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Broco
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Headquarters
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 Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:38 am Post subject: Now you're thinking with Portals. |
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At the Enrichment Center, we believe that a highly motivated test subject can carry out rather complex tasks while enduring the most intense pain :-).
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Intentionally Wrong
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:40 am |
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This is where my original interest in the Orange Box comes from.
My computer's been stuttering when I try to run HL2 lately, so I'm getting it on 360--I don't want my Portal experience to be as smooth as possible.
EDIT: You guys should check out the Narbacular Drop website. It's the core game out of which Portal grew.
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Last edited by Intentionally Wrong on Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:43 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Broco
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Headquarters
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:42 am |
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Here is some discussion we started in the News thread that I thought should be continued in its own thread (since the game coming out very soon anyway):
| The Troops wrote: |
Fuck Portal and its impractical gameplay mechanic. So impractical that it's only useful in a barren tile maze. Videogames are wish fulfillments, and I don't wish I was a lab rat. I know one day they're going to hand Gordon the Portal Gun, but no one, not even Valve, can make that shit relevant. Why would you make a portal to drop a box on a dude when you can just shoot him in the face? Oh, because the enemies have arbitrary ballistics shields in front of them, and are only vulnerable from the back. Lame!
Unless Episode Three takes place on Xen, and all the levels have insane fluctuating gravity and strange vertical proclivities. Meaning it's primarily a movement device, like the Leaf in Mario 3. And even then it just sounds like a pain in the ass, having to think about trajectories like that. I know, I know, that's what you said before the Gravity Gun, but at least anyone who'd ever used a vacuum cleaner had a good grasp of how that thing worked. At least it was actually a Gun.
Every few years an "innovative" game comes along that has some wild new idea and is a forum darling. Like Katamari. But they're really not that wild. I mean, ever use Play-Dough? I could come up with any "innovative" idea right now. Okay. Post-apocalyptic racer. You can use solar-powered cars or hydro-powered cars. Being in the sunlight (check out the universal lighting pipeline!) or running over slippery water gives you a speed boost! I've got the makings of a great design document here.
The fact that it's essentially a free training demo for a future Half-Life feature makes me wonder how it could possibly be better than an actual game. Still, it's cute that, after all these years, the portal is to Half-Life as the Question Block is to Mario. Gordon's a theoretical physicist, and he opened up a big portal and aliens invaded. In Black Mesa labs, teleports, a staple FPS gameplay element since Doom, were justified in various puzzles as these little experiments. Then in HL2, the first big plot point is about Doctor Kleiner's Teleport, and how the Combine can only teleport in from their universe, and are thus dependent on local transportation. And so on. Now we have a Portal Gun. Which I'm guessing you'll have to shoot into the sky during the final moments of Episode Three to seal away the Combine FOREVER! |
| Cycle wrote: |
I'm also looking forward to Portal, Ito! High five!
Since when were games just about wish fulfillments? I'd love to play a game about my worst nightmare.
But seriously, I don't get what your big problem is here. Lots of my favourite games are like being a lab rat in a maze, with only illogical mechanics to work with! Loderunner, for example! |
| The Troops wrote: |
Actually Lode Runner has a lot in common with Portal. Weird limitations that make you feel "videogame naked." It really bothered me at age 7 that I couldn't jump in Lode Runner. I could only make holes. I could do both in Mario 2! This game sucks!
I'm actually looking forward to Portal. It'll be polished to hell, and do exactly what it's supposed to do. It's just my least anticipated game in The Box. |
| Broco wrote: |
The beauty of Portal's barren linear tile maze is that it's probably going to be pretty much exactly as restrictive as HL2's "realistic" environment except it's going to be completely up-front about it. Portal's lab-rat environment means none of the cognitive dissonance, none of the usual bullshit barriers and predesigned paths and desperate attempts to explain every gameplay mechanic in terms of real life.
Portal's lab-rat environment maps almost perfectly to the experience of playing a story-based videogame in the first place: completing challenges in a completely predesigned environment that was created only for you, slavishly following the orders of the designer-god because you have no other choice. Portal is at peace with the fact that's it a videogame. |
| The Troops wrote: |
| Half-Life 2 was as honest about its restrictiveness. Only it used G-men and railroad tracks as metaphors instead of restroom plaque stick figures. |
| Broco wrote: |
... and then undermined this justification by suggesting in Episode 1 that the G-Man is not omnipotent.
