Portal 2

[janegray]

Five days ago, the videogame Company Valve released free Portal 2 downloadable content titled "Perpetual Testing Initiative." Basically, it's a free in-game map editor, which allows players to create and share maps with other player.

Everybody knows the "the cake is a lie" meme, but not everybody knows where it's from. Well, the answer is Portal.

The new maps reminded me that I really, really, really love the Portal games. So I've decided it's about time I shared my love for them by posting some scans from the comic "Lab Rat."

I love the art in this comic. The main character suffers from schizophrenia, and the art reflects his state of mind: when he is off his medication, it's all sketchy, but in flashbacks the pictures are clear.

16 pages out of a free 27-pages comic. At the end of this post you can find the link to the full comic.


WARNING: Lab Rat takes place between Portal and Portal 2, and as such is full of spoilers for the first game.

Of course, Portal is a 5-year-old game, so you might say that anybody who wanted to play it already has. But I got it 5 months ago, so I think it's always best to put spoiler warnings :P





Doug Rattmann, also known as "the Ratman," is the person who wrote all those "the cake is a lie" warnings in the first game. He is the only survivor (excluding the frozen test subjects) of GLaDOS's initial mass murder at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center; as GLaDOS locked the facility down, he couldn't escape, so he has been hiding from her and leaving clues for Chell, the playable character of the games.





Yes, that's a Companion Cube. When Rattmann is off his medication, he can hear the CC speak as if it was sentient. The CC actually gives him good advice.

Even so, Rattmann figures that he'll have better chances of survival if he has a clear head when the time comes to take out GLaDOS. So, he has saved the last of his medication until now.



Now, flashback time!



Back to the present, Chell has defeated GLaDOS!





This is where Portal ends, with Chell captured and dragged back to the facility.





Rattmann to the rescue!

I really love him. He has gone through a mass murder and spent a long time (months?) locked in a dark and cold prison, without his medication and with the sole company of an inanimate object, running away from a murderous AI and countless death-traps. Then, he finally, finally gets away and sees the sun, sweet freedom awaiting him... and he chooses to go back to save Chell!

He is not an action hero or anything. He has no military training, no equipment. But he is a genuinely kind guy, and he wants to help.







Flashback again! Right after GLaDOS' flooding of the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin.










You can read the conclusion, as well as all the pages I cut, here:

http://www.thinkwithportals.com/comic/#1

Comments

[janegray]

Well, rumour has it we'll either see Chell in Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or something along those lines

I seriously doubt it. Portal 2 takes place hundreds of years after Half-Life 2.

Along the same lines, I wouldn't really want Wheatley back, either.

Sorry, but on this I COMPLETELY disagree ^^

Chell's story has been told: she fought hard and got her happy ending.

But Wheatley is in Limbo. He is not dead, but he is restless because he feels genuine guilt and regret over his evil actions, and wishes to apologize and atone. As an ending for the character himself (as opposed to the whole game's ending, which I LOVED), imo that's extremely unsatisfactory: it's not even sad, in and of itself, it just feels incomplete to me.

I'd LOVE to see a continuation of his story where he is retrieved from Space and helps out the protagonist of Portal 3 as a way to make up for his betrayal of Chell.

Wheatley's Redemption Arch. I want to play that with every fiber of my being.

[mrstatham]

Well, that's just the common rumour going around when it comes to Chell and Half-Life, given some of the stuff for Half-Life now actively involves Aperture Science. Plus, we don't exactly know how long Chell was under, given the timer malfunctions and Wheatley never specifies how long it's been - just that it's longer than anticipated, I think?

As for Wheatley, I think he was a great character, but I don't know, I just felt that he got what he deserved, really. I just don't feel like there's an incredible amount to explore with him, now, and I think the joke of having the rather intelligent Stephen Merchant back to play the total idiot again would be kind of stale. I think the series - if it's going to continue - should just have GLaDOS as a constant. That said, I would love to be proven wrong, and if anyone could do it, Valve could.

[drexer]

Here's the thing though, Wheatley's arc as a character was linked intrisecally to the Chell-GladOS relationship, and he was a storyline element in it which helped create and extend the character arcs to their full conclusion. His insertion in any future game would be past the role for which he exists and be stale and non-complex.

Personally, I disbelief that we'll see any kind of Portal 3 at least for a very long time. We've already gotten a lot of mechanics and tools inserted into it with Portal 2, and with the release of the map creator I find it very improbable that the employees at Valve at the current time have any interest in it. I believe they might translate elements of it into future games(Not episode 3 personally, as I do believe they understand the drastic difference between the gameplay of the two series), but I'm not seeing any sequel coming in the next years. Even less so a thematic sequel which explroes the same issues and character arcs.

Of course, all of this also comes from my viewpoint of Portal 2 as plainly a feminist mother-daughter story, with the only male presences of Cave Johson, Wheatley and Ratman as secondary characters in that story. So I see no point in exploring it further with those characters which were very secondary to the underlying story dynamic.

[janegray]

His insertion in any future game would be past the role for which he exists and be stale and non-complex.

I very strongly disagree. Just because Wheatley had one role in Portal 2, it doesn't mean that he couldn't outgrow that role in a sequel.

GLaDOS was a shallow, if hilarious, villain in Portal. But in Portal 2 she becomes MUCH more complex, and develops a sort of love-hate relationship with Chell, to the point where "you are too hard to kill" sounds like a blatant excuse to justify the fact that GLaDOS simply didn't want to harm Chell anymore (seriously, how hard would it have been for GLaDOS to simply have her turrets shoot at Chell when she was unarmed and trapped in the elevator? Instead, GLaDOS has them sing "my dear beautiful child, I respect you, goodbye," brings Chell back to the surface, and even gives her back the original CC. It's obvious that at least some part of her has grown to care for Chell).

but I'm not seeing any sequel coming in the next years

Me neither. But TF2 was in development for over 10 years, so I do hope think that we might get a Portal 3 eventually :)

Of course, all of this also comes from my viewpoint of Portal 2 as plainly a feminist mother-daughter story, with the only male presences of Cave Johson, Wheatley and Ratman as secondary characters in that story. So I see no point in exploring it further with those characters which were very secondary to the underlying story dynamic.

I agree that the story of Portal 2 was about the GLaDOS-Chell relationship, which is why I LOVE its overall ending to bits. As far as GLaDOS and Chell are concerned, the ending of the game was sheer perfection in every way.

However, the fact that Rattmann and Wheatley were secondary characters in the story of one game doesn't mean that they couldn't have a more important role in the story of its sequel. Similarly, the fact that the story of one game is about a feminist mother-daughter relationship doesn't mean that the story of its sequel couldn't have a different theme.

[nezchan]

There's an interesting idea, since this has been established as the same continuity as the Half-Life games, we know there are technologically capable aliens out there. Add Wheatley to the mix and stir vigorously, could be interesting.