Anyone else playing Portal? I bet almost everyone here would enjoy it. It's
a short game but it's really good. $20 on Steam.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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Slime wrote:
> Anyone else playing Portal? I bet almost everyone here would enjoy it. It's
> a short game but it's really good. $20 on Steam.

I completed it last night.

Basically took about 2 days to complete. The initial puzzles are easy, 
but the later ones are really quite hard. The "party goer" scene was 
pretty nuts! The heart breaker scene is more tedious than difficult. 
[References kept deliberately cryptic to not spoil the surprise for 
anyone else who decides they want to play it...]

I'm now doing the advanced puzzles. The first few were tricky, but the 
final three are, as far as I can tell, mathematically impossible. (E.g., 
you have to walk into a room filled with sentry guns that cannot be 
disabled and place a weight on a button. The walls are all metal, so you 
cannot use portals. You must walk. This is obviously impossible.)

It's quite a... dark... game... isn't it? My favourite quote is still 
this one:

"Note that for this test, a penalty for failure has been added. Touching 
the floor of this chamber will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your 
record (followed by death)."

Also, the way the sentry guns talk to you in those cute little voices... 
"Come here please..." *shudders*

The song at the end is... interesting too.

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> Basically took about 2 days to complete. The initial puzzles are easy,
> but the later ones are really quite hard. The "party goer" scene was
> pretty nuts! The heart breaker scene is more tedious than difficult.
> [References kept deliberately cryptic to not spoil the surprise for
> anyone else who decides they want to play it...]

The "party goer" scene scared the hell out of me. I played the entire game
in one sitting so I was really immersed. I made it through on the first try
though so I was proud. The heart breaker scene wasn't hard once you figured
out how to do it (which took me about 10 seconds too long on the first try
so I just barely lost), but it's funny.

> I'm now doing the advanced puzzles. The first few were tricky, but the
> final three are, as far as I can tell, mathematically impossible. (E.g.,
> you have to walk into a room filled with sentry guns that cannot be
> disabled and place a weight on a button. The walls are all metal, so you
> cannot use portals. You must walk. This is obviously impossible.)

Haha. They can't shoot you if they can't see you. The next level isn't so
hard IMO, you just have to figure out how to handle the double door
situation. The final level took me some time to figure out how to get past
the first part, but then it's pretty straightforward.

> It's quite a... dark... game... isn't it?

Everyone I've talked to has agreed with me that it reminds them of the movie
Cube. At the same time, it's a very funny game. The combination of suspense,
humor, and solid gameplay is what makes it so great.

> The song at the end is... interesting too.

I can't get it out of my head. =)

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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Slime wrote:

> The "party goer" scene scared the hell out of me. I played the entire game
> in one sitting so I was really immersed.

I know! I'm like "oh my God, what the hell?? That's IT?! No way!" It was 
like HL2 all over again...

> I made it through on the first try though so I was proud.

...and then I thought "hey, look, that wall isn't metal... I wonder..."

"What are you doing?! STOP IT!!!"

Muhuhuhuhu! >:-D

Possibly the nestest twist in a game, like, EVER...

> The heart breaker scene wasn't hard once you figured
> out how to do it (which took me about 10 seconds too long on the first try
> so I just barely lost), but it's funny.

Yeah, me too. It's easy but tedious. The only really hard part is moving 
quickly enough to miss the time limit. (And since you can't run...)

>> I'm now doing the advanced puzzles. The first few were tricky, but the
>> final three are, as far as I can tell, mathematically impossible. (E.g.,
>> you have to walk into a room filled with sentry guns that cannot be
>> disabled and place a weight on a button. The walls are all metal, so you
>> cannot use portals. You must walk. This is obviously impossible.)
> 
> Haha. They can't shoot you if they can't see you.


field of view...

Seriously. It was quite easy to get that far (despite how impossible it 
looks), but I cannot get past that.

> The next level isn't so
> hard IMO, you just have to figure out how to handle the double door
> situation. The final level took me some time to figure out how to get past
> the first part, but then it's pretty straightforward.

I've looked at all of the last three levels. They all contain an element 
which is impossible. I can't solve any of them. And that's just boring.

One contains a room where entry results in instantaneous death. One 
contains a room with a port behind glass so there's no way to feed in an 
orb (even if the walls *weren't* all metal). And one contains a 60 foot 
jump and all surfaces are made of metal. All equally impossible.

>> It's quite a... dark... game... isn't it?
> 
> Everyone I've talked to has agreed with me that it reminds them of the movie
> Cube.

Is that anything like Sphere? (Man that film sucked...)

> At the same time, it's a very funny game. The combination of suspense,
> humor, and solid gameplay is what makes it so great.

Well, I scare easily, but I found it quite a frightening game...

>> The song at the end is... interesting too.
> 
> I can't get it out of my head. =)

I can't remember it well enough for that to be a problem. ;-)

All I remember is "...and the science get's done, and we make a cool gun..."



OK, admit it. How long did you spend admiring your character's ass? ;-)

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> field of view...

Just guessing, since my only familiarity with the game is watching the 
preview, but ... can you get yourself into the middle of the circle?

> I've looked at all of the last three levels. They all contain an element 
> which is impossible. I can't solve any of them. And that's just boring.

Have you watched the preview? It looks like there are some pretty 
amazingly difficult stunts you have to do.

> Is that anything like Sphere? (Man that film sucked...)

