, it was really Valve at their best, as much as I’d love a 3rd one I don’t think Lightning can strike… 3 times? But on the real i got into your channel from your inscription review and ever since have been blown away by each video you put out. Can’t wait to watch this all the way through, keep grinding dude!!
Idk, I think a VR portal would be great, and also seems like a practical ask from valve. It's unrealistic to expect them to ever make a regular portal 3, but VR they would most certainly do as proven by Alyx replacing HL3
agreed
I personally don't think they should make a third chronological game, since the second one ends on a good note. But it would be cool if they made side stories like Portal Stories: Mel.
@@lamegrape or a prequel focusing on doug rattman.
@@TravisaInc That would be cool. Maybe there could even be a game based of the Lab Rat comic, where you have to escape the facility as Doug Rattman
This must be the 100th time I've heard of Nerbacular Drop because I keep watching these Portal praise and/or history videos. I never get sick of hearing how amazing this duology is.
Portal 2 is my favorite video game of all time. They do make me feel smart for solving, and I've been able to introduce my dad to the series, and then my son. Plus Portal Stories Mel and Portal Reloaded are wonderful fan made games.
Love these long form analysis vids, glad I found your channel. Portal 2 is still one of my favorite games of all time
Look, I'm not saying that if she threatened me in that tone of voice that I'd buckle, but holy shit.
I never understood the "impossible to solve" chamber. The orange portal is so obvious, it could easily be a "get up here" sign.
"gamers hardly ever look up"
Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. But it opens as soon as the player enters the chamber and it's right in Chell's FOV. It's impossible not to notice.
i'm beginning to realize portal was that game that taught me everything. it's the reason i can get used to game mechanics so quickly. it taught me how to be observant.
Portal is just one of those games that is just destictive
It's hard to make a game like it without coming off as a clone or fan game
It's kind of like games such as Sonic or Doom
There aren't many games like it and if there were it comes across as a clone or a fan inspiration
And i like that
what you're basically saying is just that you can't copy portal's mechanics without seeming like a portal copy which yeah, that's obvious, but games can be inspired by portal and still have their own unique identity, like superliminal's puzzle solving and dimension warping is definitely inspired but it's not a clone of portal. It has an identity.
There are loads of games like Doom my man
@@yuriMartyr yeah i know but you saying that makes it quite clear that you noticed that those games are like doom, either making them inspired games or clones
@@ashethedestroyer5114 yeah lol
@@Fatih_M177 Ah, i guess, in a way, that is true.
As someone not very into puzzle games, the fact that I love Portal and Portal 2 so much in spite of my lack of interest in puzzle games says something. Valve has the magic touch (when they make games of course lol)
Unironically who likes puzzle games except Portal.
@@flintfrommother3gaming I do.
The fact that players only got interested in puzzle games when Valve made them and published the first one as a bonus in a pack people bought for another game says something yeah, but not about puzzle games nor Valve.
I will still get over how much of an impact Wheatley's betrayal left on me, like literally after that part I was so freaking depressed but I quickly moved on when I landed into old Aperture
I think it's unfair to criticize a puzzle for not being able to be solved twice. It's the nature of solving something, be it a puzzle or a mystery that once you know it, you know it.
Portal is Perfect
I miss you Valve
Game still holds up amazingly!!!
For anyone who feels like they aren't getting as much out of Portal 1's puzzles, I highly recommend the challenge/advanced maps. They let you re-experience the same chambers with way more creative and and niche challenges. I never got to experience the puzzles as a kid (without being told the solutions) so trying to get gold medals on every single challenge map, when I was older, finally gave me the opportunity to experience the exciting "light bulb turning on" moments (to quote the video.)
The graphics really aged nicely. You notice the age during the end game cutscenes, but other than that it still holds up amazingly
there is high replay value in portal 1 tho, i've played the game for 50 hours trying to get my completion time under 20 minutes without going out of bounds or any major glitches (in fact i only use a single glitch) and i recently did manage to do it and honestly, figuring out how to skip chambers made me feel much smarter than finding their intended solutions in my first playthrough did
Omg I will never forget the first time I played portal 2, and the ending came up, and I realised I could see the moon, and I was waiiiiiit no. Maybe omh pure perfection
From one of my favourite series to another one. Lad, keep this up if you're enjoying them, you're definitely doing these essays really well.
