Portal 2 - General Guide

A general guide to the sequel of the remarkable Portal game. Covering fundamental aspects of this game as well as providing tips and tricks learned while playing this game to its completion - that's the continual tradition of my general guides.

Introduction

Portal 2, the sequel to the amazing first game continues its story right after the events of the original Portal. As before, this guide will be aiming to capture both crucial and interesting points of the game alike.

Generally not focused on strategy and in-depth walkthrough in itself, my general guides aim to provide a different look at the game, something to read at the start of your journey, or midway. Something to accompany you.

I have also made a guide for the previous game, I recommend checking it out.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=863872886

Let us begin.

Characters & Story

This section is likely to contain spoilers which will not be blackened out, only if they would severly cripple the game's experience, otherwise, some minor spoilers may be included.

STORY

We begin our journey in a surprisingly well lived-in apartment, first, only just waking up for a moment but then falling asleep again, untill we are wakened the second time and make our way outside.



This time around, unlike in the original Portal, we have a companion! That is Wheatley, a very likable personality sphere. In reality, Wheatley is one of GLaDOS' personality cores and he was originally, upon his creation, referred to as "The Intelligence Dampening Core", meaning he is naturally the less intelligent core. Wheatley makes for quite a companion while you two begin your journey through the Aperture Science. Once GLaDOS is awakened by Wheatley, you are forced to begin testing but neither that will last long enough. The story takes a few wild turns, one big especially but I dare not spoil you of that surprise, even if you'd ask. For the most part, you are presented with levels to get through, puzzles to solve and some intriguing, for the most part, monologues to listen to.

The story is divided into 9 chapters, that is the single-player version. When it comes to cooperative levels, there is also a minor story, which takes place after the events of Portal 2. The two players must successfully complete all test chambers presented to them (unique to the ones in the single-player version), to see the ending. In the co-op version, you play as P-body and ATLAS, two testing robots.

CHARACTERS

CHELL

Chell is the game's protagonist who is guided through individual test chamber by GLaDOS. She wields Handheld Portal Device and is a silent protagonist. No matter the height, falls won't hurt Chell as she uses braces that prevent her from taking any damage from fall. This is mentioned in Portal 2, that in early stages of portals' development employees have been breaking their legs so to prevent that, future test subjects had to wear these. As usual, GLaDOS often speaks to Chell in a taunting manner, bringing some topics that might seem like a background information or story-revealing dialogues, but these may just be made up to toy with Chell.
She is the only living human test subject in the entire facility, apart from Doug Rattmann.

WHEATLEY

Wheatley is the beloved companion we didn't know we needed, but in the end, one we did not deserve. He is your partner in crime and your company. He is a personality core and has access to most of the Aperture Science facility via the steel links that seem to be everywhere in the facility.

GLaDOS

GLaDOS, Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, not much has changed for her since the original Portal game, she still loves testing beyond anything. This time, however, she's been given more room than before, more than to be just a villain and I found it to be a pleasant change. A great character that often enjoys debating about humans' feelings, emotions, their superficial beliefs. She's bright and offers very interesting lines, there is much more to her than what was originally shown in the first game, now she's more than just a voice.

P-body & ATLAS

The inseperable duo of ATLAS and the P-body make their first appearance in the cooperative gameplay, where one player, typically the host, takes over the ATLAS, while the other takes the P-body. Both possess a portal gun, each with their respective colors. They are to work together in each chamber to be able to move further. Players can use various emotes to taunt, joke or just playfully annoy the other. While they have no literal dialogues, they make robotic noises showing excitement or sadness.
Players can equip their ATLAS or P-body with a hat and a different skin to give them a new look.

source: some of the present images have been taken from https://half-life.wikia.com/

Community Test Chambers & Robot Enrichment

ROBOT ENRICHMENT

Robot Enrichment Center can be accessed from the main menu, in the bottom-most place. There you can equip your co-op robot with some fancy looks. These looks cost real money, but fret not, most of the time, there is a discount going and the prices are generally low. Not too long ago I've bought Moon Skins and a Top hat for around 3€. It's a nice way to enrich your robot, if you play co-op often. And it's not just the looks, you can get new gestures as well.

COMMUNITY TEST CHAMBERS

There, you have the option to play other players' custom created chambers, whether co-op or solo, firstly however, they need to be downloaded from the Steam Workshop, you can also create your own chambers or view your own workshop.



I find creating custom levels to be a very fun way as you get to make puzzles for other players. Keep in mind, however, that almost all of the players are very experienced and coming up with a hard but not overly complicated chamber is not easy.

I gave it a shot once as well, should you want to try it and maybe take inspiration, see my own test chamber below.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=856270026

Achievements

Many of the achievements can be simply obtained my playing the story, or taking different turns in it, such as the Good Listener achievement.

