50 Reviews :: Portal :: and blasphemy

[Stranger of Sorts]

Uhm, what games have you thought were as great as you were told Portal was?

Is this another, it's cool to hate on things people love review?

Portal wasn't a full game, portal had a lot of glitches on the PC and Mac.

Portal was just like.... well.... no other game was much like Portal, right?

Where can I find people that review games on this website? It seems everyone wants to make a place for themselves by being outrageous like Yahtzee. Does anyone review games without trying to step up on a soap box and fight the reasons why so many others like a game?

I know you are all entitled to your opinions, much like I am. But does anyone actually just review games anymore? Or is all about the shock value, and being a hater? Why can't people just state objectively what a game has, and what it doesn't? Why all the personality?

I would rather read a description of what a game has, then what people think is wrong and bad based on some silly pre-madonna thoughts.

I think what you are looking for is a summary, reviews inject thoughts and opinion on the matter and pick out the things that the reviewer thinks is important. If I were to write out the features of this game while saying "blah blah blah is good, blah blah blah is not so good" it would turn the review into a check-list and, more importantly, make it boring.

People like yourself are very eager to bring out the "you're copying Yatzee" card whenever you see a review that you think contradicts popular opinion. Which this doesn't might I add, I did not say Portal was bad, but I said it wasn't fantastic. The thing is, is that I've been typing up reviews for a while now and I am nothing but myself when I do so. So it's really quite insulting when you tell me that I am simply another hater. Have you ever read any of my other reviews?

For you, I would highly reckomend Wikipedia as your review site of choice.

 

[Miumaru]

Sure it is trivial, but it stuck out. The game came out in 2007. So at most you have not played it in 2 years. Just makes saying Hevent played in years" sound a bit much.

 

[Stranger of Sorts]

I didn't mean for you take what I said so personally, sorry about that.

I seriously wanted my questions answered. A 'review' might be just one individuals rant to you, but I thought they were supposed to be less biased, child like, and more informative.

I will say it again since you missed it the first time: you are all entitled to your opinions.

I was asking about real reviews, not opinionated rants. But since you say WIKI has what I am asking about, I guess I will look to them. Sorry for wasting your time.

Remember, this is the User Reviews section so what is seen as a review will change from person to person. What you see as a "real review", I see as lazy and boring. You can get information from the internet; arguments and opinions are something that can only be decided by the individual and take time.

On the issue of "less biased and child like", I have no idea where they came from. Are you saying that everyone who writes down an opinion is child like and biased?

 

[blankedboy]

Something tells me you're just not into puzzle games. Saying that completing the puzzles is just as useful as planting crops in FarmVille is like saying that living a life is just as important as throwing rocks at a brick wall. You have to appreciate something for what it is, rather than ***** about how it never accomplishes anything.

(I liked Portal alot, but I do agree about the overrated-ness)

The puzzles themselves are not challenging, or indeed that inventive as they could have done so much more with the portal gun, but above all there was no drive to do them. Apart from, that is, to get to the next one which is why I made the comparison.

Same with every game, ever made, ever.
What's your point?

 

[Stranger of Sorts]

Something tells me you're just not into puzzle games. Saying that completing the puzzles is just as useful as planting crops in FarmVille is like saying that living a life is just as important as throwing rocks at a brick wall. You have to appreciate something for what it is, rather than ***** about how it never accomplishes anything.

(I liked Portal alot, but I do agree about the overrated-ness)

The puzzles themselves are not challenging, or indeed that inventive as they could have done so much more with the portal gun, but above all there was no drive to do them. Apart from, that is, to get to the next one which is why I made the comparison.

Same with every game, ever made, ever.
What's your point?

Not at all, I'm saying that there was no drive for me to complete portal. A drive that is present in many games, for example Bioshock. I guess it's a question of immersion. In Portal I was not "immersed".

 

[blankedboy]

Something tells me you're just not into puzzle games. Saying that completing the puzzles is just as useful as planting crops in FarmVille is like saying that living a life is just as important as throwing rocks at a brick wall. You have to appreciate something for what it is, rather than ***** about how it never accomplishes anything.

(I liked Portal alot, but I do agree about the overrated-ness)

The puzzles themselves are not challenging, or indeed that inventive as they could have done so much more with the portal gun, but above all there was no drive to do them. Apart from, that is, to get to the next one which is why I made the comparison.

Same with every game, ever made, ever.
What's your point?

Not at all, I'm saying that there was no drive for me to complete portal. A drive that is present in many games, for example Bioshock. I guess it's a question of immersion. In Portal I was not "immersed".

Huh, I found BioShock to have bugger-all immersion, but ok.

 

[SonicKoala]

One thing I noticed which was probably pointed out already - the no fall damage is on account of the springs attached to your character's feet, which are easily visible if you look at yourself through a portal.

