Portal 2 Review

[Grabbin Keelz]

Jeez man, throw up some spoiler warnings before you show that, most of that video pretty much shows half the twists in the game.

 

[copycatalyst]

I think the line from Kill Bill is appropriate here: "If you're gonna compare a Hattori Hanzo sword, you compare it to every sword ever made that wasn't made by Hattori Hanzo."

Based on my experience, it seems Russ is being too harsh on P2 because it's no longer surprising that it's brilliant. Sir, I am afraid it is difficult to surprise someone with brilliance when your brilliance is already well known. That doesn't make you any less brilliant.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

Three acts as long as the original? So the game is about four and a half hours now, and with less challenging puzzles? I'll wait for a sale. And before someone quotes me to say that there is coop, like someone always does, I don't care. L4D taught me two things about coop: most random people in coop match making are douche bags, and coop is only fun with friends. Seeing how all my friends are poor and our schedules are so weird, I'd probably never touch coop.

I beat the game in about 6 hours, and that was on super caffeine. I don't understand why he said the tests were easier, they aren't. Even in some of the act 1 tests I had to sit and think for a little bit before making a decision on what to do. I haven't tried the co-op yet, but back in L4D1+2 I sometimes had more fun playing with strangers than with friends. A lot of players I've played with were actually pretty nice and cooperative on PC. If your really hell bent on not touching co-op, don't you think your cheating yourself out of some money? You're not even going to attempt it?

 

[Aptspire]

agreed with most of the review, if you liked the 1st one (or puzzle games in general), then you should definitely pick it up (I think it kept the hilarity, as well)

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Three acts as long as the original? So the game is about four and a half hours now, and with less challenging puzzles? I'll wait for a sale. And before someone quotes me to say that there is coop, like someone always does, I don't care. L4D taught me two things about coop: most random people in coop match making are douche bags, and coop is only fun with friends. Seeing how all my friends are poor and our schedules are so weird, I'd probably never touch coop.

I beat the game in about 6 hours, and that was on super caffeine. I don't understand why he said the tests were easier, they aren't. Even in some of the act 1 tests I had to sit and think for a little bit before making a decision on what to do. I haven't tried the co-op yet, but back in L4D1+2 I sometimes had more fun playing with strangers than with friends. A lot of players I've played with were actually pretty nice and cooperative on PC. If your really hell bent on not touching co-op, don't you think your cheating yourself out of some money? You're not even going to attempt it?

I'd like to try it with a friend, but I doubt find time when a friend is on to complete it. Just playing with random people could get bad, even as bad as trying to figure out what the hell this says:

Damn I hate these things...

 

[Sassafrass]

SNIP

Hang on. You criticise a review for spoiling it then you go and spoiler some of it for people yourself? Nice(!)

Also, if you go back and revisit the DA2 review, you'll notice that Greg Tito reviewed it, not Russ Pitts. They are bound to have different opinions considering they are, ya know, not the same person, which explains the scores.

OT: Nice review but I won't be picking this game up, not til it's at least a lot cheaper. The first one bored me I have to say, and the only reason I might pick this one up is for the co-op content. Need a couple of new co-op games to tide me over til Skyrim comes out.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Is it possible that the puzzles just look easier because we've been playing Portal for 4 years and we now know how to think with portals like it's second nature? I've played about 4 hours by now and there have been several times I've had to sit back and take a look at how to best solve a puzzle. Haven't done the co-op yet, I'm waiting for a buddy to get it. So far, I'd say it's at least on par with the original.

 

[qbanknight]

Just beat the single-player, fantastic experience from start to finish. Yes, it's short but it's a damn good ride from beginning to end

 

[Singularly Datarific]

WTF is up with that one shot with the portal gun with that AWESOME striped skin o.o

That is for the coop, as I found out today. Blue is for the shorty and Orange is for the tall guy.
(I spent an hour on coop with my brother, nothing else so far.)

 

[duchaked]

Load times virtually non-existent on a decent PC. So you can knock that negative off the list for the smart ones among us.

well excuuuse me if I'm dumb cuz I only own a kinda old laptop that cries if I run anything modern lol

TBH I can't really count a healthy financial situation as an indicator of ones personal intelligence, I mean look at America... richest country in the world but one of the biggest gatherings of absolute idiots I have ever seen.
And since having an absolutely kickass gaming pc (which in gamer terms is simply "decent") is DIRECTLY tied to ones personal finance, unless that money was actually earned due to actually being some smart uni graduate in a kickass job earning tons of money to make a purchase of said PC actually viable I deem one who claims smartness for such a thing- unsmart indeed

Anyway regarding the review:

I am definitely interested now, I am glad to see that there has been more length added to the single player campaign, however if this transpires to be simple padding or artificial lengthening then I shall be upset, however I do not expect this from valve, my own personal disagreements with them aside, I know they are brilliant developers and a true industry leader, so I am more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I am looking forward to giving the co-op a spin as it looks like the most fun part of the game, as it appears that we will actually be given characters to play, rather than some random blank slate, which is incidentally my biggest pet peeve with valve games, why are their protagonists silent? it really makes no sense, I have no interest in half life because of this one thing, it ruins the immersion for me. Anyway, I have digressed- yeah the co op looks incredibly entertaining, not just because of the characters (atlas and p-body look hilarious) but also due to the interesting idea of dual portals as you just know that is going to lead to reaction checks where one player has to launch one portal at just the right time mid jump to allow the other player to get further etc, so yeah colour me interested.

