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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignPortal's Ending
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J.G. Martins
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« Reply #20 on: January 08, 2009, 05:42:25 AM »

The advanced levels never quite cut it for me - glados just made about that entire game for me. Her absurd personality combined with Ellen Mclain's amazing voice acting is simply awesome. Also, the whole damn thing is filled with pretty fun easter eggs.

And I couldn't stop laughing when I heard the ending song. Such a bloody shame I spoiled it for myself just because so many people were talking about. Jonathan Coulton's song writing is just pretty awesome.

Yeah, I do prefer to go into games without knowing what everyone else thought of it. It's such a different experience than already expecting a bunch of things. There was only one game where reading lots about it didn't damage the game for me, and that was "You have to burn the rope" Tongue

Also, what kind of easter eggs? I can't remember finding any :\ I kept finding small rooms with nothing interesting in them.
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Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all."
--- Rudyard Kipling
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« Reply #21 on: January 08, 2009, 05:48:36 AM »

I didn't like the song that much, neither the 'boss'. But the whole last level was super, and it was also very atmospheric to look for some hidden messaged and such. Great game.
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Cymon
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« Reply #22 on: January 08, 2009, 10:06:20 AM »

Also, what kind of easter eggs? I can't remember finding any :\ I kept finding small rooms with nothing interesting in them.
I think he means those rooms hinting at the story, the mentions of black mesa, the couple of squids on the wall (not sure what that's about myself), the keyboards that highlight the keys of Adrian Shephard's name, and the login for aperaturescience.com. All cool stuff. Most of which I found after the fact (except for the login).
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J.G. Martins
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« Reply #23 on: January 08, 2009, 10:26:01 AM »

Heh, I need to stop playing with textures minimum. The writing on the walls was actually intelligible after I bumped up the textures. Stupid low-end laptop.

I finished replaying the whole thing with commentaries. They were quite interesting from a game design point of view Smiley

And I re-noticed an amazing comment in the middle of the game I had forgotten:

Quote from: GLaDOS
"As part of a previously mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed."

Plus everything else she says.
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Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all."
--- Rudyard Kipling
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« Reply #24 on: January 08, 2009, 01:55:20 PM »

I recently finished my second play-through of Portal, and just... Wow. I can't stop being amazed by that game. It's that kind of thing that I end up comparing not to other games, but rather to my favourite Tarantino movies. The kind of things that create their own language and speak it to reach into you. And the result being simply awe-inspiring.

I thought about GLaDOS's schitzoid personality through the course of the second play-through. It all really makes a lot of sense if you imagine 'her' as a computer programmed with an artificial, desicion-making personality... That's gone haywire. It'd also explain the existance of a cake, as well as her ambigous feelings towards you: It's a schitzophrenic computer. The final bossfight also highlights this in how she's parted into a number of disagreeing personality-cores.

The funny thing is that while that's a viable technical analysis, you could probably think about her in purely psychological terms and come to different conclusions.


And yeah, playing with portals to solve puzzles is funny enough, but that really isn't the main reason why I'm so in love with the game. It's all GLaDOS.
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« Reply #25 on: January 08, 2009, 02:31:30 PM »

I want to Control + C and then Control + Paste GLaDOS many, many times, over and over again though.

It's a cheap joke. But I said it. I had to. I've lost my smart mood tonight again though! Smiley
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« Reply #26 on: January 08, 2009, 03:09:30 PM »

I just realised GlaDOS reminds me an awful lot of "2001: A space oddyssey"'s HAL. Though GlaDOS is indeed quite a bit different concerning her schitzoid nature. She does seem to have an overzealous A.I. with little morals to the race that appeared to have created her, just like HAL.
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J.G. Martins
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« Reply #27 on: January 08, 2009, 03:50:39 PM »

Dictionary.com says no to schitzoid. However, there's this (sorry for sounding like a prick):

Quote from: dictionary.com
Schizoid personality disorder (SPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, and emotional coldness. SPD is reasonably rare compared with other personality disorders. Its prevalence is estimated at less than 1% of the general population.

So I don't really think that's what she is. The second playthrough, I got a better perception of what I think she is: she looks to be programmed to "do science", whatever it takes, so she can't help herself. But then she actually starts to like you, because she must have some sort of module for it........ only her directives are stronger, but I do believe she is happy for you when you make it through, even though she still continues to try to kill you!
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Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all."
--- Rudyard Kipling
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« Reply #28 on: January 09, 2009, 07:15:06 AM »

Ahh... Schizophrenia is what I was on about, of course. Not that I'd claim to be an expert on the subject. I like your theory as well, except there's more to her contradictionary nature than just trying to kill you. Her way of talking about the companion cube and her taunts at the end (about the funeral etc) indicate either one or both of the following:

1. Her personality cores are messed up so that she switches between liking and hating you
2. She's frustrated at your disregard for her and even jealous of the companion cube

I dunno which, really. I like the second one the most, but it could easily be both. Shrug
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« Reply #29 on: January 09, 2009, 08:35:15 AM »

I remember reading more about GlaDOS somewhere that one of her personality cores was based on one of the scientist daughetrs, and that, given GlaDOS dialogue in one of the first tests chambers, Chell is likely a clone (of probably many) a daughter of one of those scientist. There is the possibility that GlaDOS and Chell are based/cloned from the same person.