And, although your review was well written, I completely disagree with practically everything you said. You keep saying that they could have done "so much more" with the portal gun - like what, exactly? But anyway, that's speaking as someone who felt that the puzzles in the game were presented with enough variation so as not to feel repetitive.

I also disagree with your claim that there's no story - there is a story, it's just extremely subtle. As was the case with Half-Life, little to nothing is explained to you directly, and you just have to piece together what's going on via the clues present in your surroundings, a method of storytelling I'm quite fond of. Granted, it's not very complex (quite the opposite, in fact), but the presentation of it all was flawless.

As for the humour, I felt that was a nice touch to the game - it made it stand out, and it added an essential layer of light-heartedness that would have been lacking in the cold, sterile rooms of the Aperture Science test labs. But then again, this is all based on opinion - for me, Portal felt like a concentrated injection of pure, untainted video game awesomeness.

 

[Woodsey]

"I would liken the puzzles in this game to the ever-hated Farmville. While Farmville may not contain any puzzles the reason you complete the puzzles in Portal is for the same reason you plant crops. The puzzles in Portal are neither that challenging or, indeed, fun."

I always found the puzzles hit a fine balance of being challenging enough to make you think - and make you feel clever when you complete them - but not so challenging that you're unlikely to see the end game.

I also think you're "missing the point" of puzzles: I can't say I know anyone who does puzzles or plays puzzle games because they're fun. I never found Portal particularly fun, but I still find it so very good.

Hell, I don't find most games fun, but then I've come to realise that I don't play games for fun (nor do most people it would seem); we play them for the experience, to do something we could never do.

 

[Stranger of Sorts]

I also think you're "missing the point" of puzzles: I can't say I know anyone who does puzzles or plays puzzle games because they're fun. I never found Portal particularly fun, but I still find it so very good.

Hell, I don't find most games fun, but then I've come to realise that I don't play games for fun (nor do most people it would seem); we play them for the experience, to do something we could never do.

To quote myself: 'But then a review suggesting that this game is bad will be dismissed as simply "wrong" with phrases like "you just don't get it"'

I have to disagree with you on the "experience" front, most do play games for fun or even just for the escapism but when it comes to puzzles you want to feel rewarded, a feeling I seem to have missed out on.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

The humor of Portal is indeed brilliant, but I'd like to join the group who declare the gameplay to be kinda fiddly and not always tons of fun. I mean, it is fun most of the time, but there are frustrating and needlessly obtuse puzzle mechanics. The prime example being shooting through portals in order to build up speed, then firing another portal at a different spot and sending yourself flying across a gap/wherever. There are a number of ways this can be frustrating for the wrong reasons:

1. Portals do not have a uniform circle shape. You can think you're going to enter one as you're falling from 3 stories towards it, but instead get caught on a lower or upper edge and have to do the entire puzzle over.
2. A lot of the portal puzzles involve serious jerking around of the camera, to the point where I start to feel slightly motion sick. Just an option for 3rd person might have seriously helped with this. Third person views are a lot closer to what the average human being has with peripheral vision. I'm just saying the choice would have been nice.
3. A lot of the puzzles, even the fairly complex ones, are of the "get it in one go or start over from the beginning" variety. This gets old.

Again, it's a good game, but these were some problems I had with the design.

 

[captainwolfos]

Yeah, I played it after buying the Orange Box for PS3, and after getting the Portal gun with both portals I just played with it for a few hours. With that out of the way, it boiled down to about an hour's worth of extended playtime until I finished it.
It was massively overhyped; it's good for the amount that's there, but that doesn't make it directly descended from the heavens themselves.

I mostly only got the game for TF2, anyway. I played Portal because it was on it, but Team Fortress 2 holds my heart.

 

[Stranger of Sorts]

Yeah, I played it after buying the Orange Box for PS3, and after getting the Portal gun with both portals I just played with it for a few hours. With that out of the way, it boiled down to about an hour's worth of extended playtime until I finished it.
It was massively overhyped; it's good for the amount that's there, but that doesn't make it directly descended from the heavens themselves.

I mostly only got the game for TF2, anyway. I played Portal because it was on it, but Team Fortress 2 holds my heart.

If you really love TF2 I reckomend getting it on PC. I've heard wonders about how generous Valve have been with the updates.

 

[captainwolfos]

Yeah, I played it after buying the Orange Box for PS3, and after getting the Portal gun with both portals I just played with it for a few hours. With that out of the way, it boiled down to about an hour's worth of extended playtime until I finished it.
It was massively overhyped; it's good for the amount that's there, but that doesn't make it directly descended from the heavens themselves.

I mostly only got the game for TF2, anyway. I played Portal because it was on it, but Team Fortress 2 holds my heart.

If you really love TF2 I reckomend getting it on PC. I've heard wonders about how generous Valve have been with the updates.

I'm working on that, believe it or not XD My computer's hardware is embarassingly ancient, and the times I've tried installing it have all been failed experiments. Until I FINALLY get my freaking laptop back, I have to stick with the PS3 version.