Room 19;
[3 Cameras]
At last! The hour of your cake is nigh! Walk in. Notice the billboard. Look! Cake! Yay!
To your right, as you enter, there will be a camera. Shoot it. The next puzzle is fun. An emitter is shooting straight down, and the Energy Pellet is bouncing off of a slanted panel. Shoot a portal onto this panel, and onto the panel on the opposite side. When the Pellet is on the Receptor side, get rid of your portal (by shooting it again), and the Pellet should bounce straight into the Receptor. This will power the conveyor. And… Oh, look, it’s going the right way this time! Someone up there likes you!
Feel free to ride the platform, or just portal across to the grate. Ride the platform some more or portal into the next room. There’s a button here that opens a door for a split second. You’ve encountered this type of puzzle before in level 11. Put a portal on the other side, where you can step across to the platform. Make sure you kill the camera here. Now, step through the portal when the platform comes around. There’s no turning back now! Exciting! Uh oh! That’s an Energy Pellet bouncing back and forth making all that racket! Well, let’s liberate it. Shoot a portal behind the camera at the end of this hall, and another portal on the black mark on the wall. Oh, hey! That was your last camera! Good for you! Now, the Energy Pellet will be free, flying far above you. Get rid of that portal so the ball doesn’t come back.
I’m so excited! I can almost taste the cake!
Now here’s the last puzzle before the cake. You see a cement wall in front of you. The cement wall doesn’t want you to have your cake! Well, you’ll see about THAT! Shoot a portal on the wall to the left, behind the cement barrier. Then shoot a portal ON the cement barrier. Now, when half of your conveyor is past the barrier, jump through.
Looking forward, there is a GIANT billboard exclaiming your victory. AT LAST! CAKE!
Allright, I doubt it was any surprise. GLaDOS did tell you earlier didn’t she? “You will be baked, and then there will be cake”… Well, I’m sure you know what to do here, but it’s not so obvious to some people. The far wall is entirely concrete. You don’t want to be baked, (I hope) so portal across. The walls beside you are also concrete. Put a portal there, and jump through. Cross your fingers! Now that you are here, GLaDOS isn’t going to do you any favors. So here’s where the walkthrough really begins.
The Escape;
Fling yourself across the cake room. Turn left. Pick up a barrel. I know, it seems weird, but it’s only when I picked up the barrel that I got the ‘party escort submission position’ achievement. Now, turn right. Go up the stai-… Nevermind, portal up the stairs. Go through the door. {Press E to open it}
Go up these stairs. This door is locked. Portal through the fence. Open that door. Portal behind the fans, and under your feet in the concrete area. Watch out here, the fans will hurt you. Portal up across the acid-filled gap. See that catwalk near the ceiling? That’s where you want to be. Put a portal really high on that side of the room and one behind you. Try to land on the catwalk. Turn left to see a hidden Powerpoint presentation which shows that GLaDOS was meant to be a De-icing component for fuel systems. I think someone interpreted “icing” the wrong way. Also, you can run around and look at the old levels you played through, from the other side of the frosted glass! If your textures are set to high, you should also be able to notice what looks like a garbled Cake Recipe on all of the monitors. Anyhow, no time now, go back across the catwalk.
Head down the stairs. It looks like someone scrawled an “Exit symbol” here… They scrawled it in something red. I don’t think that’s marker. I hope I’m wrong. Anyway, above where the exit symbol is, place a portal on the very top of the wall. Fling yourself across to the next area. Turn left. Go up the stairs, and go up some more stairs. You should find a broken Cube Transport Tube here. Jump in!
Hey, this level looks familiar! You don’t need a cube now that you have both portals. Just stand on the button and portal through the door. Hey! Where’s the elevator! Jump down. Place a portal at the bottom of the elevator shaft, and place another portal on the concrete area you can see from here. You should drop about 2 feet. Crouch {Press Ctrl} and crawl out of this area towards the steam lifts that push you upwards. Stand on the topmost one, and shoot a portal to the top of the platform you just crawled out from under. Run back around, and crawl under the platform again. You should be able to jump up through the portal underneath the platform, and out of the one on top of the platform. Now, ride the horizontal steam compressor toward the exit from this room. Shoot a portal to the other side of the grate, and then go back to the cement platform you jumped through. Place another portal here to get to the other side of the grate. Place a portal high up in this small room, and one down low. You should be able to jump from the higher portal to the exit.
[Loading] (You didn’t notice it before when there were elevators did you?)
You will enter a large room with five large presses. The two at the end will crush you (like they’ve already crushed the ceiling). Standing on the middle platform, you should be able to see a concrete wall at the top of the broken ladder. Put a portal there, and jump down and put a portal near the floor. Run down the stairs to find a small room with two small presses. Looking up, you should be able to find a place for a portal. Put a portal there, and one on the ceiling where the presses are pressing. Yes, this is a little dangerous, but it’s the only way. (You don’t want to backtrack, do you? Oh, well, fine. What do you need this guide for anyway!) Sorry, GLaDOS’s pessimism is getting to me.
Place a portal high up, and slingshot yourself across this room. Don’t bother with the pumps in the next room. Portal past them. Also portal past the two presses which will inevitably press you if you don’t portal past them.
Place another really-high-up portal, and a low one on the wall. See if you can’t stand on a press, and shoot a portal into the next room through the fence. Portal into that room, and you should find a glass tube you can walk along. Walk along this until you see a glass tube down below. Jump down, and walk along this tube until you come to a room. You want to get to the top of this press, so shoot a portal above where it is crushing, and go back along the tube to where the walls are made of concrete. Shoot a low portal, and jump in! Hopefully, you land on the press, and not IN the press. Run along the press and exit to your left. Jump over the rails and down the hole.
