Although your gun will continue to fire just two portals, physical forces will now bleed between them. For example, a portal positioned below a powerful suction tube will maintain that suction across the portal threshold, affecting objects on the other side. There's also a tractor beam.
Portal 2 Singleplayer Coop
Perhaps most interestingly, there's even a range of paints that change surface friction and behaviour, which you can distribute through careful portal use. For example, you can paint the floor orange to increase the speed you move over it.
This is a guide on how you can test co-op maps alone utilizing the splitscreen capabilities of the Source engine. This also works for any existing coop maps. It does not require any modifications to the map file itself.
Test chamber 1 is the first chamber to use the Thermal Discouragement Beam alongside with portals. GLaDOS claims to need to start the facility back up while she performs the test, and then tells Chell to pace herself because of a numerous amount of tests.
Test chamber 3 introduces Discouragement Redirection Cubes alongside with portals to complete the test, alongside with being the first chamber to use 2 lasers. After the test, GLaDOS congratulates Chell on "beating the odds" and not being extremely skinny after emerging from suspension.
Test chamber 6 introduces "Advanced Aerial Faith Plates", which is a conjunction of Faith Plates and portals to get Chell to a button and to maneuver the cube to the button. GLaDOS indirectly calls Chell "smelly garbage standing around and being useless", which she apologizes for (sarcastically) at the end of the test.
Test chamber 8 introduces the concept of fizzlers mid-level, in which Chell has to portal through a small gap and use a redirection cube to shoot a laser through a fizzler. GLaDOS mocks Chell once again before leaving, saying that the turbines have broken down. It is the last chamber of the chapter.
After several tests, Wheatley finds out about the Cooperative Testing Initiative 2 and takes it upon himself to kill the two. Chell manages to escape thanks to her skill with the portal device and a timely splatter of Conversion Gel.
Chell gets thrown across the room as the reactor meltdown enters its final phase, shaking the chamber apart. The Moon appears through a breach in the roof, allowing Chell to shoot a portal at its surface at what is likely the Apollo 17 landing site at Taurus-Littrow (Cave Johnson said prior that lunar dust was an excellent portal-conducting surface). The vacuum of space sucks Chell, Wheatley, the Portal Gun, Rick the Adventure Core, and the Space Core through, as Chell hangs onto Wheatley's tethered core to survive. Unseen, GLaDOS successfully performs the core transfer and stabilizes the reactors. She knocks Wheatley out into space and drags Chell back to safety before closing the portal.
Footnotes: 1) GLaDOS does seem to realize she was Caroline. She says: "Caroline... Caroline... WHY do I know this woman?! Did I kill her, or-- omg... look, you're.. doing great. Do you think you can handle these tests on your own for a moment? I need to think..." 2) In the game, Wheatley says: "You've probably figured out by now, but I don't need you anymore. I've got two models in the back built specifically for testing." GLaDOS, right after Wheatley says that, says: "Oh no, he's found the core cooperative testing initiative. It's something I came up with to phase out human testing just before you escaped." I've theorized she's talking about P-Body and Atlas.
The initial cooperative course whose main purpose is to 'calibrate' ATLAS and P-body for each other, as well as their own controls. During this course, GLaDOS implies the idea that most of this course is a competition of who is faster, as well as initiating her general attitude of creating friction between the two.
ATLAS and P-body are put through a series of simple tests, designed to promote cooperation and teamwork through the use of Super Buttons and Thermal Discouragement Beams. The final test sends them down to the basement of the facility to activate a targeting computer, which locates a small group of objects.
This test course focuses on advanced "flinging" techniques, teaching ATLAS and P-body to not only form complex chains using all of their portals, but also timing to allow one to catch an object mid-fling when it is dropped by their partner. The final test involves retrieving a set of blueprints outside of test areas, which GLaDOS states are of no concern to the androids.
The Excursion Funnel test course, as with the previous ones, teaches the cooperative use of funnels and their reversal function. The final test mixes the use of the funnels and Hard Light Bridges as shields in order to reach a power station, which is activated to provide power to the final course.
The console versions of Portal 2 include both splitscreen and online play, but the PC version is limited to online co-op. As far as I know, splitscreen players on PC are few and far between, but leaving the option out seems to be an odd omission. PlayStation 3 copies of the game not only include a code to activate a complimentary copy of the game on Steam for PC/Mac play, they also include integration with Steam itself, allowing for a PS3 player to hook up with friends on the PC version and play cooperatively.
