Portal 2

We should have a Portal 2 thread, don't you think? I think so.

I only played an hour so far but the game is immeasurably grander than the original. What I mean by that is it feels more like its own singleplayer game, rather than a bonus with Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The graphics are much better and really pleasing, the voice acting is superb.

One odd thing is I came across a moment where Valve remove your ability to look around, the first time I remember that happening in a Valve game. That kind of threw me.

In any case, it's pretty good so far.

I found the first game to be mildly entertaining at best. I might purchase Portal 2 someday down the road after it hits bargain bin price.

I have little interest in supporting Valve until they stop ignoring questions about what's going on with the Half-Life series.

I'm going to have to agree with JDR (pain) - and say that Portal was a cute game, but that it was blown WAAAAAAAY out of proportion - probably mostly due to the final act.

Cute humor with a few neat touches and that's…. IT.

To have it generate this level of excitement is just beyond me.

A novel puzzler, for sure, and it lasted all of 4 hours. I was about ready to put it down, so I'm glad it was short.

Valve have done nothing but grow fat on minimal effort since Half Life 2. Nothing wrong with that, and Half Life 2 was a decent if overly long action game. I just don't see anything to be excited about.

Portal is the kind of game that makes me believe in the story of that imperial figure and his immodest approach to clothing.

The portal mechanics were quite amazing to me at the time, and even 4 years later I still find it quite thrilling in the sequel. The humor was always good, and is still good.

I'm not trying to change any minds here but I will say that if one of your problems with Portal was that it was pretty spartan and basic, playing like the add-on it was, then you might like Portal 2 a lot more. Portal 2 feels like a real singleplayer campaign game so far, like a real Valve release on the level of Half-Life. Not saying it's as good as Half-Life, I won't know that until I beat it, but it's got the scale and feel of a real campaign this time.

DoctorNarrative said:

The portal mechanics were quite amazing to me at the time, and even 4 years later I still find it quite thrilling in the sequel. The humor was always good, and is still good.

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It was neat enough, but I'd seen similar things all the way back when the first Unreal came about and I believe Prey had done something like it not long before Portal.

To me, the entire Portal thing is a gimmick that's been stretched out too far. But that's because I bore easily with gimmicks, and I have the same problem with games like Plants vs Zombies, Braid, Angry Birds and so on.

I think Lemmings, back in the day, took me through my gimmick phase - and I don't really do well with games that consist of limited variety on a limited theme.

I'm not trying to change any minds here but I will say that if one of your problems with Portal was that it was pretty spartan and basic, playing like the add-on it was, then you might like Portal 2 a lot more. Portal 2 feels like a real singleplayer campaign game so far, like a real Valve release on the level of Half-Life. Not saying it's as good as Half-Life, I won't know that until I beat it, but it's got the scale and feel of a real campaign this time.

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I'm sure the sequel is better - but unfortunately I don't see it in the cards for me.

I have no idea why people were so fond of the first game, and I'm still trying to figure it out. From what I hear about the response to the sequel, it seems people are almost hysterical about how good it is.

Typically, and this is just my own experience and perception, when people in a chorus claim something is incredible over and over - I get sceptical. It's like a chant where they WANT it to be special - and maybe it is. I just see absolutely nothing appealing about cute puzzlers that go on for hours.

Maybe there's something wrong with me

I don't have the game, but I've seen mentioned in other forums something about people reacting against the in-game store.
Can someone elucidate me?

DArtagnan said:

It was neat enough, but I'd seen similar things all the way back when the first Unreal came about and I believe Prey had done something like it not long before Portal.

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Yes, I said at the time that Prey kind of negated the uniqueness of the original Portal, but Valve have a lot larger fanbase than Prey had, so to many people it was fresh.

Also Portal was much more about puzzles than Prey, which was mainly a shooter. Portal has a lot more depth to the mechanics, and seeing as how after only an hour or so Portal 2 has tripled those mechanics already I would say it's a lot further along and definitely is not resting on a many years old idea.

