Portal 2 for PS3

[Jonathan]

Anyone played Portal 2 for the Playstation 3? Anyone else have the game freeze on them? A lot?

A while back I looked for non-violent, non-sports, non-racecar games for the PS3. That list is pretty small it seems. One of the games on there was this Portal 2. I picked it up and started playing it about 2 weeks ago.

It is friggin' amazing! I think so anyway. It is all puzzle solving but the graphics and images and gameplay are a little closer to nowaday standards than a pencil and paper and a crossword puzzle.

It uses lots of physics and other ways to think yourself through each level. The portal idea is where you can make a yellow portal or a blue one and when you go through one you come out the other. This lets you get to different rooms, heights, on the other side of things, and if you run or fall from a height through a portal, you come out the other side with the same momentum. It really is a good game.

And holy crap is the freezing of the loading/saving screens ever getting irritating! I googled help on this issue and page after page comes up from other people having the same problem. On PS3 and on the PC. Yet there does not seem to be a single credible fix for the problem.

Anyone know what to do?

One of the main reasons I went back to Playstation when the PS3 came out was from admitting defeat to not being able to get some PC games working. Too many sound, video card options, drivers, Windows or DOS modes, compatability this and that, RAM, processor speeds, etc. I gave up and bought the PS3 because if it has a PS3 logo on the package, you plop it in and play.

Portal 2 is the first game I have ever bought where this wasn't true. When was it that the onus got put on the customer to fix stuff anyway? iTunes isn't any better. Do they just not bother with quality control anymore? "Ahh, yea, that game's almost finished. Just get it out there anyway for the holiday sales and we'll patch it up later. They'll understand. We have money to make here!"

[Kenny_Z]

The game is so old now all the bugs should be squashed. All I can say is make sure your PS3's software is fully upgraded and see if there's a patch for Portal. I played the PC version and had zero issues.

Even if you have an older PC you should check out Portal 1. It's short and cheap on Steam. It'll give you some background on Portal 2. Say hi to the Space Core for me. He's my favorite of the cores.

[Jonathan]

Yea, agreed on the game being old and fixes should already be in place. Even more reason to be miffed as to why it still freezes.

I only know of a few things to check or change the options of on the PS3, but if there is something you can think of I missed, let me know.

- Under System Update, I checked it recently and it says I am running the most up to date operating system.
- I tried to "delete cache files" as might be done on a PC, and this is under the Game Data utility. I can delete the game install and then when you go to play it again, it downloads itself again with the updates. I believe the updates were about up to 1.04 and they installed without any error messages

Is there a separate way to check for game patches other than letting itself auto update when it needs to?

Any thoughts on whether it could be related to memory, or processing speed or audio/video settings? I have one of the old school 80 GB thick PS3 versions. The one that was touted as being backwards compatible with PS2 and One games. There are no modifcations on it and every other game or DVD/Bluray works well.

Is there a checkbox in some menu somewhere that says "Ok, stop f&%king with the guy and let him play his game?" lol

[Kenny_Z]

I wish I knew more but I don't own a PS3. I've been thinking about getting one when the price drops more for a refurbished unit. It might have something to do with the age of the unit. Weren't they a little slower than the newer ones?

[RammJaeger]

I'm a game developer that actually worked with Valve on a cross promotion for the release of Portal 2. They did a big Alternate Reality Game with one of our games, Killing Floor involved:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_Sack

I actually got to fly up to Valve HQ, co-plan the ARG with the other developers, play Portal 2 months before it was released, I got to go to the release party, and I got a copy of Portal 2 for the PS3 signed by the developers. I'm mostly a PC gamer, but I have played a lot of Portal 2 on the PS3 with my kids and haven't noticed any of the issues you mention. I also have the older model PS3. When it comes to quality assurance though, Valve are one of the best in the business. Since they fund their own games, they really do work on them until they are finished.

[Darth]

I'm a game developer that actually worked with Valve on a cross promotion for the release of Portal 2. They did a big Alternate Reality Game with one of our games, Killing Floor involved:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_Sack

I actually got to fly up to Valve HQ, co-plan the ARG with the other developers, play Portal 2 months before it was released, I got to go to the release party, and I got a copy of Portal 2 for the PS3 signed by the developers. I'm mostly a PC gamer, but I have played a lot of Portal 2 on the PS3 with my kids and haven't noticed any of the issues you mention. I also have the older model PS3. When it comes to quality assurance though, Valve are one of the best in the business. Since they fund their own games, they really do work on them until they are finished.

Wow. I got Killing Floor in the Potato Sack. Really have had a good time with it.

I just hope Valve finishes Half-Life 3 in my lifetime.

---

As for the original question, I wish I could help. I did some Googling as well, and it seems that there are people reporting problems, but nothing else about their system. It could be a number of things, including a bug in the game itself.

One suggestion I saw was playing on a new profile to get past the point you're stuck at, and then switch back.

[ccurzio]

I played through Portal 2 from beginning to end on my PS3. No major issues that I can recall.

[Jonathan]

Just a quick update...

I finished Portal 2 the other day. I finally figured out what was causing the glitches and it was my PS3 giving up the ghost. I saw the same glitch happen while playing Gran Turismo and knew something wasn't right. Sure enough, a few days later I got the "your file storage system is corrupt" message. I did the reformatting and other suggestions but ultimately dropped a new harddrive in it (which was really simple). It was back up and running very quickly and I got to start the game over again. I lost my game save data, but didn't really care.

I will say Portal 2 is indeed a great game. I wasn't even close to being finished before and had a lot of game left. It was good fun and I can't even guess the last time I actually finished a game and saw the ending credits. Not just a CoD campaign, I mean like getting to the end of Super Mario Bros type thing. Loved the game all in all and was happy to get the console working again.

[RammJaeger]

Glad to hear you got it working. It really is a great game.

[Jonathan]

Do you know of any other titles that would be as much fun? I found Portal 2 because I searched for non-sports, non-violent, non-racecar (mostly after getting bored with CoD, Gran Turismo and EA Sports type games). That list is kinda short as you can imagine unless you go back to the Nintendo. Any other PS3 games similar to it, especially ones with puzzle solving?