Poll: Did Portal 2 surpass it's predecessor?

[YeyJordan]

To me, Portal was a fun little tech demo with silly dialogue, but the sequel is the superior effort. Valve fine-tuned it to perfection in ways obvious and not-so, I love that.

Like the bouncing energy balls from the first game? It was obnoxious how they would "miss" the catching device if just a pixel off, and you had to wait ages for the next one to appear, which would end up hitting and killing you anyway. In Portal 2, the energy ball is replaced by a laser beam, its path immediately apparent, simple to redirect, and isn't an insta-kill when touched. The mechanics don't get in the way of problem-solving.

And the gels, beautiful! Manipulating light and solid objects was to be expected, but redirecting liquids was a surprise to me. I just wish they'd have used the white gel a little more, like a chamber that's completely paintable for experimentation.

Fresh environments... loved the scary factory areas, and that abyss so far underground that fog obscures the ceiling and you're suspended over a sea of escaped acid. It looks like a foggy day at the docks.

Multiplayer was rockin', I love playing it with m'lady. Too bad we memorized all the solutions though lol.

I could go on eternally but I'll nip it here

 

[Chaoswin1]

I thought Portal 2 was better than the original because it has more variety in the puzzles like the different gels but another reason why I liked more it is because it doesn't just have GlaDOS' voice over the PA it has four different voices. With my favourite being Cave Johnson.

We're done here.

 

[duechebagel]

@Op
no, not really at least not for me.
it involved puzzles, portals, cubes, switches, turrets and all the usual crap i expect from portal, as well as a horrendously short amount of gameplay, which - sadly - i also expect from portal.
it had good writing, a few funny but disposable jokes, one totally unimportant and throwaway "huge revelation" that all ended with the culmination of a boss fight that was more of a joke-off.

honestly though on the positive side, i can't wait for "wanna go to space, hey, hey lady, hey lady, wanna go to space, up there, higher, higher" (or maybe - and more realistically - "wanna go to space") to become memetic so it did at least meet it's epic quote criteria.

portal 2 was actually a really big disappointment for me personally, it had so much promise to become something that i'd be happy to know was waiting for me when i got home, this idea was sharply beheaded when i'd completed it just shy of 10 hours.

it also kind of pissed me off even more so in retrospect with the whole "GlaDOS" wasn't always an AI revelation in hindsight, that could have gone on to be so much more than just a simple plot mechanic.

all in all i can't honestly say i didn't enjoy playing through it, but on the other hand, i can't say that i wouldn't have felt totally ripped off and quite pissed if i'd got suckered into paying for it.... hmm... bit of a trend with valve games now that i think about it, left 4 dead 2 was a totally pointless and horrible cash in offering little to nothing more than left 4 dead and thankfully i learned at a very young age to stay well away from the evils of hats and team fortress 2.

in closing, i'd just like to point out one thing, technically a theory but...
basically, i'd wager quite a sum that someone who watches portal 2 start to finish via youtube (or similar) gameplay walkthrough videos will enjoy it every bit as much as the person actually playing through portal 2, that being said it seems valve might want to rethink their business in making games given how much they (and others, not saying they are the main ones) who cling to the old developer excuse/cop-out/sell-out of "wanting to give a (snickering here) "unique" gameplay "experience"" instead of an actual f@#$**& full length video game.

 

[Raistlinhawke]

In terms of executed game mechanics, it's hard to argue with Portal 2 being superior. They managed to bridge the gap between the game while broadening the story and still managing to keep the game-long tutorial pace, adding new mechanics up until the final act.

There was, however, a distinct lack of charm this time around. With the bigger narrative scope came some misguided narrative direction, and the routine just didn't feel as thrilling this time around after you broke out of a series of test chambers for the third time.

In that respect, and that only, I think the original Portal will always have a leg up over any sequels. But to gauge any future games with such a mindset only sets you up for disappointment.

 

[Plazmatic]

have you even gotten portal two? did you turn your sound off while playing it? did you skip half the game?

Yes, I have played it through, Mr. I-know-better-than-you. Thrice.

And guess what? I thought it was fucking brilliant, I was laughing the whole way through, I got really into the new characters, and played it start to finish in one whole go.

Where did I say it was a bad game, smartarse? All I said was that it was less surprising than the first one. I knew the dialogue was going to be hilarious, I knew that the song by Jonathan Coulton was going to rapidly become one of my favourites, I knew the puzzles were going to be amazingly complex, I knew what to expect.

I played the first Portal game with no idea what I was getting into when I first started playing. I bought the Orange Box for Half-Life ep. 2, and the rest was just gravy. When I played Portal for the first time I was blown away by the great writing and fantastic game mechanic. Partly because I was simply amazed that something so good came out of apparently nowhere (look at how many people actually worked on the first game compared to the second).

Why do idiots always assume that "Not better than the first" means "outright bad"?

no see, but what you did is say it was not as good as the first, yet by your own reasoning surpassed it on every level EXEPT the element of suprise, you knew that you were going to get the game.

so.. its to a great confusion why you would say it is not as good.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The only thing Portal 2 did wrong was a lack of portal surfaces.

Remember that puzzle in Portal 1 that no one ever does the way the dev team designed it? Well Portal 2 didn't have any freeform creative puzzles, there was always a single right way to do it.

Personally I think both games run together nicely, both as good as each other. Portal 2 was an incredibly snappy game.

Isn't that the one where you go up the steps, wait for them to descend, and then use gravity to shoot up to the door?

 

[Marowit]

Huh, interesting. Everyone I know has said that Portal 2 = meh, but the co-op mode is epic.

I guess I'll have to wait until the price drops to see, because everyone here seems to be giving it great marks.

 

[wrightry]

Portal 2 was incredible and the games were practically equal in my eye, but the originality and brilliance of the original Portal I think makes that game more "superior." Maybe not better since it wasn't nearly as long nor did it have nearly as many game mechanics or story arch in it, but The original Portal will always have a special place in my gaming heart