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Portal 2 Easter egg guide: 30 secrets and references you may have missed

Have you seen everything Aperture Science has to offer?

Words: on May 12, 2011
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Refuse to solve Wheatley’s first test


 

Chapter 8
Unlocks “You Made Your Point” Achievement / Trophy

This is the kind of Easter egg (and Achievement or Trophy) you miss out on when you rush through a game like Portal 2. Wheatley’s first test can be passed within a matter of seconds – just push the button like he asks – but stick around for a few minutes, refusing to act, and you’ll be treated to extra points as well as extra dialogue. This is a good rule for the game in general, actually… Wheatley rarely stops talking no matter how long you stand still, and his later lines are often the funniest.


Smash Wheatley’s monitors


 

Chapter 8, Test Chambers 1-16
Unlocks “Smash TV” Achievement / Trophy

This act of defiance is much trickier to pull off than the previous, but the reward is much greater: 75 points as opposed to 10 for the Achievement (though both are Bronze Trophies) and endlessly hilarious reactions from Wheatley each time his digital face is shattered to pieces. Not to mention, figuring out how to smash each monitor is like a bonus Portal 2 puzzle in and of itself. Follow our video if you run into trouble.


Co-op cameo in the single player


 

Chapter 8, Test Chamber 15

As soon as you enter this room, head to the right, peer through the barrier and zoom your camera towards the far away wall. While Wheatley is talking and moving the environment around, you can catch a fleeting, Bigfoot-esque glimpse of co-op character P-body (tall and orange) in the distance. He’s only visible for a few seconds before darting through a door.

Coincidentally – or, since this is Valve, not coincidentally – the robot appears and disappears just as Wheatley is hinting that he’s got a surprise in store. Later, you discover that the surprise is none other than P-body and Atlas.


Nursery turrets

Chapter 9

These turret boxes can be spotted throughout Aperture, but the side of the packaging with the most surprising information is only visible in the room where Wheatley tries to kill you with a circle of faulty turrets. According to the illustration, sentry turrets were designed – or at least marketed – for the purpose of guarding cribs in nurseries? No wonder their voices are so soft and soothing!


Take Wheatley’s escape advice


 

Chapter 9
Unlocks “Pit Boss” Achievement / Trophy

He’s betrayed you, he’s tortured you and now he’s tried to impale you between a set of spiked platforms. Why, after barely escaping with your life, would you turn around and listen to him? Why, after you followed GLaDOS’ escape advice in Chapter 4 and died for your troubles, would you jump down a pit when a different maniacal machine asks you nicely?

Because of the Achievement / Trophy, obviously, but also because Wheatley’s improvised story of boy bands, three-portal guns and French designer jumpsuits is pure brilliance.


Nolan North is truly everywhere

Dammit, Nolan North! We thought if one game could escape your monopoly on videogame voiceovers, it’d be Portal 2… and, until the credits, we thought we were right. Wrong. You’re the voice of at least three different characters – the defective turret, the Space Core, the Adventure Core (aka, Nathan Drake’s id) – and you’re predictably wonderful as all of them. Curse your unstoppable charm!

The Adventure Core
The Space Core
The Fact Core 

Seriously, though, you need to listen to Nolan North’s performances as the Cores without the surrounding battle sounds. Isolated, they’re award-worthy.

Next page: Our absolute favorite Portal 2 Easter egg…

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132 comments

  • Dommo - February 21, 2013 6:37 a.m.

    In Cara mia there are these following things 1. There is the heart companion cube doing flips and flying in the background of the bit where there are the turrets in the rooms before that huge hall 2. Just after king turret does the loud base you can see one of wheatelys Franken cubes (turret cube morphs) walking along the row of turrets 3. That big turret from the quartet in the chamber 4. The painting of chell in the room where you get the blue gun there is e satanic voice that the other comment , there also a lab rat reference : the chell painting is the front picture

  • amelia-mia-garcia - July 17, 2012 8:28 p.m.

    They missed something on this list. In chapter 3 chamber 17 they say if you dont have commentary on there's nothing there. When you go into Ratmans hideout on a normal game if you stand by the graffiti wall with the picture of chell painted on it turn the volume up and make sure the music is on, if the music is off you wont hear it. When you stand by the wall you can hear Ratman chanting in the depths somewhere. Its barely audible but someone used software to clean up the sound. What he's chanting : Guilty, Doug Rattman! Nothing is a must; who's in charge? I had no choice! Help me, Uncle Johnson; help me to design. Look at me,.....combustible lemons. Mutilation, mutilation comes to [garbled] shift has started. The shift has started; I let you down, men. I feel pain in me now, pain; it's a horrid fume!.. She is dead, she is! Please, look at me, Doug! Children!... The prisoner's gone! The metal voice won! [garbled] Johnson! Will you help me? Help me work, Cave http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTJpYsfvM_Q

  • Wouzz - March 18, 2012 11:49 a.m.

    Tremendous compilation, I started a new game just for it! :) As a modest contribution, here's one I just found myself while playing, and that does not seem to be part of your (awesome) list: In Part 8 - chamber 15, at the beginning when Wheatley starts tearing apart another room on the right, stare closely at the part of the room that does not move (on its left). Zoom in and... WHOA! Who's this ? :) Here's a video of it, not by myself though: [SPOILER ALERT] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXACeach1kg

  • poly_dog - February 6, 2012 5:53 p.m.

