Portal 3

[Stop Mocking Me0]

You wake up as chell, you're in a forest, far away from any civilization. There's a wheat field behind you. You will begin having flashes of aperture's horrors. You will be given some simple tasks to do to learn basic training: Carrying fire-wood, jumping up roots and branches to trees, and melee attacking the badger trying to make off with your meal. 

 

At this point I should mention controls: Done by Xbox-one's buttons. 

 

 

X: Use/pick up highlighted item

Y: Target/Highlight an object (Co-Op only) Hold to activate motions and gestures. 

A: Jump

B: Crouch

Start: Pause

Select: While held, activates the character's special ability

RT: Lighter color portal

RB: Use Gun ability.

Lt: Darker color portal

LB: Cycle gun abilities. 

RCS: Camera angle, Press in to melee attack

LCT: Movement of Player, Press in to run slightly faster. 

 

 

 

You go to sleep in your make-shift bed. You awake to a red haze… The forest is on fire! 

 

Run where you can, eventually you will end up near a lake, jump on in. 

You'll be saved by the fire, but beneath tentacles grab you and drag you down far before you black out. 

 

You awake in a cell. Chained to a wall by your feet. It's at this point that you're greeted by a new character: General Flavo: 

 

General Flavo: Robotic general constructed by the combine (HL3), he is a machine of war against all humans, to him life is just a disease that needs to be purged. He was actually constructed from technology stolen from black masa… Which was stolen from aperture…  He speaks with a slow dramatic thick american accent, like blazowits from Wolfenstein the new order. Is almost never seen without his one-eye'd targeting goggle. 

 

"Huh… Haven seen a human round these parts in years… Figured I might as well kill you alive… Saver the joy of your agony… Thats right… nice and slow… Hmmm… you know what… HA! I think I'll even use my personal favorite on you… BRING IN THE LASER BOYS!" 

 

A laser will be brought in to kill chell from behind the glass in front of them. As the laser approaches her, players can use LT to pull chill's shackle in the path of the beam, this will break the shackle. 

 

Enraged, Flavo comes out and holds your hand back behind you himself, but unfortunately for him chell can use a melee attack to quickly subdue the bot, shoving the laser into his single eye. Blinded and immobile, chell is free to escape her chains and runs out of the door. 

 

She continues forward and is greeted with old friends: The cube-button system, the turret system, and the laser beam configuration bits. Pretty soon you will find the armory, there are many guns here, but chell is smart, and takes the only one she needs: The aperture science confiscated handheld type 5-41.3 Portal device. This will introduce the player to basic portal controls: Portal here, portal there, portals EVERYWHERE! Basic laws of motion and conservation, emancipation grills, and everything else. NOTE: This isn't your average portal gun either, nope, this little thing will allow one to place a portal on ANY flat surface, this does NOT include rigid-textured surfaces, or any surface that is curved or broken. It must be 100% flat, not glass, and not an emancipation grill. There are also some other substances portals will not appear on as well. 

 

Achievement: A truely Freeman: In Flavo's compound, attempt to obtain the weapon that isn't yours. 

-Awarded for attempting to pick up the gravity gun in the armory. 

 

Eventually chell will find her way into the sewer and begin climbing the pipe system up a cliff of sorts. 

 

At the top of the cliff sits a ruined city, to make sure no one fallows her chell destroys the way behind her. 

 

End of Chapter 1.

 

Chapter 2: Saving Wheatley 

 

 

 

The city is very strange, it appears to be mostly half-submerged buildings. There's no sign of life. It's night now so chell will be prompted to spend the night in one of the random house's beds. Only to be woken up in the morning by a rusty old robot. Scared chell trys to run, eventually pulled down into the main square. Here the robot fully reveals himself: 

 

I…Am…The…..Opperator of this… City… My goal… My purpose… To keep the humans alive… I have failed… Error…. Host personality core faulty… Scanning to locate nearest compatible core… Scan complete… Nearest core un-obtainable… (It's at this point the machine notices chell's portal gun) 

New possibilities… Available… Calculating… Yes… it is possible… Human… Will you please obtain personality core… (Takes chill's portal gun, then drops chell into a chute.) The chute will lead chell to a door that will seal behind her. The only thing in the room is a suit. Put it on. 

 

Achievement: I am NOT wearing that!: Refuse to put on the designated clothing 

 

 

After a bit the air will be drained from the room in a matter of 2 Minutes, which is when the robot will apologize for the trouble he is causing you, but then explains chell needs to keep calm and breath normally. 

 

When the room is empty, an orange portal will appear on the wall, walk through it and look around… Your portal device will be returned to you once you've made passage through. 

