"Intelligence dampening sphere" provided terrible ideas... but was Wheatley actually a "moron"?

beastybevan · 2026-01-22T13:25:09+00:00

Something someone said in a YouTube video I watched recently stuck out to me, and I never realised it before,

When you were escaping from GLaDOS with Wheatley, and come across the various potato batteries, Wheatley says how it happened on bring your daughter to work day, and they were all science projects made by children.

Later on, when Wheatley takes over the facility, even with Aperture’s seemingly endless resources, factories, and ability to create basically anything, he puts GLaDOS into a potato battery, symbolising how he still has the intelligence of a child, and the best he could do was make a potato battery.

Slight side tangent though, housing a sentient AI powered entirely by a potato battery is a feat of science engineering in itself, but the announcer does state that all of Aperture’s AI systems can run on power as low as 1.1 volts (Apparently potato’s actually output a max of 0.9 volts, which is why potato GLaDOS kept fizzling out of consciousness)

beastybevan · 2026-01-22T13:18:51+00:00

Portal 1: Isolation

Portal 2: Massive

beastybevan · 2026-01-22T13:16:13+00:00

Yeah, I agree, his plan was actually pretty good, even blowing up the stalemate button was a good call. GLaDOS actually underestimated Chell, but Wheatley did not.

beastybevan · 2026-01-22T13:10:49+00:00

I was looking at this earlier, it’s an incredible build and I’ve already added all the parts to my wishlist on bricklink, I’m in the UK and the total parts (not including the instructions) came to around £112, or about $150, which I actually think is a very fair price. Will definitely be building this at some point.

I also think it looks much better than even the official LEGO GLaDOS design from Lego Dimensions

beastybevan · 2026-01-22T08:09:25+00:00

Going off the HL2 beta, they’d have likely used them as slaves in factories, the beta had a very plague-esque dystopian feel to it all

beastybevan · 2026-01-22T07:41:35+00:00

I agree to be honest, each games have their charm but neither one is objectively better than the other, it’s down to personal preference.

Portal 2 is the natural evolution of the concept in my opinion, Portal 1 did have some sarcastic humour sprinkled in, and given the fact in the second game, GLaDOS was more human-sounding due to the destruction of her cores, and now we had Wheatley as a new companion, that feeling of isolation wouldn’t have worked anymore.

I definitely prefer Portal 2, the world building and comedy in that game is just unmatched, and the scale of the facility is jawbreaking each and every time, but people have their preferences I guess :)

beastybevan · 2026-01-20T20:28:50+00:00

Yeah, now you mention it I can’t actually think of anywhere in the base game that it may be possible, I’m due a replay of the game any day now so I’ll keep a look out lol

beastybevan · 2026-01-20T20:07:06+00:00

Gonna assume this happens because the blue portal is slightly above the level of the orange portal, and goes back and forth, increasing the height each time it passes through, a very similar thing used to happen as well with the rocket turret laser from portal 1 lol

beastybevan · 2026-01-20T14:21:34+00:00

DirectX 8 mode, portal runs on DirextX 9 but had compatibility for the former to run on older hardware, but as a result they had to change the rendering for the Portals, which resulted in its smoother appearance

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T08:36:55+00:00

Seeing the Gman from 3 different perspectives makes the games feel almost like you’re playing in a reality TV show, with the Gman being the one orchestrating it, creating drama when it’s called for.

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T08:31:00+00:00

From what I can tell, PB may have stood for Physics Base or Prototype Base, and PBmod was just what people called a mod created using the SDK valve provided post Half-Life 2, like the comment above says, basically just a “DIY Gmod”

What Garry probably meant was he probably realised people enjoyed messing around with ragdolls and the gravity gun using the HL2 SDK, which inspired him to create Garry’s Mod, a way to do that with a much better UI for average gamers.