Typically, and this is just my own experience and perception, when people in a chorus claim something is incredible over and over - I get sceptical. It's like a chant where they WANT it to be special - and maybe it is. I just see absolutely nothing appealing about cute puzzlers that go on for hours.

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I'm not OMG BEST GAME EVAR about it like some people, but it is a good game if you like this kind of thing. I'm sure some people don't get the appeal of manshoots that go on for hours, or dialogue trees that go on for minutes. Everyone's tastes differ, obviously. Assuming something popular is bad is often a sign of elitism

I really like Portal 2 though. It combines that Valve style of campaign with the little puzzle game the original was, taking the whole thing to the next level. I liked Portal as a fun little experience after playing Episode 2, but I like Portal 2 as a game (so far anyway).

Von Paulus said:

I don't have the game, but I've seen mentioned in other forums something about people reacting against the in-game store.
Can someone elucidate me?

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Portal 2 is basically two games in one, a singleplayer campaign and a cooperative online campaign. In the cooperative campaign you play as a robot and you can customize your robot with skins, accessories and items you unlock by playing the game. You can also unlock these items with real money from an in-game store, and in fact there are probably items you can only obtain by buying them.

It's pretty tacky but I'm not outraged by it because it's all purely cosmetic, none of the items or skins offer an in-game benefit. Also I'll probably never play online anyway, to be honest.

DoctorNarrative said:

Yes, I said at the time that Prey kind of negated the uniqueness of the original Portal, but Valve have a lot larger fanbase than Prey had, so to many people it was fresh.

Also Portal was much more about puzzles than Prey, which was mainly a shooter. Portal has a lot more depth to the mechanics, and seeing as how after only an hour or so Portal 2 has tripled those mechanics already I would say it's a lot further along and definitely is not resting on a many years old idea.

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I'm not ruling it out - and I'll eventually get around to it.

I'm not OMG BEST GAME EVAR about it like some people, but it is a good game if you like this kind of thing. I'm sure some people don't get the appeal of manshoots that go on for hours, or dialogue trees that go on for minutes. Everyone's tastes differ, obviously. Assuming something popular is bad is often a sign of elitism

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Your evaluation sounds reasonable, so I don't think you're necessarily overestimating anything. As we recently debated, tastes differ

I'm not an elitist as much as a non-conformist you might say. Elitism is about considering yourself or your specific approach superior - as if that was even possible within the realm of playing games - which is like saying building a castle in a sandbox is more worthy than building a statue. That's not what I'm about. I'm just not inclined to like something because people all around me say it's good. I have to actually, you know, like it for my own reasons.

Not that Portal 2 is like that. But somehow, I can't help thinking that a lot of people overdid how good Portal was. It was like some kind of secret cult or something. I certainly didn't "get it".

I really like Portal 2 though. It combines that Valve style of campaign with the little puzzle game the original was, taking the whole thing to the next level. I liked Portal as a fun little experience after playing Episode 2, but I like Portal 2 as a game (so far anyway).

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The only non-MP Valve game I ever liked was the first Half Life - and I considered that game to be an infinitely inferior System Shock. That is to say, it took some fantastic elements that I'd seen in System Shock - and combined them with a totally mundane shooter. The end result was a decent shooter getting all the credit Shock didn't get for going much further, several years earlier.

DArtagnan said:

The only non-MP Valve game I ever liked was the first Half Life - and I considered that game to be an infinitely inferior System Shock. That is to say, it took some fantastic elements that I'd seen in System Shock - and combined them with a totally mundane shooter. The end result was a decent shooter getting all the credit Shock didn't get for going much further, several years earlier.

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Um….what?

Not everything is related to System Shock you know.

JDR13 said:

Um….what?

Not everything is related to System Shock you know.

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At the time, shooters were generally Doom/Quake or variations of those.

Half Life introduced a "real" story with more elaborate interaction - compared to contemporary shooters.

I clearly remember my cousin showing me Half Life - and we were glued to the screen for the introductory sequence.

It was a very powerful beginning, and I know we both expected the first hour to be indicative of the entire game. We were both expecting something very much like System Shock - because as I said, Shock was the only other "shooter" at the time with actual storytelling and advanced interaction.