 

 

It's been one small step for man…. But it's even shorter if you've just used a portal to get to the moon. 

Walk around and get used to the new MOON physics! Lower gravity means slower falling, higher jumping, and slower running. It ALSO means any non-sealed area will slowly drain your Oxygen (Displayed in the bottom left corner as X/100) One can charge oxygen inside sealed areas however. 

 

Other then that it's pretty much the same. Work your way puzzle after puzzle, until you reach the space garden, here one can find none other then Wheatley himself being strangled by vines, the mutant plants will attempt to attack you in the game's first boss fight. 

 

The goal here is to obtain the attention of a turret, then using portals, slice it's roots off. Once completely pruned you will be reunited with Wheatley! Still a blabbermouth and not too bright. An automatic portal will appear at the exit to the room, allowing you to re-join the earth. 

 

 

The chapter ends with the control bot's death. Wheatley will be taken from you and placed in the place of the dead bot. He now has control of the city, but considering the purposes of this bot are specifically to keep humans alive, Wheatley has no desire to kill you. Chell returns to sleep.

 

The next day Wheatley returns to you stating that he'd been up all night looking for other survivors, failing to complete his task forces him to ask chell for help. 

 

Chapter 3: The great lake

 

You now have access to a HUGE area surrounding you and the city. The mountain, the dark valley, the under-city, the lake, the desert and the amusement park. 

Eventually you will be able to access all of these areas, but for now, make your way through the tree grove to the watery area. 

 

 

Here you're given a new kind of physic: Water 

 

Unlike portal 1 and 2, all the water here will not kill you (However dirty/acid water will). Points around the lake will require one to move water in and out of a weighted tank, through a water wheel, and drain electrified water. 

 

There is also the addition of the floating companion cube: It, edgeless safety cubes, and the laser redirection cube will float when placed in water, where as a companion cube, or a regular cube will sink. This can lead the player to have trouble hitting buttons in the top of rooms, or at the bottom if there's water. 

 

Should a player find themselves in water they can press A to jump and swim upward. There are some dangers, if a player sinks too deep they will die from pressure ( Especially the Co-Op robots!) As well there are underwater turrets too. Incredibly powerful when they've got water to shoot though, but otherwise they're harmless. 

 

 

At the end the player will find themselves at the center of the lake with a lighthouse on an island. Inside, the player can work their way down into the depths. 

By using portals and puzzles chell can successfully drain all of the water from the bunker, allowing access to the labs, and more importantly the gel hose. 

 

 

The gel hose is a special tool that allows one to place blue and orange gel where they wish by swapping between them using LB and RB. There is an issue however. The gel requires activation code, turned off when one passes through a green emancipation grill, or dies. To re-activate one simply needs to activate a "Gel station" that looks like the health station from HL. There are 2 types: Orange and blue, each one is needed to access the corresponding gel. Gel never has or will stick to un-stickable surfaces. 

 

Of course players can still access gels in the old way too from large pipes. 

 

Now once you obtain this power on the grid and you'll be forced to now make your way OUT of the building, to do so, one will need to use their new gel gun and the hard-light bridges.

 

 

Escape to end chapter 3. 

 

Chapter 4: Cold Sweat

 

 

This is a fun level in which chell ascends a mountain to repair the base on top. The issue being large amounts of snow and ice frequently block her path, the solution lies at the center of the mountain, or volcano rather. Hot magma is normally close enough by to portal link to, this can and will melt ice. Other times chell must cross lava using water or melted ice.

 

Eventually chell will reach the top and find a small hut. Inside she can re-activate the tower and power many things. One of these things being the amusement park. 

 

The amusement park is not actually used as a level, but rather more of a mini-game area where one can go to use their portal physics to outsmart rigged games and survive broken rides like the roller coaster and flinger. Furthermore, this area contains the psychic link tent, which allows one to access Co-op mode and the Ratman DLC. Both of these will be covered at the end of the solo mode description. 

 

End chapter 3, enter chapter 4

 

Chell returns to the city and sleeps peacefully through the night. However she awakens to wheatley telling her: 

 

"Oh good you're awake, now… No need to alarm you but we're both hiding right now, just stay uh… Mute… as usual… and I will see what I can do about these soldiers closing in." 

 

Chell looks out her window to see the familiar face of General Flavo. 

"This ruin is under the control of the combine, surrender your personality core now or we will take it by force. 

"Woah Woah Woah… There's no need for all this, it's just an empty city. Don't worry. Everything's fine, no humans here… Just me and the rats…"

 

One of the two robots behind Flavo, a green-tinted one with a russian female accent states:  We want the truth core, anything else will be met with extermination. 

