MINERVA - read-only archives

Portal was actually really fun, I enjoyed playing a puzzle game rather than blasting everything. So far ep2 is cool., just got the car, but the whole achievements thing bugs me, something I just would have rather seen stay on xbox...especially since they don't really do anything.

[edit: spelling]

I'm just glad that I was finally able to get the delicious cake.

That ending song was pure genius.

Well, in my humble gaming opinion, I think that the way the game ended, and the glimpses of the Black Mesa slides you see, all point to SOME kind of continuation of the story. I mean honestly, when all that was over and you wake up back in the real world with that device, I couldn't imagine you just setting it down and walking away from that and never think about, or do something about it. Also there is the song which clearly states GLaDos (not sure of the capitols there there) is still alive and doing science. The song made the shortness of the game worth it, I know I chuckled all the way through.

GLaDOS

As has probably already been pointed out, Kim Swift (Project lead on Portal) has said that the follow up to Portal depends on the what the general community seems to want.

Personally, I'm angling for more of the same, probably with a different test subject. Say... Aperture Labs' portal experiments before GLaDOS went mad. With a lot more of the backstory to the H-L universe, delving into the rivalry between Aperture Science and Black Mesa.

But there's no sense over crying over every mistake/You just keep on trying til you run out of cake!

And the science gets done/And you make a neat gun/For the people who are/still alive!

Since I started tackling the Least-Steps and Least-time challenge maps, I have noted a rather precipitous fall in my self-esteem, on account of my glaringly apparent uselessness at solving puzzles under pressure.

The Least-Portals bit is mostly fine as I have all the time I need and can pace around to explore angles as much as I like.

The Least-Steps torment is upsetting me quite a bit as I always seem to discover new and exciting ways to unitentionally add desperately unwanted extra steps, seemingly from nowhere.

But the ultimate torture is the hell known as the Least-Time Challenge. I seem to completely lose all sense of direction and coordination when that clock thingy is taunting me from its little corner of my screen. I seem incapable of remembering which colour portal I need to set next, or manage to be facing the right way, or the right way up, for that matter as I emerge, panic striken, from each of my hurriedly misplaced portals.

Can anyone recommend a good, and preferably cheap, therapist?

Have not tried the time maps yet because I know I will fail lol.

What I am curious about, is has anyone downloaded new maps from FPS banana? If so, how did you play them? I put them in the maps folder, but they do not show up on any kind of list.

One thing I would very much like to know is how stand alone portals (such as the first portal that opens to let you out of your holding cell thing) were opened/kept open. Magic walls?

I presumed those vertical metal bars on either side of the generated portals had something to do with it ...