Portal 2 Review

[Sassafrass]

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

I know I'm going to regret quoting you to say this but eh, this could be fun. But I will say again what I said earlier on in the thread, Dragon Age 2 was reviewed by Greg Tito. Portal 2 was reviewed by Russ Pitts. Russ Pitts and Greg Tito are two totally different people who don't share the same opinions on games. It's not that hard to notice. Remember, Russ gave Black Ops 2 stars when all other reviews I saw were fawning all over it, with the overall review being bumped up to 3 stars because of the MP review. He's a harsher reviewer to others, which I see no problem with.

And I fail to see why a single review matters this much, considering how many reviews are out there. As someone wise once said, reviews are just a guide anyway. If the game's great to you, who cares whether it gets 4 or 5 stars? Just get it, play it, enjoy it. Simple as that.

 

[RedBaron19]

I'm going to pick this up when I have the money. I was hoping that the levels could be a little more difficult than the first one.

I thought it was pretty challenging. Not so much as in "how does the portal gun work" but more in "what do I do now"? I though the puzzles themselves were overall more challenging but the game mechanics just the same as in Portal 1

 

[Schnippshly]

Games published by Valve count as "indie" now? Are there any games that AREN'T indie?

 

[SnipErlite]

Portal 2 Review

The indie darling returns in a AAA sequel, but is it still good enough for science?

Read Full Article

Three times the originals length is vague. How long is the single player?

EDIT: Seriously, swear on your companion cube the single player is over 8 hours long. Please??

Took me about 8 or 9 hours, but I didn't look for all the Easter Eggs and other hidden stuff (there is hidden stuff, including...something one of the dev commentary tells you to try and find). I'm currently doing a second run with the commentary on, and haven't touched the co-op yet. And the co-op looks freakin' awesome.

If you liked or loved portal you will enjoy this

 

[Jumpingbean3]

Looking forward to the gibs flying when Yahtzee reviews this...

What is it with people recently assuming Yahtzee's going to hate everything (that is what you were implying right?)

Well its just Yahtzee loved portal so much, and knowing his general opinion of sequels all i can say is it better be Really good...

It doesn't have to be really good to appease Yahtzee it just has to be decent. Even if it's not as good as Portal 1 (Portal 2 doesn't come out where I am till tomorrow) he may still like it. Remember he liked The Sands of Time almost as much as Portal but the sequels, he thought, were at least okay and Portal 2 hardly looks like a downgrade (or at least not a big one).

 

[SnipErlite]

Damn I hate these things...

A lot of people are having trouble with the captchas...Only one of the words is necessary, one's always just a thing. For that one you just need sevemi and then anything you like. sevemi potato would work, sevemi portal would.

OT: Aside from the fact there were quite a few unmarked spoilers in that video, fair review I guess. Personally I would've given it 5 stars but then I fucking love Portal so meh.

 

[Clankenbeard]

.....what? No, seriously, what? How on earth does a person think Terminator was a superior movie to Terminator 2? Or Alien to Aliens? Or Godfather to Godfather 2? Or Empire Strikes Back to A New Hope?

I see you are very passionate about your film choices. That's cool. But they are choices. We disagree. I'll take the suspense of Alien over the action of Aliens. But that's me. If you want to move to a larger sample base than you and me, let's look at the ratings (out of 10 of course) over at IMDB by the web-browsing populous (with votes in the thousands):

Alien 8.5 (200,000 votes) Metascore 83 / Aliens 8.5 (186,000 votes) Metascore 87
Terminator 8.1 (200,000 votes) Metascore 84 / T2 8.6 (265,000 votes) Metascore 68
Godfather 9.2 (453,000 votes) Metascore 100 / GF2 9.0 (276,000 votes) Metascore 71
Star Wars New Hope 8.8 (350,000 votes) Metascore 91 / Empire Strikes Back 8.8 (306,000 votes) Metascore 78

I personally think the Metascores are crap, because they are based on a much smaller number of actual reviews by MetaCritic. But the fan ratings tell the tale. Looks like you and I tied for our preferences on these four films. Hundreds of thousands of people can't be wrong.

Incidentally, Portal 2 has a MetaCritic Metascore of 95 at the moment. Yay. I included something to make this post thread-appropriate.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Judge a product by its weakest link, this case being the 360 version.

Then everyone would call The Orange Box a steaming pile of #$%& because of the PS3 version.

You should review the game on the platform it was made for, in this case the PC, or if you want the console version, review on the complete one, not the gimped one.

In this case I don't think it matters. He didn't mention anything about bugs, or controller issues, and everyone already knows that loading times are shorter on the PC than on consoles because you're reading off a 7200RPM hard drive rather than a DVD, so it makes little difference what system he used.

Speaking of those loading screens, though, I got the PC version and I'm still disappointed in the loading screens. Halo had seamless level pre-caching ten years ago, on a console, and here Valve is making games about the same length as Bioshock but with about five times as many pauses to load the next area, plus another one every time you die. It's pretty stupid, really.