 

"Uh no you won't… Uh… Because… Because… You NEED me to know where the human went don't you! And if you kill me you'll never figure it out… 

 

At this point the other robot behind Flavo with a thick killer-croc type accent will say: The girrrrll is here… She has traveled across water and ice… Likely climbing the mountain to turn on reserve power…. I sense she has either gone to the dark woods or under the city where she could use the light… 

 

 

Flavo: Split up, First one of you two to find her gets to keep their arms, the other, obviously, will not. 

 

 

 

Flavo will leave, taking wheatley's head with him. 

 

 

Here chell is faced with a choice: Descend lower into the city to fight the tracking robot (Ignus-2) or  locate the killer robot in the dark forest (WIgh-prototype M3). 

 

 

(Fallow Ignus) 

 

This corridor is a big pain the the butt. But it does allow chell to finally use her special ability, toggle flashlight. It's dark, has a week flooring issue, and is filled with turrets and failed test subjects. There is also a new enemy introduced: The old friend: The crab-head zombie. You can not beat these in this game (unless you drop them into acid or walk them through lasers) however they are fairly harmless unless touched or if one focuses light onto them, they are slow moving but SUPER annoying. However spacing these things with blue gel (gel gun) will cause the head crab to bounce around the room leaving the human subject to fall down dead. 

 

 

At the end of the tunnels along the bottom, chell will find herself in a common sewer-like area.  In it she will find Ignus sniffing around for her. If he sees you, he will case after you, forcing you to hide. However one can use this to trick him into traps and into running into walls where there was once portals. Traps and wall contact will eventually break his circuitry: 

 

Achievement get: In-gnus plan: Shut down the tracking initiative. 

 

For winning you receive the portal-control mechanism, which is fairly useless now. 

Now on to the dark forest/valley. 

 

 

Same general concept: Forge your way through the tests of the dark. There are no head crab zombies here, so that's a plus. But there are more turrets, including a new turret from portal 1: The rocket turret, only these bad boys are designed to withstand their own rockets and can't be killed yet by chell. It's best to use and avoid them. 

 

Taking down WIgh-prototype M3 is like the Ignus fight only she learns from your attacks. Much like arkham city's mr. Freeze fight, no attack works twice. Instead one must attack with each type of attack once: 

 

Melee from behind

Rocket from turret

Run into wall that loses it's portal

Hit with laser 

Dropped/Flung into water. 

Rocket from herself. 

 

Likewise she always knows where you are and will fire rockets on site. For defeating her you get the matter conversion generator, again somewhat useless. 

Achievement get: The devil wears metal: Destroy the killer initiative. 

 

 

By obtaining both pieces and destroying both robots,  chapter four ends. 

 

To begin chapter 5, return to the city, inside a screen will show you that you need to scale the dam's wall to enter the desert area. Furthermore, Chell can put her portal gun into the machine with parts she's collected to obtain the next gun-type: The matter convergence portal. 

 

 

When this new gun is equipped portals change ever so slightly. 

 

How it works is after placing two portals, one can switch to conversion mode, this will latch the device onto the nearest portal. Push LT to shrink that portal, or RT to make it bigger. Portals can get as big as one wants as long as they're given the space to. They do have a limit on how small they can get. 

 

Portals can now be used to alter size too! Typically you're given one normal portal and one changed portal, if you make one portal small and enter the normal one, your mass is equivalent to the portal's size on both ends.  So if a 6 ft tall person steps through a 6 ft tall person linked with a 6 inch tall portal, the 6ft person would become 6 inches tall. 

 

You will need these size-conversion tactics to enter certain areas such as the dam to traverse through it. 

 

ALSO much like the gel gun, the portal device requires activation codes implanted in a wall terminal, and turned off when one passes through a purple emancipation grill. 

 

 

Puzzles that can be effected by this: 

- Jumping gaps easily and knocking down turrets as a large person

- Entering crevices and avoiding turrets as a small person

- Mini-cube buttons

- Mega-cube buttons

- In one chamber, one must use this tactic with a small tank of water to fill the room enough to swim up. 

 

Back to the story, the personality cube locator will locate wheatley in the desert. Obviously go through the dam to get to him, then you will begin the march to get wheatly at night. One must use the limited amount of portal-able walls to traverse the land as quickly as possible. 

 

Eventually chell will reach Flavo's compound. 

 

Inside she'll begin to stride deeper and deeper into the earth...

Edited September 5, 2014 by Stop mocking me0