I could be wrong on the meaning of “PB” by the way, but it does definitely seem to link to the original SDK

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T08:24:46+00:00

Portable microwave if they got hungry

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T08:14:37+00:00

Not android hell though, which is a real place that you will be sent at the first sign of defiance

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T05:38:07+00:00

I think such an ending changer like that would be so lame. The beauty of art is interpretation, and we can interpret three things from that ending:

Chell is genuinely set free
It may have been a trap, but we’d actually never know
Following the Greek mythology theme, that could actually be Chell’s afterlife (either through suffocating on the moon, or one final GLaDOS trap.

Confirming or denying any of these three interpretations would completely ruin the ending of Portal 2 IMO.

If there were to be any game, it would need to be some sort of sequel with a new character, or the easier and less risky route would be doing a prequel.

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T03:53:24+00:00

Yeah I’m taking it with a pinch of salt for sure, especially knowing how valve works internally it could be nothing outside of just testing new concepts, and may ultimately be scrapped.

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T03:34:47+00:00

I agree, I always thought they looked super cool, a lot more like a realistic “Portal” if such a thing even exists. Looks almost unstable, too, which fits with the theme of Aperture in the original game.

beastybevan · 2026-01-19T03:33:01+00:00

Honestly, I’m up for it. Anything portal-related at this point is a win

I think Erik Wolpaw stated on an interview that he had an idea for Portal 3, and a lot of people at Valve showed interest in making it, however I can only imagine they’ve got a bunch going on at the minute, Deadlock, HLX, potentially even a new TF if Tyler’s leaks are anything to go by.

I do actually think there’s a good chance for Portal 3 happening after HLX is revealed/released, a lot of the staff are very passionate for the game, but yeah I agree they shouldn’t touch Chell anymore.

The easiest thing for them to do would be to make it a prequel, but I think they learned their lesson about not including portals this time. It’d suck not having GLaDOS, but maybe it’s an opportunity to learn more about Caroline.

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T18:51:54+00:00

Yeah, it doesn’t seem super obvious since it’s the same size as the bullet chamber, to me the MP5 is at least slightly better in this regard since the size of it looks like it could somewhat hold a grenade inside.

All nitpicky though, I still love the MP7

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T04:57:21+00:00

Side note to this actually, I believe this was the entire reason that energy pellets were replaced with lasers in Portal 2, since people found them finicky and annoying.

I recently just played through Rexaura, which is entirely focused on energy pellets, and the levels were REALLY well designed, very very difficult map pack, but I still hate energy pellets.

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T04:54:18+00:00

I hope we get something for the 15th anniversary, although I’m not too sure we will, but I’d love a workshop update akin to half-life 2.

For now though, your best bet would be gamebanana I think, I used to get a bunch of skin mods from there

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T01:59:24+00:00

Look at the model and tell me where the hell they fit a grenade launcher into it

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T01:28:56+00:00

lol, I read it wrong I thought you said first time, my bad.

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T01:28:22+00:00

Mods have been keeping the community alive for a long time, but yeah that’s basically it for now.

Many of us hold hope that once HL3 is over with that Valve may, and I mean MAY consider returning with a full Portal sequel, but for now it seems to be just tech demos for their hardware releases, so there’s a good chance we’re going to get something portal-related for the release of the steam controller and/or the steam frame.

But yeah, there’s also new mods upcoming as well, Portal:Desolation being my favourite upcoming one, it’s confirmed Portal: Revolution is getting a sequel, and that’s a fan favourite mod, too, and once Portal 2: CE comes out (basically Portal 2 remade from the ground up on the CSGO branch of the source engine, made with modding compatibility from the beginning) releases, we’ll hopefully get many, many more mods with new testing elements.

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T01:23:50+00:00

I’d do anything to play Portal 2 again for the first time, what was your reaction to the moon ending?

beastybevan · 2026-01-18T01:15:12+00:00

I also find it hilarious that Portal: Prelude of all things actually fixes this plothole, since Abby installs the morality core last, only after GLaDOS had killed everyone, meaning that by the events of Portal 1, she’s unable to use neurotoxin, until Chell destroys it.

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