I'd personally love to see Infamous or even Prototype, some of my other personal favourites or even Dead Space or Arkham. Either way, no complaints just keep them up.
12:00 The portal gun has 3 prongs, not 2
I actually like puzzle games more after I know how to solve the puzzle. While I'll never be able to re experience the sense of "ah ha!" quite like the first time, it allows me to appreciate the puzzles in a completely new way, and I like to test myself on how fast I can solve the puzzles. I guess that's also one of the blessings of having a poor memory is while I can remember what to do, I still have to think about what I'm doing too a puzzle and I still have to figure out what I did, so it keeps the feeling of "Ah ha!" alive in my brain while I get why other people would have trouble going back to a puzzle game after you know what to do. What I love about Portal and the second game is that while I did have to look up what to do on occassion, I never felt like I had to have a guide on stand-by versus other games. I never felt frustrated. I would also say while Portal 2 leans into it more, there is instances of humor within the first game, but like the story telling, the humor is a lot more subtle. Overall, Portal is definitely right up their with Sonic, Mario, Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon as my favorite game series. It's definitely in my top 5.
Whenever I looked at GLADoS especially after playing and defeating Portal 2 I always saw it as a human figure, but not any human figure. Caroline is actually in there, surrounded by metal, and wires. And as the years have gone on all that remains inside now is simply a skeleton.
Edit: I also like to think theres more lore connection to this, with Cave Johnson's death probably being shortly after the AI started being looked into they rushed a lot of things. And as the brain is one of the first few things to start decay Caroline's death was a big worry, with what I like to imagine when GLADoS is being replaced pretty much the last few seconds of Caroline being forced into the machine, pretty much her tomb. And being trapped inside it, with the screams being when the actual sentience connection started. And once the minds done. What's the need for the body to be preserved?
oh god oh god oH GOD OH GOD WHY HAVE YOU PUT THIS IN MY MIND I CANT UNSEE IT
but actually where would the body be? like the glados chassis is massive but its filled with wires and circuits and servos and motors unless theres a specific area
@@dhl-96 I wanna say like the "middle" part if that makes sense, that or probably somewhere closer to her base. I also realized that most likely when we see her in portal 2, because she was destroyed, the skeleton of Caroline were finally able to actually decompose instead of sitting inside a metal shell forever.
Firing the whole bullet is the in lore explination for why the turrets do so little damage.
Something I feel is worth noting about level 9 in the first game is that it's the elevator arrives right after you complete it, while in every other chamber, the elevator is already there when you reach the end, almost as if it's foreshadowing that you'll have to jump down that shaft later in the game.
Fantastic Video. The portal games will never be forgotten. They’re truly immaculate.
6:40 we might not be going up or down at all. Glados could be simply moving the entire test chamber room out of the way and placing the next one. Then simply opening the door.
Btw fun fact, the space part of portal 2 (ending) is actually survivable irl
Quick thing but the some skin stuff is actually unlock-able. I never bought anything but found out one day I had the cube hat. I think I read somewhere that you can unlock a few other things via achievements but I’ve got almost 200 hours on this game with most of the achievements unlocked now with just a time trial and some co op ones and haven’t gotten anything else
Still Alive is actually packaged in with the Companion Cube Collection on Switch! It was really cool that they added that.
every year at Christmas, valve sells portal 2 for about 3$. this is philanthropy at its peak
17:40 Hexcells Infinite has this effect, you may remember the unique shapes of levels, but the exact logical process for solving it will be forgotten. Plus its level generator, hence 'Infinite'
21:02 the orb on the gun shows the last portal used
It's easy to point at valve for the microtransactions, and while controversial I feel like microtransactions are fine as long as they are cosmetic only and not pay to win.
However, EA has experimented with this feature far longer than valve did in fifa way back in 2006 or 2007 or so
what about mobile games? i never see anybody talk about being a potential inspiration. although i dont know any mobile games from early 200s that did microtransactions back then.
