There is one instance of the game I actually solved a puzzle in an alternate way then Valve intended it, on my first playtrough.

Some of you might remember this specific room, right after the rocket launcher:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~dianajo/escape_010000.jpg

Yes, the vent was too high. And there was no obvious way to get in it at first glance...

So I eventually solved it like I would in real life:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~dianajo/escape_010001.jpg

But now that I've listened to the commentary in the game a few days ago, I found out that it wasn't meant to be solved like that. But rather like this:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~dianajo/escape_010002.jpg

http://www.xs4all.nl/~dianajo/escape_010003.jpg

http://www.xs4all.nl/~dianajo/escape_010004.jpg

Now I've been reading around some articles on the web. And it seems that my original solution is actually more popular than the intended one. I was wondering if this is the case on this forum aswell.

I would say both are viable, but the "chair" solution is a more conventional (read: real-life) way of doing things. The "Valve" solution is, I would say, "thinking with portals."

It's like writing code in a procedural or OOP way. You can get do some jobs one way, and some the other, and some can be done both ways. It's all in how you approach the problem.

edit i also heard you can break the tube by putting a chair/object in an infinate loop then shooting it into the tube. haven't tried it, so dont know for sure.

I also used the chair, however I was talking with one of my mates, and he said he also used the rocket!

The chair just seemed intuitive to me, you need to step up, well use a chair!

but i guess thats the beauty of this game, there are so many ways to complete every puzzle!

so i looked around, and figured out the valve way (except my rocket came from the floor, not that wall)

How many people did as me on L14 and 15, skipping buttons etc, by using portals to just jump up to the lift?

14 I spent 5 minutes trying to fling/bounce my way straight from the lift before I went further and saw the big drop to the left to use. It was only on the second run on the hunt for cameras I noticed the rest of the level.

I died.

raceriot wrote:
I had no idea you could use that rocket to destroy the tube..

I didn't know either.
I thought it was there for display heh.

However, its great how the game allows multiple ways of success.

Karkk wrote:
I only found out the "correct" way to do it after my second play-through (with dev commentary turned on). The first time I too used a chair to get into the vent.

Ditto. It made me say "Ooooh yeaaah, of course, the rocket!".