 

[Colonel Alzheimer's]

3 times as long as the first game, so 4.5 hours?

I think he (Russ) went to sleep for the night... I really want to know a first hand account of the single player length too. That kinda determines if I buy the game new, or from a friend who bought it on PS3 for the free PC version.

I'm not sure if anyone has responded to you yet, but I figure I might as well.
Over two days, the single player took me 8 hours to complete. I did get stuck on some pretty obvious parts from time to time because I was a bit... ahem... impaired, so I would say 6-8 hours is a good guess. Also worth noting: if you really hunt for easter eggs it should definitely take you 8 hours at least.

 

[awesome_ninja]

Who ever wrote this review, needs to do his homework properly... It isn't set "right after Portal 1", but a couple of hundred years after...
NVM...I posted this comment while mad at the first 10 seconds of the video...

 

[Kamehapa]

Whoever says the original Portal was better than this needs to take off some rose-tinted glasses. This game had great dialog, challenging puzzles, and a compelling story with some decent length to it. The only thing the original portal had on this is that the original could be finished in a lunch break.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Portal 1 wasn't an indie game, first of all. It was just a one course in the 5 course meal of the orange box. The fact that you used "indie" so much indicates that you are an indiegamefag, and don't understand that indie doesn't mean "great but short", but made by a small studio for little profit. I give it 5/5, it's all the humor, presentation, and great mechanics of portal 1, but with even more tacked on. Which is all we could hope for with a game that completely revolved around the gameplay. Whoever writes general reviews for the escapist is mentally incompetent, sad but true. (And yes sounding like a smug-asshat was purely intentional)

 

[Danpascooch]

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

I know I'm going to regret quoting you to say this but eh, this could be fun. But I will say again what I said earlier on in the thread, Dragon Age 2 was reviewed by Greg Tito. Portal 2 was reviewed by Russ Pitts. Russ Pitts and Greg Tito are two totally different people who don't share the same opinions on games. It's not that hard to notice. Remember, Russ gave Black Ops 2 stars when all other reviews I saw were fawning all over it, with the overall review being bumped up to 3 stars because of the MP review. He's a harsher reviewer to others, which I see no problem with.

And I fail to see why a single review matters this much, considering how many reviews are out there. As someone wise once said, reviews are just a guide anyway. If the game's great to you, who cares whether it gets 4 or 5 stars? Just get it, play it, enjoy it. Simple as that.

I know they're different people, and it's not affecting my decisions to play or buy the game.

All I said was that the Escapist as a whole is demonstrating time and time again that their reviews are not trustworthy, I don't see how anything you've posted conflicts with that statement.

 

[Sassafrass]

I know they're different people, and it's not affecting my decisions to play or buy the game.

All I said was that the Escapist as a whole is demonstrating time and time again that their reviews are not trustworthy, I don't see how anything you've posted conflicts with that statement.

Well, if that's the case, I appear to have missed your point by a country mile. I guess I'm just not seeing how this hints at the Escapist's reviews being untrust-worthy in any way, shape or form.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

I know they're different people, and it's not affecting my decisions to play or buy the game.

All I said was that the Escapist as a whole is demonstrating time and time again that their reviews are not trustworthy, I don't see how anything you've posted conflicts with that statement.

Well, if that's the case, I appear to have missed your point by a country mile. I guess I'm just not seeing how this hints at the Escapist's reviews being untrust-worthy in any way, shape or form.

Agreed. I see a distinct lack of Portal 2 adds on the site for this to be an untrustworthy review.

 

[Critterbot]

Science!!! Becouse it works.

 

[Fynnen]

I'm kinda disappointed in Portal 2. I loved it yes, but it just felt lacking in a lot of stuff. The writing was awesome, the challenges could've been a tad harder tho... And I beat it in 4 hours while keeping an eye open for easter eggs.

Def not worth 50$, almost no replay value (no challenge mode). I'm not very far in the multiplayer, so maybe its 20hours long to compensate.

 

[ShoX]

Does it have load times as high as consoles on PC? If not, that should probably pointed out in the review. Loading times being the bane of source engine anyway, I'd still assume they'd be significantly lower on a state of the art PC compared to 512 MB RAM consoles.

 

[coldfrog]

While the puzzles may be easier, I think they far outdid themselves in world design (in comparison to the original of course). What they had the first time around was ingenious, but what they did to the place here is just fantastic. I'm not sure about you, but I found myself not actually doing anything for about half the time I played, just looked around at what was there. I'm only at the second act, but to me, that's where the whole world design has really shone. There are puzzles, but there's also a story going on here, and to me, that tale is what really captivated me with this game. Of course, Valve is known for their games telling a story without nailing it out in cut scenes and text, and in fact with little but the environment itself, and while it did reuse a couple concepts from the first (hidey holes with crazy talk anyone?) it still kept to its high standards and didn't over-use the game's ideas. Plus I just LOVE what's at the bottom.

 

[jovack22]

What load times? On PC the load times are maybe 10-15 seconds, and my computer is not even that good.