@@isaiahsimmons5776 There WERE no games doing mtx back then because the phones were much weaker and games had to ve simple
Mobile games are not an inspiration, plus , valve did not invent mtx nor did ea. What ea DID invent is random drop lootboxes, however it was indeed popularised by valve what with tf2 and csgo unboxings
48:26 I never knew that was a thing. It definitely sounds like the zombies from half-life 2, but I'm guessing it's either just Valve reusing voice actors or a coincidence.
I did get stuck at old aperture as well to something that should've been obvious: I've looked all around for an entrance only to find out it was a random slightly opened door that I'm pretty sure I already tried. I don't think that was even supposed to be a puzzle.
1:00:36
there's air coming out of the portal, so it's easy that we survived, the only crazy part is our grip and how glados caught us.
I feel like portal doesn’t get less fun when you replay the game, just different.
I won’t have the lightbulb flicker on above my head, but there’s joy to be found in how efficiently you can solve puzzles again, and seeing how fast you can blast through the game, as some chambers can be solved in multiple ways or better ways.
While bhopping is an unintentional mechanic, it does feel great to speed through chambers before GLaDOS can even finish her sentences
16:36
> Talking about how the game's a breeze on subsequent playthroughs
If you really crave for more Portal puzzle solving, you really should check out Portal Reloaded (if you haven't already ^^;)
If we had another Portal game, I think we should play as Caroline.
She could have backed-up a failsafe into a testing robot, similar to how GLADOS survived the end on 1.
Why is there so much portal content on yt atm?
I LOVE IT!
This is great, reminds me of Pyrocynical. The voice and the editing style.
the journey towards what? Poroohl? 0:36
“Oh. It’s you. It’s been a looooong time.” Is probably the most known line in game history
Cave's lemons speech is.
12:03 Th prongs are 3, you just cant see the third due to perspective
24:11 When i first played this game at like 8 years old i genuinly thought that those where accidentally ledft there by the devs and that the facility was full of them including ones i cant access
Lot of great memories playing portal 2 co op with my little brother. Keep up the great vids bro👍
This was pretty well timed for the Switch version of portal 1 and 2
i understand your complaints about old aperature without puzzles but honestly i LOVE IT it makes you get creative with portals and all the gels they introduce also for a game made A WHILE ago its outstanding
I'm surprised this has such low views ! You deserve way more subs and the amount of editing, the quality, everything is so professional. I can't wait to see your youtube channel grow more!
Portal 1 and 2 are the games I'm really looking forward for playing with a Dark Mirror like VR set. Just imagine launching yourself using the portals, GLaDOS lines being said directly at you. I don't know how they'd handle the part of making you mute without freaking you out (because Chell's role as "mute protagonist" isn't supposed to be scary, it's just a narrative choice).
just because something has comedy doesn't mean it can't have a dark atmosphere, like, did everyone forget about the atmosphere and music in old aperture?
Portal 2: Infinite Testing Initiative
bro you deserve so much more clout, ur freaking awesome
I just started playing both Portal 1 and 2, so this video is great timing for me.
16:40 Silent Hill music, I love it ;) great video!
also by incinerating the companion cube, it introduces the incinerator to the player and how to use it. something we need to know when we fight glados
There's so much subtle tutorialization in Portal 1, that you can keep mentioning all of the intersections.
The stuff about the companion cube talking and stabbing, is likely to do with rattman, his Schizophrenia may have led to him thinking the cube can talk, and threaten to stab him
Edit: spelling
*Rattman *Schizophrenia
@@ashethedestroyer5114 thanks
Yeah, if you read the comic Lab Rat, the cube actually does talk to him as a result of his schizophrenia.
The "alledgable" information on the computer screens is a recipe for a Black Forest Cake.
I really loved both games. Outstanding games.
I just randomly found you through recs but man did I love that vid. All love brother, good fucking Job.
Portal is pretty much the reason why I love puzzle games
I love Portal. It's one of my all-time favorite games, and I don't mind replaying it, even though the experience is exactly the same, just because of the atmosphere and the witty writing. I don't care for first-person shooters, so Portal was literally the only reason I bought The Orange Box (I even tried to play Half-Life 2 and gave up on it pretty early on, but I've played through Portal at least half a dozen times). I also bought the game individually on Xbox Live just for the extra content. Portal 2 was also fantastic. It's a shame we never got a Portal 3, and at this point, we never will.