At any rate, honesty is not the right word. The G-Man is anything but an open admission of gameyness. In fact, almost any other game is more honest about its gameyness than HL2. Valve avoids breaking the fourth wall as much as they can, as seen by their unprecedented efforts to justify such things as the HUD. I see the G-Man as an another HEV-suit-like attempt to nullify the gameyness and integrate it smoothly into the narrative. It's clever and shows perceptiveness, but at the end of the day it doesn't really solve the cognitive dissonance like it's meant to. HL2's world is still filled with things that imply that it is real and less restrictive than it appears.
Portal follows in HL2's footsteps in that it's still obsessed with subsuming gameplay elements into the higher narrative structure instead of having them exist for their own sake. Except that this time, they've actually found a setting that doesn't constantly undermine their goals. |
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:46 am |
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Broco you're better than "at the end of the day."
Re: Portal, personally I'm just eager to play Cube: The Game. The technical acuity that the portals represent (in graphical prowess in Source, not in in-game story terms) is really astounding to me. And the fact that this is basically an unrelated gameplay concept made by a bunch of college kids that Valve saw and hired on the spot and said, "Put this in the Half-Life universe" gives me mad respect for Valve. More game developers should take chances like that on dedicated, creative kids.
I guess their hats made of money have something to do with their willingness, though.
Confession: even as a massive HL2 fan, I think the thing I'm most excited for is Left4Dead. Despite the utterly retarded name.
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sethsez
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:20 am |
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| Broco wrote: |
| Here is some discussion we started in the News thread that I thought should be continued in its own thread (since the game coming out very soon anyway): |
In response to all of this:
It's a fucking puzzle game. I don't particularly care about the logistics of how blocks are falling down a well in Tetris and then disappearing, nor do I care about the possible practical applications.
I really can't believe people would debate the relative merits of a puzzle game's narrative. I mean... really. Come on now.
And if it's a testing ground for a new Half-Life gun then I'll judge it in the new Half-Life if it happens. For now it's Narbacular Drop, the little student project that could, being polished to a high sheen thanks to Valve's budget, and that's how I'll judge the thing. |
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:15 am |
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ARGL BARGL
4 days
and then i can read everyone else's juicy impressions =( |
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stotelheim
The Guy Who Will Give a Kiss for ₩ 5000
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: swan diving off the tongues of color coded giants
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:27 am |
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God I'm going to love this game.
Also, troops. What if it was a offhand thing, so you could use other weapons while you used that? Meaning, it was just a tool for interacting and transporting yourself through your environment. Like, say, instead of making a guy be hit by a box, you walk through walls to shoot him in the back of the head.
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stotelheim
The Guy Who Will Give a Kiss for ₩ 5000
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: swan diving off the tongues of color coded giants
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:29 am |
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Oh and by the way, Narbacular Drop made my brain want to reach through walls for things my eyes could see, yet my hands couldn't reach. It was that kind of revelation for me, so to speak. It felt odd, and a bit sad, not to be able to do that. Like something had been taken away from me.
So play this thing at your own risk!
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:50 am |
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| Man, this discussion frustrates me, because I hate being reminded how often I am either easily convinced of any old side of a thing or instead don't have my own take at all. I appreciate what the Troops is saying, and I appreciate what Broco is saying, and Sethsez makes perfect sense as well. You're all three of you right here. That drives me mad. |
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Felix
unofficial repository
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: vancouver
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:53 am |
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| i just want to poke my head in here to say that anybody who gets stuttering in HL2 (and considerably worse stuttering in episode one) should try forcing it to run in directx 8.1 mode by right clicking on the game in your steam list, going to properties, then advanced command line options or somesuch and adding "-dxlevel 81". that resets your video settings to the default, but it can remember that you want it using directx 8, so go ahead and remove that tag after you've booted it that way for the first time. you'll lose HDR this way, but the problem only really seems to crop up in the first place for dx9 cards that either don't support HDR (radeon 9/x series, geforce 3/4/fx) or really have no business enabling it (an x2xx or x3xx card, for instance). |
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Lurky
banned
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:54 pm |
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This thread makes me desperate to remember the name of that quake 2 single player add-on level in which the player character is a labrat for the strogg, it got mixed reviews but I enjoyed it. I'm not turned off by the setting of portal, and the lab voice is down right charming.
"If at first you don't succeed, you fail and the test will be terminated" |
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Worm
banned
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:00 pm |
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| I hope the puzzles can only measure up to DROD. |
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Shapermc
crawling in his skin
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Chicago via St. Louis
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:44 pm |
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Important "You Heard it Here First" announcement for anyone who's exited enough to be in this thread:
There is going to be a huge Narbacular Drop article in the next issue of The Gamer's Quarter written by one of the developers of the game (and who is working on Portal, possibly even right now [probably not since it's already done printing though]).
Expect the issue out later this month.
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boojiboy7
narcissistic irony-laden twat
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: take me on a blatant doom trip.