I have seen the hats thing and, as always, it seems strange to me, I like the idea behind it, however it just seems a little bit off, given that the player only very rarely sees his avatar in game, and only one other person at a time will see it either, it makes sense in multiplayer games where you have true character customisation, such as in halo: Reach, where you create your own individual identity which makes you identifiable in game, which is important in not only a tactical sense, but also for the simple sake of personalisation, whereas in Tf2 your character customisation is so hamstringed that the primary change is his headwear, and even then you are simply working within the bounds of what you have been given by the game, with very little room to breathe, so personalisation is out, as is the aforementioned tactical identification as noting what the heavy on the enemy team with the most kills has on his head gives little benefit when every heavy looks the same apart from their hat and the hat that is being used was a level 3 achievement so even the low ranking players have it and there could be 3 other heavies on the same team with the same hat, so the system doesn't make any sense to me at all.
But valve ARE geniuses so they probably know something I don't.

...wut
lol why man, whyyy

was that to me btw? or just to ppl in general, cause I didn't say anything about financ-...anyway haha

good points tho. do wanna try out the co-op, and customization...I didn't realize how much it helped by giving me a sense of self. I do like it in Halo 3/Reach, and while I'm not particularly fond or even good at Call of Duty, I found myself more ready to play Black Ops cuz I had my own set character so to speak.

 

[callmegreen]

WTF is up with that one shot with the portal gun with that AWESOME striped skin o.o

That is for the coop, as I found out today. Blue is for the shorty and Orange is for the tall guy.
(I spent an hour on coop with my brother, nothing else so far.)

ahhh.. i thougt that might have been the case... either that or some 99 cent dlc thing o.o

 

[Xirema]

A few things:
- A lot of scenes you showcased came from Act III, and do have some rather substantial spoilers with regards to what happens.
- You also mixed up when and where certain elements are presented to the player.

 

[Danpascooch]

Not as challenging? Four stars? Seriously?

I just finished it, yeah, it wasn't portal 1, and although it wasn't quite as original it improved on the original in every conceivable way, sure as fuck beat out Dragon Age II, which was given 5 stars.

I'm confused. John Walker gave a completely different review on RPS, especially about the difficulty of the puzzles...

I honestly don't know what the game Russ Pitts played, but it wasn't Portal 2.

Again and again The Escapist demonstrates that you shouldn't trust their reviews, hell, it's almost like they are getting denied a review copy and have to guess what the game will be like, that would certainly explain the rating for both this and Dragon Age II

 

[AsurasFinest]

Interesting that people don't think it's easier. The first third - the story mode is definitely chopped into thirds, btw - is mind-numbingly easy. Perhaps not if you didn't play the first game, though...so maybe it was intended as an introduction for complete newbies?

The co-op is loads of fun, though, I highly recommend it.

Feels about the same to me
Its pretty much the testing section that portal was
Portal only got difficult at the end honestly

Its more remembered for its other aspects than difficulty I think

 

[Dice Warwick]

I got through the single player and from start to finis it was an excellent game, without the game getting to repetitive. It also have it's charm, Between Gladoss and Weeley, the game is full of laughs, well more get out of the way of the trap then laugh.

I give it a 4.5/5 a game you got to love.

 

[bakonslayer]

[On Valve being the 'creators' of Portal]:

It's more like, Valve liked the indie game Narbacular Drop and basically hired those guys to make it better, bringing in great writers as well. It's like how Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi on his own for peanuts, then Columbia gave him a few million to make Desperado, which is technically a sequel, but more like how Rodriguez would have made Mariachi in the first place if he had the money.

That is one hell of an analogy. I could not agree more. Rodriguez's modest beginnings are VERY similar to the Portal franchise.

 

[Smooth Operator]

WTF is up with that one shot with the portal gun with that AWESOME striped skin o.o

That is one of the many neat unlockables, all available to you for lots of cashy money

I hear they got a bit lazy with this one, quite a worry where Valve is going from now on, and if the other stuff will ever get finished.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

So Portal 2 is actually less challenging than the original Portal? I didn't know that was possible.

 

[Ris]

I hate Russ Pitts' reviews, they're so dull and uninformative since all he seems to do is list the features of the game without even going in depth about the mechanics, the art direction, how it effects gameplay, etc.

Seriously, it's so dull and uninteresting it's nauseating.

Oh, and the best part is that he says, "Without spoiling too much...," then of course he xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I've removed what you actually wrote to avoid carrying the spoiler further, but none of what you said was made apparent by the video until YOU pointed it out. There's absolutely no reason for people who are yet to play the game to make any of those mental connections.

Please consider what you're writing next time.


On topic: I found the first act to be easier than Portal 1, but the rest of the game is definitely more challenging (without being frustratingly so). It takes somewhere between 7 - 10 hours to complete single player, depending on your own personal aptitude, how long you get stuck (you will get stuck at least once or twice) and whether or not you're interested in exploring your environment. The story is brilliant and compelling enough to keep you interested until right to the end. I was playing on a PC so wasn't too fussed about breaking for loading screens, but I will admit there are an awful lot of them. All in all I was really impressed, it's a great sequel.

 

[Elcentralen]

loading screens?? ewer heard of a good pc had like 2 sec betwen loads