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===Final battle=== [[File:GLaDOS concept art.jpg|right|thumb|190px|Conceptual art depicting GLaDOS before she was given a body.]] In designing the final encounter with GLaDOS, one of the important aspects to it was giving the players a predisposition to the Weighted Companion Cube, an object that GLaDOS gives to the player-character and told to protect. This was accomplished by forcing players to incinerate it, therein providing a tutorial for how to defeat the boss and a revenge angle. GLaDOS was originally designed to be a devious boss, citing one form where she would use a series of lasers, like those seen in ''[[James Bond]]'' films. However, it was determined that this twitch gameplay distracted players from GLaDOS, and was too different from the game's puzzle-solving gameplay. Additionally, it was difficult for players to detect when they were hit, so the developers switched the gameplay to feature rockets. This incarnation of the final boss was dubbed "Portal Kombat," which Swift describes as a "high intensity rocket battle."<ref name="success"/> However, Wolpaw disliked it because no one was paying attention to what GLaDOS was saying. While it went over well with hardcore shooter fans, the people who liked the puzzle-focused gameplay were turned off by it. The third boss was a chase scene, with players pursuing GLaDOS down a corridor. Wolpaw sharply criticized the pacing, which caused the players to wander around until they found the corridor, at which point a series of pistons would spring out of the walls.<ref name="success"/> The developers came to the conclusion that complex battles would only serve to confuse players. One play tester helped them by pointing out the quality of the fire pit puzzle, a puzzle that has the player-character riding on a moving platform that is descending into flames, requiring players to find a way to survive. He stated that it was both dramatic and exciting, but also a difficult puzzle. Wolpaw stated that this made no sense, commenting that it was one of the easiest puzzles in the game. He added that the battle was a dramatic high-point, since it was being the first time GLaDOS directly tries to kill the player-character and the first time that players have to use the environment to their advantage. After learning about what fellow Valve developers had planned for the final boss battle in ''Half-Life 2: Episode Two'', the Portal developers decided to implement a neurotoxin would kill the player-character in six minutes.<ref name="kotaku"/> This made it easier on the writers, who only had to write six minutes of dialogue. As a result, they scaled the game back, intending to ensure that everyone was able to see the game to the very end.<ref name="success">{{cite web |title=Best Of GDC: The Secrets Of Portal's Huge Success |url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17625 |publisher=[[Gamasutra]] |accessdate=2009-08-25 |date=2008-02-27}}</ref>
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