So, while they were ultimately very different games - I simply couldn't help be incredibly disappointed by Half Life, because after the first hour - it turned into just another shooter, albeit with a lot of interesting scripted action set pieces.

Personally, I'd hoped for a lot more story and interaction with the environment.

I know lots of people love Half Life and think it's amazing. But given my fondness for System Shock - and my very long wait for something similar - it should be easy to understand why Half Life didn't really impress me.

You must remember I stopped really liking shooters after I played the first of them. I've always preferred more story and interaction than the average shooter.

To me, Shock represented a logical step up in the genre - but the market apparently didn't support that direction. Instead, they've remade the same couple of shooters for the last 10-15 years over and over - with the occasional tiny evolution. Bioshock was a little bone thrown my way, but ultimately not much closer to SS than Half Life was.

"Ok, I'm going to try a manual override...on the wall. Hang on."

I only played ~40 minutes last night, but quite fun so far. Although there is a lot of reference to the first game, so people should really play that first.

I think that it's a "geek" game too. The "we are doing sciences" probably don't click with everybody. Crazy A.I. with sarcasm module probably a lot less.

Having played a little bit of the first and watched everyone else play it multiplayer I saw the appeal of it. Yes it was a gimmick, but a good gimmick. I mentioned to a few people how it reminded me of our first reactions to Pac-Man.

Some of the kids that have played it are repeating what I'm reading online: its too short. At least the SP is, although 10 hours seems to be the norm these days so they are clearly pushing the online play. Some people are not appreciating the costumes and the in-game purchases that can be made. I think there was some sort of similar dynamic with hats in the first game - the guys I played with didn't like those either.

The hype has soured people expecting the second coming. The activation system was kind of bizarre, at least for the countdown.

There seems to be a huge discrepancy between critics reviews and users if Metacritic is to be believed, which brings up another point: this is the second time I've seen metacritic taken seriously. The first time was DA2. A recent trend?

This seems like the kind of thing that drives people like KasperFriendly off forums.

DArtagnan said:

To me, Shock represented a logical step up in the genre - but the market apparently didn't support that direction. Instead, they've remade the same couple of shooters for the last 10-15 years over and over - with the occasional tiny evolution. Bioshock was a little bone thrown my way, but ultimately not much closer to SS than Half Life was.

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I guess our difference is that I don't consider SS a "shooter". I've always thought of it as more of an action-adventure, and that's how it's generally labeled.

Still, I see what you're saying, and I agree about shooters mostly being clones for the last decade or so. Most of my favorite games from that genre are quite old.

Duke Nukem 3D still has some of the most interactive environments I've ever seen in a shooter, and January marked its 15th anniversary.

Finished Portal 2 in 6 hours (single player only).

I really love the gel stuff and I won't ever see potatoes the same way again.

Took me 6 hours as well. I don't know where people are getting 8-12 hour estimates from, I guess they had a hard time with the puzzles (which is not me making an intelligence boast, it's more about type of intelligence than level of intelligence).

It was fun. It didn't really expand the concept like I thought it would though, it ended up just being… more portal. Which is a shame, because when you take a little bonus puzzle game and blow it up into a "real" game I expect you to do more than make it 2 hours longer. I wanted to see the game expand what it could be, out in the real world maybe or with more reach. Instead it was just a bunch of test chambers with funny dialogue again.

Disappointed to hear about the length.

I purchased a voucher for $20 today, so I should be playing it soon. I'm going to replay Portal 1 first though.

Exploration, choices and consequences, character developpment, puzzles... Reads like a solid RPG... Should have been put in the right forum.

Just finished this over the weekend. Very good stuff! It is a bit pricey for how much is in there, especially if you're planning to just do single player. The puzzles are good, though, and the humor is excellent. Cave Johnson is great!

Stanislaw Lem's story about the potatoes and every philosophy's reaction to them bounced around in my head a few times. Particularly the bit about how it's normal for a man to mash a potato but that, owing to quantum mechanics, there is a minute chance that the situation will reverse itself and the potato will mash the man.