If you're getting bored of replaying the game casually, might I suggest speedrunning it. It is one of the best games to speedrun, and is an incredibly rewarding way of replaying the game. It also adds quite literally infinite replayability, as you can always improve your times or try different categories.
This video is two weeks old (probably closer to three weeks), and boy am I glad to say that the Still Alive challenge maps are no longer exclusive to the Xbox. They have been included in the Nintendo Switch version of Portal for the Portal: Companion Collection. A collection that has been out for two weeks.
Portal 1&2 are now out on Nintendo Switch!!!
Good video. Glad to hear "Mall Rat" from SC3k in your audio near the end when you were talking about microtransactions. One of my fav songs by far!
47:04 I played Portal 2 before Portal, and when I got to that part I thought it disappearing was a special feature of the companion cube, bc it looked different than the other cube and I didn't know the reference
Why did you play Portal 2 before the first one??
@@alvaronavarro4895 I had never heard of it before, and my father bought it second hand and they didn't sell the first one
@@schanulsiboi0837 I mean Bro it's called "Portal *2* " didn't that spark a thought?
@@alvaronavarro4895 I didn't care enough, and u don't have to play the first game to enjoy the second
She literally says "I destroyed them" why did you think it was a feature
i love how the portal community is still alive...
I NEED A THIRD GAME
Ther is an awsom community mod thats almoust like a 3rd game : portal stories mel. You shoud take a look at that
yeah ive played that one.
its probably the best portal mod
aperture tag was also good
@@coinmanthenolife ever played portal reloaded? It uses a third portal in order to not only change the appearance but helps with puzzles. If you haven’t you should check it out!
@@Utfam_202 played it on release...
i think ive played almost every mod for portal
@@coinmanthenolife oh. Nice! God help all of your memory.
FYI, Portal on Switch now has the Still Alive levels as well. Plus they’re the first console ports with 60fps support.
For someone whom changed his nickname and internet presence to Portal due to how much I enjoyed both games, you just... ..... TEST RESULTS ARRIVED: GAINED A NEW SUBSCRIBER.
Game theory made a video about how chell survived space
57:00 That last part of the chamber honestly stumped me when I first did it. The part of going through the conversion gel from the pipe was simple, but i didn’t notice the portalable surface on the other side of the room until i looked it up on a walkthrough. Every other puzzle save I think the last Wheatley test i was able to solve on my own with enough reasoning except that one.
Other than that, I have pretty much no complaint between either game. For Portal 2, I genuinely can’t even care about missing the ambience of 1 because I’m just so attached to the emotional story there and how well it does it
Watched/Listened to it all the way through. I can't say I was paying complete attention, but it was good listening to your in-depth, historical review! 👍🙂✌
This video was so refreshing. I dont remember how long its been since I last ran portal as intented, as opposed to speedrun strats. Lovely explanation thank you
You can't make good puzzles different every time. That's just something puzzle games have to live with. They aren't very replayable and that's ok. But this is where levels and even entire episodes made by fans come into play. They made a great puzzle mechanic and people used it to make great puzzles. When you're done playing the actual game and are still craving more, you can turn to fan creations.
Anyway I don't think it makes sense to call Portal's low replay value an issue when that is something intrinsic to all puzzles. Jigsaw isn't really a puzzle, you're just matching pieces together. A fun experience, but totally different to puzzles that have a specific setup, rules, and a solution. We shouldn't focus on replay value in genres where that idea doesn't even apply.
This being said, I do think Portal 2 is more replayable than 1 because of the frequent change of setting and focus on story. That's something you can enjoy experiencing over and over and get the same enjoyment out of, as opposed to puzzles. So I guess Valve was concerned about replay value. I personally would have enjoyed pure puzzle solving just the same, but I wouldn't want to replay it if it wasn't for the story and the more open areas.
I agree.
Portal is one of the closest to perfect games I’ve played and it’s not my favorite.
I don’t think I will ever forget it.
I play it once every year or so.
I might never get sick of it.
Oh, did you get the Ratman Cave ending? The Ratman Cave ending was my favourite!
Wait the what-?