This achievement, for instance, requires you to literally take GLaDOS' advice on escaping the facility, which sounds crazy. Do as your objectives tell you, or listen to GLaDOS and take a turn to the left.

Often you need not more than to play the game main game, same goes for cooperative gameplay. A good half of them all requires you to just finish it, some require you to perform a specific task such as not dropping a cube in a specific level or for both players not to die for the Iron Grip achievement.

In this example, you must not drop the cube you are provided with to complete the 6th course of the co-op gameplay. Technically, you could say this one is just obtained on the way because it's no big challenge to ensure this cube's survival.

So, there we have achievements easily obtainable by playing through the main story, some by playing through the co-op side story, and a fair amount of those that require you to perform a specific task.

Along to go with those, there is one, or two worth bringing up as they stand out and are difficult to obtain on your own. That is the Professor Portal and Friends List With Benefits.

This, a somewhat special achievement, requires you to play co-op with a friend of yours under 2 conditions: 1) You must have completed the co-op story and seen the ending. 2) Your friend must not have played co-op, ever, therefore you two must go through the introductory test chambers.
Naturally, you two must be friends as well.

Another achievement requiring the usage of friends list. Here, you must simply hug another person that is on your friends list, do that by selecting hug from the wheel of gestures. I suggest asking people on forums, or let me know and I'll be willing to help as well.

This section is also a good place to uplift a player called @UsernameNotFound_404, who's helped me with several co-op achievements so there goes a thanks to him!

Secrets

Now, there are several secret hidden throughout the game, all of them however, have something magical about them. Finding them isn't often that heard, just requires you to be observative. To give you a little tease, I'll list those that I found most interesting.

P-body appearance

Very later on, close to the ending of the game, when things get a bit out of hand and chambers start to mash together, you'll catch a glimpse of the co-op robot, P-body. He can be seen in a distance and after noticing you, he attempts to disappear quickly. It was a nice thought, bringing one of the co-op characters into the main story, even if just for a few seconds, it was a nice thing to see.

Singing turrets

In the third chapter, 16th chamber, you'll pass a little turret behind a grate. After using the laser on this little guy, he explodes and opens a pathway. There, you can listen to the singing turrets.

Saving Private Turret

In the 5th chapter, once you get to hop onto the so-called "redemption line", there's a turret, calling for help, claiming to be different. You can choose to pick him up off the line and save him, getting an achievement and maybe feel good about yourself.

(Excuse the shaky view, it would appear that the file got corrupted over the time and this was the result)

New Technology

Portal 2 keeps all of its former elements when it came to testing, altough Aperture Science (or likely GLaDOS herself instead) seemingly insisted on having more options for their testing subjects to utilize. Allow me to bring up the most important ones.

Thermal Discouragement Beam, a.k.a Tractor Beam

Laser-based technology used to either burn turrets and cause them to explode from large range up to close range, or to trigger energy pellets associated with them. To go with this, we also now have laser redirecting cube, that can reflect the laser and allow you to manipulate it to your liking.

Hard Light Bridge

These white beams of light can be channeled vertically or horizontally. If vertically, they are meant to be used as a shield againts lined up turrets. In case of them being placed horizontally, you are to walk upon them so look for white portable walls to access distant areas or to cross the goo.

Mobility Gels

Now, these come in 3 varieties.

• Repulsion Gel - causing objects to bounce of off it
  
• Propulsion Gel - causing objects to move at an accelerated rate
  
• Conversion Gel - causing surfaces it is placed on to be portable

(From left: repulsion gel, propulsion gel, conversion gel and water to remove the gel)











(source: all images have been taken from https://half-life.wikia.com)

Personal View

In many aspects, Portal series can serve as an example to many other games. Its main character - GLaDOS, very well executed and really appealing character, that has won multiple awards for being the best characters of gaming as of 2007 when the original Portal was released.



Or maybe it's the most unique puzzle solving that I can remember; gels, portals, cubes, buttons, it never stops. The combinations are amazing, every level different and also accompanied by GLaDOS' manipulative and tricking lines.

An amazing story as well, as opposed to the original Portal, we now get to enjoy much longer story which was what I appreciated quite a lot myself.

Loved the game and would recommend every bit of it!

Closure

Hopefully you found this guide sufficient as somewhat of an entry-level guide before you get deeper into the game.

Valve's games have something to them that other games don't. In all honesty, it's likely the long periods between each release date that make players value these games more but one can't deny these games their place.

Alas, let us depart and hopefully meet again, when the somewhat dismissive number 3, perhaps finds its way into Valve's office.

[iaon]

The water is Cleansing Gel

[double]

good

[zoop]

here i think i foudn that number 1245678910 see? i counted the number tree