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:13 pm |
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| Shapermc wrote: |
Important "You Heard it Here First" announcement for anyone who's exited enough to be in this thread:
There is going to be a huge Narbacular Drop article in the next issue of The Gamer's Quarter written by one of the developers of the game (and who is working on Portal, possibly even right now [probably not since it's already done printing though]).
Expect the issue out later this month. |
Wait shaper, it is actually happening? The oft delayed next issue? WTF? |
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Shapermc
crawling in his skin
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Chicago via St. Louis
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:32 pm |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| Wait shaper, it is actually happening? The oft delayed next issue? WTF? |
Yeah, we have enough articles at this point I think. We had some major problems with the last printing because of the length. Unfortunatly we still need a lot of art. I took next week off work to do some work with the magazine.
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boojiboy7
narcissistic irony-laden twat
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: take me on a blatant doom trip.
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:46 pm |
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| What do you need art of? |
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Touran
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: New York
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:11 pm |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| What do you need art of? |
I would gladly supply my own brand of Photoshop stick figure art if it would speed up release of this issue!
I am quite interested in Portal just for the portal mechanic itself and the puzzles that could possibly be made with it.
While there is a lot of talk about applying a Portal gun to a singleplayer experience and how it might be arbitrary, but what about a multiplayer game? The wrinkles to a standard Deathmatch or Team Deathmatch game this provides could be huge, and it certainly would change the way CTF games are played.
Standing on a platform below someone? Open a portal behind him and launch a rocket or grenade through!
Sniping? Stand safely in a bunker and shoot through a portal that opens up into the enemy base, or just make your own windows to shoot from.
Possiblities are what I'm really excited about I guess.
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Shapermc
crawling in his skin
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Chicago via St. Louis
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:22 pm |
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| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| What do you need art of? |
original art for the articles (i.e. drawings). This should be taken to PM past this point though.
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:07 pm |
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| Touran wrote: |
| Standing on a platform below someone? Open a portal behind him and launch a rocket or grenade through! |
That wouldn't work!!!!!1
but while it all sounds fun, the truth is that it would make only a small difference to have portals in multiplayer combat. You would need line-of-sight to a surface near your enemy so that you could place your portal and either move through or shoot through. perhaps toss a grenade through and close it up again. It would create an interesting extension of normal space relationships between opponents and could be quite the thing with teams all creating portals all over, but i feel like you're oversimplifying the uses; really, it would probably become so difficult to manage portals in the coordinated way you need to to get yourself or your damage where you want that i imagine most players would simply avoid them.
on the other hand, if everyone had x-ray personnel viewers and the portal gun, that might turn into something interesting. what i'm saying is that i have doubts about the applicability of portals to normal, straightforward combat with bullets and explosions. you need incentive for them to create a distinct advantage. For instance, combine their addition with a character class who can sneak up behind an enemy and cut his/her throat with a one-hit kill. Now you have a real reason to use portals; they can help you close distance instantly and bypass normal routes. it could be an interesting stealth dynamic. |
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haze
la belle poney sans merci
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:20 pm |
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guns + portals sounds like it'd take too much advance preparation to work effectively, no one's going to sit still while everyone else is running around blasting
I think it'd work great with a melee-weapon deathmatch type, or "tag" or whatever. people chasing each other, using the portal guns to decrease/increase distance from their enemy. warping yourself to behind a player's line of sight could buy you valuable seconds, but it wouldn't be an instant win. |
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Mikey
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Location: endless backlog
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:55 pm |
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I think if Portal was going to go multiplayer it should be one-on-one or two-on-two deathmatches which take place in environments filled with deadly hazards. Give everyone one life exactly, and say "okay go trick your opponents into dying."
I think the Portal gun has a gravity-gun second function, no? Add in some shit to throw around (especially those automated turrets) and between that and the environmental hazards, there are plenty of creative ways to kill your foes. |
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:13 pm |
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Mikey, that's actually a really good idea. Kind of obvious in hindsight. Damn you. But very good. Being stuck in a giant, complex, labyrinthine deathtrap with several other people and knowing that only one of you will be permitted to leave. No weapons to kill each other directly, so you use portals and the environment.
Another possibility could be cooperative play to solve puzzles and achieve goals as in the game we are actually getting.
Or competitive play racing to achieve those goals faster than other players.
I understand that the 'gravity gun' functionality of the portal gun is extremely basic, though. It's basically a way to pick up and toss objects and lacks the kind of hurling force or long-rage suction of the real gravity gun.