The whole thing leads me to believ that GlaDOS has a sort of "penis envy", where she is jealous of the clones because they are what GlaDOS can never be: a human. Thus, GlaDOS awakens one of the clones just to mess with them and torture them as means of revenge, probably going in cycles. It is likely each of the clones progressed further than the others, by leaving clues and crap, until the current iteration, the one shown in the game.
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« Reply #30 on: January 09, 2009, 09:01:01 AM »

I remember reading more about GlaDOS somewhere that one of her personality cores was based on one of the scientist daughetrs, and that, given GlaDOS dialogue in one of the first tests chambers, Chell is likely a clone (of probably many) a daughter of one of those scientist. There is the possibility that GlaDOS and Chell are based/cloned from the same person.

The whole thing leads me to believ that GlaDOS has a sort of "penis envy", where she is jealous of the clones because they are what GlaDOS can never be: a human. Thus, GlaDOS awakens one of the clones just to mess with them and torture them as means of revenge, probably going in cycles. It is likely each of the clones progressed further than the others, by leaving clues and crap, until the current iteration, the one shown in the game.
I immediately thought that Chell was a clone (heck, her name even sounds like "cel"), and was thrilled to see that supported in TFV portal mappack (tho, I think those elements were removed from Portal: Still Alive for the 360). If that were the case it leads to some interesting story elements:
  • The clones may be blanks when the game starts. (Unbased assumption, but it makes for some interesting ideas, so go with it for now.)
  • Born with a portal gun as one of their first "toys" they've shown a nearly 100% effectiveness rate, since they're learning to portal almost as soon as they're learning to walk.
  • Somewhere in the half-life world theres a bunch of Chells running around with portal guns.
  • GlaDOS keeps running clones through because she, at least part of her, doesn't want to live, but the auto repair system keep undoing the damage, so the only recourse she has is to keep running clones until the on-hand resources are depleted so she can die.
  • Since the clones are blank they couldn't be the ones reading and writing the "mole man" messages on the walls, so at least at some point GlaDOS was tormenting "real" people, the scientists and employees of Aperture is my guess.
  • Also, since the clones are blanks all of GlaDOS' taunts are falling on functionally deaf ears. (That's my favorite part.)
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J.G. Martins
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« Reply #31 on: January 09, 2009, 09:23:05 AM »

Actually, some of the writing on the wall does suggest that someone has been through the exact same experience as you. The room on the level with the cube is actually pretty damned "hilarious", try to check it out. Love poems, pictures of girl's bodies with the cube instead of their head. It's great Wink

Anyway, I really have to try those new levels, apparently Smiley
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Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" cried the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But iron, cold iron, is the master of them all."
--- Rudyard Kipling
Cymon
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« Reply #32 on: January 09, 2009, 01:22:52 PM »

Actually, some of the writing on the wall does suggest that someone has been through the exact same experience as you. The room on the level with the cube is actually pretty damned "hilarious", try to check it out. Love poems, pictures of girl's bodies with the cube instead of their head. It's great Wink

Anyway, I really have to try those new levels, apparently Smiley
Yes, yes you do.

Am I the only one who played Portal TFV map pack? It was brilliant. More challenging than the original levels, but not unbeatable. Disorienting and easy to get lost in, but solvable. I'm no "hard core" gamer, so I didn't want any impossible challenges. Plus, the last boss was pretty satisfying.
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« Reply #33 on: January 10, 2009, 05:40:45 AM »

Too be honest I didn't find the Portal ending great apart from the actual escape. That was atmospheric and I felt like I was being chased but killing Glados and the ending song didn't really do it for me.

While I cried the second time through watching 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL died, I didn't bat an eyelid at glados' death, she was trying to kill me for no reason, HAL at least had a logical motive.

The ending song was cute, but it was either the fact that I had heard some bits from it before or something that didn't do it for me, some of the lines were clever that's all.

Also, the plot twist wasn't surprising at all, I would've liked it a lot more if it wasn't so damn obvious. Hmm, a robot in complete control that isn't empathatic at all, I wonder what will happen next?

It was a fun puzzle game, sure, but I don't get the love for Glados other than as light entertainment. Huh?
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« Reply #34 on: January 10, 2009, 05:52:31 AM »

Too be honest I didn't find the Portal ending great apart from the actual escape. That was atmospheric and I felt like I was being chased but killing Glados and the ending song didn't really do it for me.
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