    I was replaying the beginning part (The Courtesy Call) and found something that *might* be an easter egg. Remember Portal, where a cake icon was displayed on the sign for the test chamber? In place of that is where the incinerator leads to (the part where you replace the template turret with the defect, and you later see the turrets falling into there after being thrown in the incinerator). Just thought that was interesting... http://oi44.tinypic.com/1hp9pv.jpg It's in the lower right corner. That's where the cake icon used to be.

  • poly_dog - February 6, 2012 5:55 p.m.

    In addition: I noticed this in test chamber 4 at the beginning of the test chamber. I'm not sure if it's in any other ones. Please let me know if it is.

  • randomfangirl - January 28, 2012 4:20 a.m.

    since you added the Moby Dick quote... At some early point in the game, GlaDOS starts telling Chell that "[she] saw a deer today". This is also the title of one of the songs in the official sound track. It seems to be a misspelled qoute from Robert F. Young's "The Dandelion Girl", a scifi short story, were, on the first meeting between the two main characters, the following is said: "Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday a deer, and today, you." This is interesting because: a) There are plenty of time traveling references once you reach the 1952 aperture's facilities. b) The story is about a girl traveling back in time and becoming her husband's secretary before marrying him. Something about Cave and Caroline's relationship might be implied here.

  • HydroPlume - January 18, 2012 8:14 p.m.

    @BerylMoon That seems very likely, but there is one thing that isn't necessarily true. Why does Caroline have to be dead to become GLaDOS? Like Cave was talking about music on a CD, music can be copied, so why couldn't Caroline's consciousness be copied?

  • albariza - January 1, 2012 11:23 p.m.

    i think the companion cube for coop is the resting place of ratman in the comic Lab Rat he crawls into a capsule and the companion cube sits besides it its identical to that one! damn valve really puts a lot of effort in their games

  • blazikenrocker - December 30, 2011 10:18 a.m.

    If you listen to the oracle turret it does also speak about how prometheus was cast into tartaurus and was pecked by a bird

  • blazikenrocker - December 30, 2011 9:02 a.m.

    Chapter 2 Chamber 7 listen very hard and see if you recognise the song. You will need to win the game to recognize the song

  • poly_dog - February 6, 2012 5:56 p.m.

    Oh yeah, I heard that one. I think that song in test chamber 7 is called Love as a Construct. It has Cara Mia in it, very softly, but still there.

  • poly_dog - March 10, 2012 7:20 p.m.

    It's also in Hard Sunshine (with the hard light bridges), if you listen very closely.

  • mattias-toftholm - December 14, 2011 7:25 a.m.

    A little playlist with some portal 2 easter eggs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8zUJoasj9U&list=PLB8853B7F1E4B13D1

  • mar117117 - November 2, 2011 9:41 a.m.

    I saw something in room, where si Cave and Caroline's portrait. There was something like " If you see someone with orange jumpsuit, call asistent" I'm not sure. I'll give you screenshot. Anyway this should be reaction on, that GLaDOS you, you look stupid in jumpsuit.(Bad english, hope you understood)

  • mar117117 - November 2, 2011 10:22 a.m.

    so it is " If you see orange jumpsuit, hit RED button." i am sure now, that must be an easter egg. screenshot here http://i40.tinypic.com/21j2g68.png

  • christaffa-sanders - October 4, 2011 1:36 a.m.

    This may only be a very slight reference but at the beginning in the first test chambers the announcer says "We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control." which may be a very slight reference to the combine invasion of earth although it could just be that GlaDOS is offline etc.

  • StephanieNikole89 - September 20, 2011 1:08 p.m.

    Another, right after you fall down from giving Wheatley control of the facility, and you get past the signs that say keep out, you are standing up on the catwalk and the sides of the structures around you say 09, well I noticednext to one of the giant 09's it says TARTAROS. tartaros is basically He'll in Greek mythology. And the number 9 everywhere makes think of Dante's inferno, where the 9th circle of hell is for people who betray their friends. Maybe its ment for how GlaDOS killed all the scientists and tried to kill you? It goes along with the Prometheus tales.

  • Phantom-swordsman - August 19, 2011 9:36 p.m.

    What about the Companion Cube Song?

  • BerylMoon - August 18, 2011 10:41 a.m.

    You can also grab Wheatly on Test Chamber 2 when he pops out of the wall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnu0Noi0gf4&feature=related

  • BerylMoon - August 18, 2011 10:28 a.m.

    As response to this comment. Chell can’t be Cave Johnson and Caroline’s daughter. Here’s why: Since Caroline was in GLaDOS, that means Cave Johnson had to have died before Caroline. This is based on his request to put her in the computer, if he could not be. Caroline, to be in GLaDOS, had to also be dead by “Bring your daughter to work day.” Since GLaDOS released the neurotoxin on this day. Chell was someone’s daughter on “Bring your daughter to work day.” To bring your daughter to work, you need to be alive (not dead and in GLaDOS). It is determined that Chell was brought to “Bring your daughter to work day” by the potato experiment. Plus, “Bring you daughter to work day” was suggested as being many decades after the Cave Johnson reign, by the various dates in the game. He could not father a child young enough to make the potato experiment if he had been dead that long. She's adopted...

Showing 1-20 of 132 comments

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