Here is the IC thread from when the Portal trailer first appeared, if anyone is interested. |
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Mikey
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Location: endless backlog
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:58 pm |
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Actually, rereading Cubalibre's "Cube: The Game" comment and looking at your idea about cooperative play, internisus, makes me think of something. In Cube, the protagonists all work together until the very end when they all sort of start to go nuts.
Now, In LoZ: Four Swords, you had to work together but it was still competition, though it came in the somewhat shallow form of collecting force gems or whatever.
So, what if the goal of a cooperative Portal game was to be the only one who gets out, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to do so whenever your group loses a player since that's one less set of portals to make use of? In order to win, you'd need to be a team player, but always watch your back and be prepared to execute a well-timed betrayal now and then.
As an aside, the idea of dual-wielding the real gravity gun and the portal gun sort of makes me drool. |
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km
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Minor character in a frame story
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:47 pm |
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Wasn't the dialog in the game written by Old Man Murray?
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For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity. |
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dongle
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Berkeley, CA
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:24 pm |
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Yup!
My friend Parker has a dream of using the portal gun to make a strider impale itself. |
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:46 pm |
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| Mikey wrote: |
Actually, rereading Cubalibre's "Cube: The Game" comment and looking at your idea about cooperative play, internisus, makes me think of something. In Cube, the protagonists all work together until the very end when they all sort of start to go nuts.
Now, In LoZ: Four Swords, you had to work together but it was still competition, though it came in the somewhat shallow form of collecting force gems or whatever.
So, what if the goal of a cooperative Portal game was to be the only one who gets out, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to do so whenever your group loses a player since that's one less set of portals to make use of? In order to win, you'd need to be a team player, but always watch your back and be prepared to execute a well-timed betrayal now and then. |
Well, that sounds like just the best damned game ever. I would like to see that very much. |
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falsedan
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:23 pm |
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internisus play Diplomacy (the board game)
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:01 pm |
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| I'm familiar with it! It sounds pretty cool! |
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:14 am |
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| km wrote: |
| Wasn't the dialog in the game written by Old Man Murray? |
Oh right, THAT'S why I was so excited about this game.
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DJ
Shaman Analyst
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 6:38 am |
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Soooooon.
This whole sitting on my computer but I can't play it until the 10th thing kinda sucks.
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internisus
shafer sephiroth
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:09 am |
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| Nice collection, mate! |
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DJ
Shaman Analyst
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:25 am |
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| internisus wrote: |
| Nice collection, mate! |
Or as my other online friends refer to it, "shooters lol".
I have Psychonauts in there, though! That's not a shooter. And, um...Peggle. The free one.
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bleak
wizard life
Joined: 31 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:29 am |
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| falsedan wrote: |
| internisus play Diplomacy (the board game) |
someone got murdered with an axe over that game you know.
I've played it. |
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Shapermc
crawling in his skin
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Chicago via St. Louis
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:06 pm |
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| Shapermc wrote: |
| Man, that list almost makes me wish I had a computer that could run those games!! |
www.ibuypower.com
any schmuck can get a credit card with a $1500 limit
you can even get FINANCING man
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Shapermc
crawling in his skin
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: Chicago via St. Louis
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:16 pm |
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Dude, I own two cars and a house and I'm going to be buying a second house soon because I'm moving and it's a better idea to rent than sell with the current market of housing. I have 3 credit cards right now too. I can't really take up another line of credit and feel good about myself, but trust, I've done it before. I just have to realize that I will get much, much more out of a console and be happy with it. Even after buying all three consoles that are "current-gen" now, I still spent less than what I would have on a PC than can effectively run current PC games, and I'll probably get more games on all of these systems combined than I ever will with a PC over a lifetime.
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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dhex
Joined: 17 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:46 pm |
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extending any real amount of credit to play games is plain retarded.
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:59 pm |
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| dhex wrote: |
| extending any real amount of credit to play games is plain retarded. |
Not taking advantage of your financial options is plain retarded. Credit isn't a curse word.
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Let's Play, starring me. |
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dhex
Joined: 17 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:06 pm |
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| Quote: |
| Not taking advantage of your financial options is plain retarded. Credit isn't a curse word. |
indeed, credit is not a curse word.
extending credit to play games is, however, fucking retarded. why add interest on top of expenses? for the sake of entertainment? bah. that's a *terrible* habit and how people ended up cashing in their 401ks to get in on shoddy mortgages. people need discipline
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CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:09 pm |
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Cause it's easy to get credit without interest.
This only matters if you have some reasonable expectation that you'll be able to pay it off before the interest kicks in though. And also that you don't have to pay two mortgages like Shaper.
Point is money can be readily available if you need it. Running your finances based on a purely conservative spending plan rather than some variation of a risk/reward scenario is boring!
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