Continue reading »]]> This next test may involve side effects of euphoria, depression, happiness, sadness, weakness of the knees and uncontrollable blushing - but the most important thing is to have fun with it!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8SdYz7cq04

This marriage proposal has just come to my attention, and all I have to say is: knock it off. If you two lovebirds want to marry something, marry Science. Unlike marrying another human being, Science won’t produce children that will grow up to resent you, and it doesn’t require fancy candy or ties for Father’s Day to keep it happy. Go back to the testing chambers and I’ll personally wed you to some repulsion gel, then call it even. Cave Johnson, we’re done here.

Wheatley’s reaction:

‘ello! They told me if I ever got married, I would DIE, but don’t be alarmed! Although if you do feel alarmed, try to hold onto that feeling, because that is the proper reaction to being proposed. But really, you should consider it… getting married, that is. I mean, what’s the worst that could ha- Oh god I just, just thought of the worst that could happen. But the point is- OH OH! I have a BRILLIANT idea! Why don’t you marry an ASTRONAUT so you can bring me back from space!

And yes, that is Ellen McLain as GLaDOS

All the best to Gary and Steph!

Continue reading »]]>

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXNpsTQB4GA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6opR0S-P6Y

[Part 2 added]

So I’m at it again, with another blind playthrough of another very excellent mod: Factum Solus. It’s less about the challenges and more about the story. This is Episode 1 of the story, has 5 maps, but plenty of game-time.

This far, this has been a great joy to play. It got a solid 9.2 on ModDB.com, and I tend to agree. Factum Solus takes place in a parallel reality where Chell is still Chell - but Aperture is not run by GLaDOS - instead it is run by another AI called Ben.

Some of the chambers will freak you out, but also amaze you in the way they were achieved. Especially the room inside which the ground is constantly moving.

The recording was done on an Intel Core 2 Duo in full HD and everything turned to highest detail. It ran on Wine, on GNOME 3, Arch Linux, with a 3.0 Linux kernel, and GLC as the recorder. Commentary recorded with Audacity and later merged into the video.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZCTJIR6E1o

Me, SE51 or System Error 51, clearing the entirety of the most awesome Portal mod there is, in just under 30 minutes. From waking up in the relaxation chamber until I put the Morality Core on GLaDOS, the time is exactly 29m 43s. For an INBOUNDS speedrun, this is the current world record. This assumption is backed by the fact that I could not find a similar speedrun for Portal: Prelude, on YouTube, or somewhere else.

You might have noticed that the game time clock stops at certain points. Those points are either cutscenes, or points where you can do absolutely nothing but wait - for example before Chamber 18, where you sit in the hallway and can watch cubes getting made. I also stopped the time at the Party sequence, where GLaDOS is turned on, and at the last cutscene where she asks you what you want to do with the Morality Core. Those pauses cut a good bit of actual time. I also wanted to accurately measure the run - and I think to pause the time at those points is fair.

I realize the stopwatch timer is a bit of a bad quality - this is due to the fact that Premiere can’t handle a simple thing like adding a customizable stopwatch on to the video, so the watch is actually a 1 hour long small clip with the numbers running.

These glitches are utilized:
- Peek-A-Portal
- ABH’ing
- Wall Climbing
- Emancipation Grill Portal Bumping (EGPB)
- Turret Cube Target Switch

The run is segmented. For the most part each map is a segment - however toward the end, as the maps get highly complex, the maps were split up into their own segments. It took roughly two weeks to complete. I encourage anyone to compete with me and beat this time.

Achievements:

Fastwalker
Clear the entirety of Portal Prelude in under 30 minutes actual gametime

Minimalist
Touch only one of the many platforms in Chamber 19 Part II, to reach the exit door at the top of the chamber.

Need For Speed
Touch no platform on your way down in Chamber 19 Part II, to get the cube into the incinerator on top of the chamber.

Inmate
Complete a speedrun of the game without going out of maps (leave the walls of a level)

No Hard Feelings
Make Turrets believe a cube is their target, without them noticing

Warp Drive Active
Utilize the warp zone in Chamber 9 to complete the game faster

-

Trivia

- The recording for the first segment was done on July 14, 10:31 PM. The last segment was recorded on July 24, 12:01 PM.
- To get Chamber 19 Part II (the platform bit that goes up insanely high) done, I needed 4 days to get all the flings and jumps right
- Program used to put the segments together is Premiere Pro CS5.

Continue reading »]]> So here we are again… it’s always such a pleasure! Here I am yet again, picking up a customized Portal gun, and trying not to die in over 30 fan-made Test Chambers. While the mod is nothing short of epic, after 9 hours and 42 minutes total playtime I called it quits as it got too frustrating to me. I am guessing I was at the end anyways, so there isn’t much else to see.

Portal Gamma Energy can be found here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/gamma-energy

Continue reading »]]> Hello investors, Cave Johnson here! We took our award-winning portal technology to the next level. Unfortunately the next level caused brain damage in test subject’s brains. Very informative!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vBcgdOMsa0

This mechanism was used only once, in Wheatley’s Test Chamber 75, in Chapter 9. It is a special entity that can link to points together, much like the way normal Portals can. However this one is fully customizable - you can even shoot Portals into it from the outside.

The reason it is so confusing is because our brain does not expect something so profound out of the ordinary. Our brains cannot directly deal with spatial displacements on this magnitude. It’s kind of MC Escher meets Inception. I see a lot of ‘impossible-shape’ maps coming this way, some maps where we have to go deeper… I guess.

If you want to know how exactly this works, have a look at this page over at Valve’s developer Wiki.

Continue reading »]]> With 5 hours and 40 minutes, this is definitely the longest video I have ever uploaded. Don’t watch this all at once or you’ll get some unnamed, undiscovered cancer even Aperture Science could not help you with

This is me, doing a blind playthrough of probably the best mod ever made for the original Portal. It’s pretty damn impressive, if you ask me. Only 480p this time, as this video file was large enough as it is.

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mMmg9pzGDA