It could have been a tricky thing to help your buddy know where and when to fire his portal gun, but the game gives you the ability to point to a place on a wall and place an icon there, drawing the attention of the other player. In a quick second you can place two temporary icons wherever you please, letting your buddy know exactly where to shoot his portals to get you where you need to go. This is done with the "F" button on the PC, and it operates almost like a laser pointer when you're using the function. It's an effective tool for illustrating your strategy.
You can also set up a timer that counts down from three, allowing you to tell your robotic friend where and when to throw a switch or fire a portal. You will definitely need this function if you're trying to keep your timing in sync with another player.
My first time playing began with voice chat, but when the Ventrillo server failed, my friend and I found that the game gave us more than enough tools to communicate with each other without speaking, or even typing. Heck, we were able to give each respect for a job well done or mock each other for simple mistakes using the built-in emotes. The single-player game is fun, but there is something magical that happens when you and a friend begin to experiment with the portals and levels to try to find a solution to each puzzle. Teamwork is mandatory, and the level design is often brilliant.
Like the original Portal (2007), players solve puzzles by placing portals and teleporting between them. Portal 2 adds features including tractor beams, lasers, light bridges, and paint-like gels that alter player movement or allow portals to be placed on any surface. In the single-player campaign, players control Chell, who navigates the dilapidated Aperture Science Enrichment Center during its reconstruction by the supercomputer GLaDOS (Ellen McLain); new characters include robot Wheatley (Stephen Merchant) and Aperture founder Cave Johnson (J. K. Simmons). In the new cooperative mode, players solve puzzles together as robots Atlas and P-Body (both voiced by Dee Bradley Baker). Jonathan Coulton and the National produced songs for the game.
The initial tutorials guide the player through movement controls and interactions with their environment, and in the case of the cooperative campaign, interactions with the other player. Gameplay revolves around the use of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, which can create a pair of two portals on suitable surfaces through which the player or objects can pass through. Characters can use these portals to move between rooms or to "fling" objects or themselves across a distance.[4][5]
Additional game elements not featured in the original Portal include Thermal Discouragement Beams (lasers), Excursion Funnels (tractor beams), and Hard Light Bridges, all of which can be transmitted through portals.[2][6][7][8] Aerial Faith Plates catapult the player and objects through the air. The player must disable sentient, lethal turrets or avoid their line of sight. The Weighted Storage Cube has been redesigned, and there are new types: Redirection Cubes, which have prismatic lenses that redirect laser beams, spherical Edgeless Safety Cubes, an antique version of the Weighted Storage Cube used in the underground levels, and a cube-turret hybrid created by Wheatley after taking control of Aperture.[2][9] The heart-decorated Weighted Companion Cube reappears briefly.[10] Early demonstrations included Pneumatic Diversity Vents, shown to transport objects and transfer suction power through portals, but these do not appear in the final game.[2][9][11][12] The typical objective of a test chamber or level is to use the portal gun and provided gameplay elements to open a locked exit door and progress to the next chamber.
Paint-like gels (which are dispensed from pipes and can be transported through portals) impart certain properties to surfaces or objects coated with them.[2] Players can use orange Propulsion Gel to cross surfaces more quickly, blue Repulsion Gel to bounce from a surface,[13] and white Conversion Gel to allow surfaces to accept portals.[14] Only one type of gel can affect a certain surface at a time. Some surfaces, such as grilles, cannot be coated with a gel. Water can block or wash away gels, returning the surface or object to its normal state.
In the cooperative campaign, two players can use the same console with a split screen, or can use a separate computer or console; Windows, Mac OS X, and PlayStation 3 users can play with each other regardless of platform.[15][16] Both player-characters are robots equipped with independent portal guns, a portal pair placed by either player is usable by both.[2][8][17] Most chambers lack strict structure, and require players to use both sets of portals for laser or funnel redirection, launches, and other maneuvers.[18] The game provides voice communication between players, and online players can temporarily enter a split-screen view to help coordinate actions.[17] Players can "ping" to draw the other player's attention to walls or objects, start countdown timers for synchronized actions, and perform joint gestures such as waving or hugging.[2][7][18] The game tracks which chambers each player has completed and allows players to replay chambers they have completed with new partners. 2ff7e9595c
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