Don't worry. So did the book. ;-)

Is it possible to buy portal without buying HL2? I.e., as a stand-alone? 
  If so, I'll probably wind up installing Steam again when I'm done with 
my current games.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Darren New wrote:


>> field of view...
> 
> Just guessing, since my only familiarity with the game is watching the 
> preview, but ... can you get yourself into the middle of the circle?

That would be directly in the middle of the field of view of all three 
sentry guns. :-S

>> I've looked at all of the last three levels. They all contain an 
>> element which is impossible. I can't solve any of them. And that's 
>> just boring.
> 
> Have you watched the preview? It looks like there are some pretty 
> amazingly difficult stunts you have to do.

Yeah - quite a few of the levels involve putting a portal on the floor 
and one on a wall. Fall through the one in the floor, pick up speed on 
the way down from the wall, hit the one on the floor again [this is the 
hard part!] and when you emerge from the wall again you now have extreme 
horizontal velocity! :-D

None of which helps you in a room where you can't place any portals...

> Is it possible to buy portal without buying HL2? I.e., as a stand-alone? 

Yes indeed. You can purchase "The Orange Box", but you can also purchase 
just Portal by itself. (Or just Team Fortress II, if you like.)

Go to the Stream website, download and install the Steam client (tiny), 
create a Steam account and browse the games list. Find Portal, hit "buy" 
and fill in your credit card details. Oh, and then wait a few hours (!!) 
for Portal to actually to download. It's quite... large...

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> That would be directly in the middle of the field of view of all three 
> sentry guns. :-S

Oh. I thought they'd be facing out. Obviously, then you have to get them 
to shoot each other. :-)

> Go to the Stream website, download and install the Steam client (tiny), 
> create a Steam account and browse the games list. Find Portal, hit "buy" 
> and fill in your credit card details. Oh, and then wait a few hours (!!) 
> for Portal to actually to download. It's quite... large...

Well, as I said, I already have HL1. I just uninstalled it for space 
reasons. And my ISP just bumped my cable modem speed up to 10Mbps, which 
used to be LAN speed, so I don't imagine waiting for the thing to 
install will be problematic. I usually don't mind waiting overnight for 
such stuff anyway.

Cool to know. I'll have to see if it works with my graphics card, which 
is getting kind of old. What happens if you buy a game your machine 
won't play? Is it smart enough to tell you that?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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>> That would be directly in the middle of the field of view of all three 
>> sentry guns. :-S
> 
> Oh. I thought they'd be facing out. Obviously, then you have to get them 
> to shoot each other. :-)

It's quite hard to do this without dying. They shoot at YOU, not each 
other. So if you stand behind one, the others will shoot you, and 
possibly hit it as well. (This induces it to cry "No! Don't shoot! It's 
ME! Aaaaagh!" in that cute cuddly little voice I mentioned.) But you 
will be long dead before the gun gets damaged much...

>> Go to the Stream website, download and install the Steam client 
>> (tiny), create a Steam account and browse the games list. Find Portal, 
>> hit "buy" and fill in your credit card details. Oh, and then wait a 
>> few hours (!!) for Portal to actually to download. It's quite... large...
> 
> Well, as I said, I already have HL1. I just uninstalled it for space 
> reasons.

Yeah, that won't help you. HL2 and later are distributed on Steam, while 
HL1 was distributed on physical CDs only.

(I understand - haven't tried - that you can "activate" your old HL1 on 
Steam, and it will run it under the Source engine. Which... basically 
gives you slightly cooler water effects. In particular, no Havok physics 
or anything. Worth it...)

> Cool to know. I'll have to see if it works with my graphics card, which 
> is getting kind of old. What happens if you buy a game your machine 
> won't play? Is it smart enough to tell you that?

Probably not.

However, bear in mind that if you buy the game, you can play it 
*anywhere*. Go to any machine in the world, install the Steam client and 
log into your Steam account. Any game you've ever purchased can then be 
downloaded and installed on that machine.

(Since you can only LOG IN to Steam from one PC at a time, you can only 
PLAY the game from one PC at a time. But you can INSTALL it a million 
times of you want...)

So if it won't play on yours, you can always walk round to a friend's 
house. ;-)

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> field of view...
>
> Seriously. It was quite easy to get that far (despite how impossible it
> looks), but I cannot get past that.

You have a huge supply of boxes at that point.

> I've looked at all of the last three levels. They all contain an element
> which is impossible. I can't solve any of them. And that's just boring.
>
> One contains a room where entry results in instantaneous death. One
> contains a room with a port behind glass so there's no way to feed in an
> orb (even if the walls *weren't* all metal). And one contains a 60 foot
> jump and all surfaces are made of metal. All equally impossible.

Oh, the room with glass you solve the same way as in the non-advanced
version, it just takes a little more luck. As for the "60 foot jump", you
need to find a way to get a portal on the floor above you, which means you
need to find a point in time at which you're high enough to see it.

> OK, admit it. How long did you spend admiring your character's ass? ;-)

Actually I didn't really find her that attractive. =)

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>> Well, as I said, I already have HL1. I just uninstalled it for space 
>> reasons.
> 
> Yeah, that won't help you. HL2 and later are distributed on Steam, while 
> HL1 was distributed on physical CDs only.

No. The CD I have, I installed HL1 from. Then I signed up for Steam 
(downloaded the virus-rocket-demo thing and a couple others) and it 
upgraded my HL1. Really, I have a Steam account.

> So if it won't play on yours, you can always walk round to a friend's 
> house. ;-)

I have trouble keeping the volume down enough to make my wife think I'm 
working instead of gaming, let alone running off to the office or a 
friend's house. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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