[Loading]
Walk forward until you see six large presses. Step on them, and they will let you into the ambus-(ahem) into the room below. You might want to grab a barrel unless you’re confident with your portals. One by one, doors will open. Each door has a turret behind it. Knock them over or portal them out of comission. The final door has a hatch. Shoot a portal through it.
In this place, you can find the only ‘broken turret’ in the game. It’s a sad sight. When you want to get out, find a place that there is no railing on the catwalk above, that you can portal up to. Portal up to it. You should find a small room with a hole in it, where an active turret awaits behind a door. This turret is not broken! Jump down and pick up the turret. When the door opens, throw the turret out.
Jump out into this room, and use the slanted platform above you to fling yourself up and to the exit. As you walk down the hallway and through the office to the next area, GLaDOS will explain how this is your fault. Ignore her and open the door. Press the button on the podium here and you will be introduced to a new foe…
This guy is fairly slow acting. He shines a laser at you, beeps a few times, and shoots a rocket at you. You step out of the way. He shatters the glass. Well, there’s a lot of glass all over the place. See how much of it you can get him to shatter. Shatter the glass between you and him. Shatter the glass on the other side of the room. Place a portal in this room. Run through the glass he shattered for you, and go through the next door. Down a little hallway and through another door, there will be more glass. Place the opposite portal here, and stand in front of it. Normally I wouldn’t say “Stand in front of a rocket launcher” but there are rare exceptions. Okay, so he shattered the glass for you. Place a portal on the floor under the Cube Transport Tube here. Jump in. Get him to aim another rocket at the portal there. It should shoot straight up into the cube transport tube, and if you’re lucky, a cube should pop out of the portal for you! Take this cube and run back down the hallways. Use this cube as a step to climb up into the air vent.
Crawl through the air vent, and shoot a portal down through the fan blades. Crawl back through the vent. Place another portal, and go through. Next you will have to portal yourself across a river of acid. Straightforward.
[Loading] (This is the last one, I promise!)
After you get past acid river, portal yourself up through a grate. If you’ve taken your cube this far, I applaud you, but it won’t help you jump out of the river of goo. That’s why you have your portal gun! Portal yourself up, and get ready for the fight of your life!
[Turret Ambush]
Doors all around you will open, and you will be defenseless. Oh, wait, what am I saying, you have a portal gun! Portal behind each turret in turn, and kick it out of its place. If you haven’t done the ‘knock over a turret with another turret’ accomplishment, try it here. I think you have to use portals to get it.
Anyhow, once all the turrets are out of comission, you’re going to want to fling yourself using the slanted panels, so portal into a high-up alcove, and fire a portal at one of the slanted areas. Portal through it, and portal when you hit the ground. You might also be able to get the accomplishment called ‘Long Jump’ in this room, with some creative jumping. So anyhow, once you fling yourself out of the highest slanted panel, you should end up in a larger alcove and two more turrets will ambush you. Portal them wherever you want them.
Now, back where the turrets were… How can you get up enough speed to jump up through that hole in the ceiling? Well, there is a really tall room you just left. Place a portal on the floor here, and use the height of the last room to fling yourself upwards to the next area. Here, portal yourself up to where you’re supposed to be, and then take a casual stroll down the catwalk (it was far above the turret ambush room before) to the door. Open the door, and walk through the Aperture Science Main Lab. Prepare yourself for the boss fight of the century! What’s that? You didn’t bring any firearms? Aw, shucks.
[GLaDOS]
The giant grape-looking thing in the middle of the room is GLaDOS, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, also capable of removing ice from your fuel injectors. Don’t ask me how. Probably with rockets. Get a general feel for the room. You have time. On the left is a button podium. The button opens the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator. That’s a handy thing to have in a room with a rogue AI gone wild, isn’t it? Remember, the fast way to get around is with portals, since the whole room is practically made of concrete. You might want to keep one portal on the far side of the room (to the right of the incinerator) on the wall facing GLaDOS. You might as well leave it there for the entire fight. If you’ve gotten used to left-clicking to place the important portals, like I have, and rightclicking only when you need it, you might just make this the orange portal.
Anyhow, to get this all started, GLaDOS will malfunction, and her Purple AI module will fall out. Place a blue portal over near the button podium shelter. Grab the Purple AI module, and head through the orange portal. Drop the AI module, press the button, pick up the module, and head back through the blue portal. Turn right, and place the Purple AI module into the Incinerator.
Uh oh! GLaDOS explains that the purple sphere was her morality core! Oh well. I guess the morality core was the only thing standing between you and toxic nerve gas. You now have five minutes left to live. To make matters worse, now they’re firing rockets at you! Better hope you can find a way out of this quick!
Place a blue portal underneath GLaDOS, and stand in front of the Orange Portal. The rocket launcher will shoot a rocket (which you dodge) through the portal, and another AI module will pop off of GLaDOS. This one seems to be “Curiosity”. It is yellow or orange or something, depending on your video settings. Portal up to it and grab it through the orange portal. Portal back to the button and press it. Run back through the portal, and destroy the Curiosity Module.
Fire another rocket straight up into GLaDOS’s core. Her blue module will pop off. This one seems to have cake recipes stored in it. To get to it, you need to shoot a portal fairly high up, in order to get to a glass platform near the top of the room. Grab the module, jump down, and portal yourself to the button, and then to the incinerator. Do away with this module. One left!
GLaDOS’s main module seems to have problems. It is a scary red module. Do the same “Rocket Technique” to dislodge the module from the control core. Place another high-up portal, or do some fancy portal-flinging to get to it. {Press E} to grab it out of midair. It will snarl and growl and yipe and make all sorts of fancy scary noises. That it is red makes it that much more ominous. Throw this module into the incinerator.
Congratulations! You beat Portal!
