Target Practice in Portal.

The 18th level of Portal is a good place to set up some targets for some live fire target practice. As if anybody ever really needs to.

The target practice is mostly for fun, but here is how to do it: Go through the level as normal or use noclip to reach the high platforms. Once you've reached the high platforms, you will need to use noclip. Fly from one platform to the next and then place a few enemies on each: npc_combine_s, npc_metropolice, npc_zombie, or npc_stalker. Just be warned that the stalker models freak out when you kill them. It's kinda disturbing, as are the stalkers.



You can even stack them on top of one another by going above the first enemy and aiming the crosshairs at the top of his head and then activating a new npc command. Once you have the enemies set up, go back to the bottom platform and pull out your favorite weapon and fire away.



Here are a couple of weapons cheats:

sk_plr_dmg_pistol 5

sk_max_crossbow 10

These are the default values, the command edits the amount of damage done, and the second command edits ammo, just replace the numbers to whatever you want. You can also see on the drop down list all the other weapons available and can scroll through them with the arrow keys.

Portal Cheats.

After beating portal without using cheats, in order to have more fun with it is to use the developer console to your advantage. Now, since Portal is a direct offshoot of Half-life 2 there are several things you can do in portal that normally you couldn't without using the console. The commands that you use in the console are called Console Variables or cvars for short. In order to access the developer console, while in game you must hit escape, click options, click the keyboard tab, click advanced... and then enable developer console.

For a complete list of all the variables go here: PHLwiki

For the nitty gritty HL2 Cheats go here: cheats.ign.com

And here for Portal nits and grits: cheats.ign.com

Here are some of the more frequented cvars that I have been using.

sv_cheats 1 - This enables you to cheat, set sv_cheats to 0 if you want to turn it off.

notarget - Enemies and turrets will not try to attack you.

noclip - You're no longer restrained by walls, ceilings, and floors.

impulse 101 - All weapons. Considering that the only weapon you have on portal is the portal gun, this is a pretty cool code, especially since you get the gravity gun as well.

impulse 102 - Spawn a skull.

god - no damage

npc_create npc_zombie - creates a half-life 2 zombie, even though there are no zombies in the portal game.

The next two commands are used together.

npc_create_equipment weapon_shotgun,smg1, or ar2 - Although a combine soldier stays stationary you can choose his weapons. There may be a way to make them damage you using more variables but you can figure it out and let me know. The soldier will still look like he's shooting at you. There are no sounds, so for instance, you won't hear the blasts from a shotgun the combine solider is shooting.

npc_create npc_combine_s - If you get close enough to him he'll still try to hit you. He's especially good to use for target practice.

npc_create npc_fastzombie - These fiends are fast and mean.

npc_create npc_headcrab - They'll still jump at you, but they don't have their sound effects in the portal game. Neither do any of the other enemies you spawn.

npc_create npc_turret_floor - This turret is in Half-life 2 but can still be spawned into portal. It doesn't speak to you like the portal turret but it can be reactivated, although it is difficult to get them to stand upright again once they have fallen over. The do seem to spawn better than the portal turret but it's still a pain sometimes. Still I'd choose to spawn this one over the other.

npc_create npc_portal_turret_floor - This turret is pretty hard to deal with because when you execute the command the turret pops up in such a way that it immediately tries to fall over and if they do there's no way to reactivate them. But they definitely have more personality, so they do have a plus side.

You can also skip to the different maps by typing: map testchamb_a_** and replace ** with numbers 01 through 15. One other thing to mention, the numbers don't correspond with the actual number of the test chamber.

record [name your video here]- this command will record a demo video for you. When using the command it should look like this: record stabbedhenderson

"stabbedhenderson" being the name of the file that will be spit out once the video has completed recording.

stopdemo - stop the demo you're recording

A lesser known menu that can be accessed is the debug menu. In order to access it press shift+F1, to exit it press shift+F1 again.

I will go into detail about certain scenarios you can do with these cheats in future posts. There's just too much to cover in one.