Portal 2

[Helios_(DEL)]

My question is to people that have finnished portal, did you enjoy it? or did you find that it was just a bad game? and why?
Personally i loved the game and didnt see any flaws.
Reason i ask is because iv read alot of mixed reactions to the game and i just want to clear it in this thread i guess.

ok...go!

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I liked Core 1.

I really admire him, he had a dream, and he stuck with it. He believed in himself, even when they deemed him a "defective core". When he saw a chance to fulfill his dream, he took it and now look at him: his father is proud and his family is back together, but most importantly, he is in space. Godspeed, Core 1.


Godspeed

 

[swankyfella]

I liked it. The sense of humor wasn't quite as fresh as Portal 1 (go figure) and there wasn't that sense of "wow this came out of left field and is awesome" that the first one had. Overall, it was better than I'd hoped for, which is saying something considering all the hype it got.

 

[Netrigan]

Loved it, but I see a couple of flaws.

1) The Where's Waldo style puzzles in the second third. It was great seeing those truly epic spaces, but I ended up consulting a video walkthrough a couple of times because I simply couldn't find the portal wall I needed. And the IGN videos show the guy having the exact same problem, with him searching for several minutes simply trying to figure out where to go next.

2) Wheatley really wasn't as funny as they thought he was, bordering on the annoying in the early part of the game. Came through by the end, but it was a rocky road until then.

3) Lack of SP challenge modes for advanced players. Figure this is what the DLC will do, but I would have liked to see some devilishly tricky puzzles that utilized a lot more of the new elements.

I'd still give it my highest rating, with a warning about the short length. For a lot of people, this simply isn't a $60 game, but I highly recommend it to just about everyone.

Side-note, I laughed during one of the Commentaries, where the dev said they wanted to let people explore the area (shortly after falling down The Pit). Exploration in Valve speak is that there's some slightly hidden room with a gag/reference somewhere nearby... and this should be confused with real exploration by any sane person.

 

[Woodsey]

the setting of the Half-Life universe (as it was in Portal) is pretty much ruined;

In what way?

 

[Netrigan]

the setting of the Half-Life universe (as it was in Portal) is pretty much ruined;

In what way?

I second that question. Portal takes place in locked bunker at an undisclosed point in time. For all we know, the Head-Crabs are the alien overlords during Portal 2's timeline.

But I prefer to think the turret guns have taken over.

 

[Woodsey]

the setting of the Half-Life universe (as it was in Portal) is pretty much ruined;

In what way?

Everyone is trying to be funny. Cave Johnson makes no sense for a character to have lived in it. There are probably countless little things like that, but the big one is just how immensely huge this Aperture facility suddenly turned out to be when Valve decided to turn this into a full-price sized game. This, along with the incredible amounts of useless research conducted directly contradicts what Aperture laboratories used to be compared to Black Mesa - a relatively small facility researching alternative means of teleportation.

While the first one felt like it existed parallel (or somewhere close) to the Half-Life games, the second one went off completely in the zany direction.

I don't know when Aperture was described as a small competitor, but if they are described as that then its as a result of all their other stuff being kept secret. The facility goes very deep underground for a reason. If you're just judging by the fact that they never appeared to measure up against Black Mesa (the slideshow in the first game), its because they were fucking insane. Cave Johnson was an eccentric who was also suffering from Mercury poisoning.

The two exist in the same universe, but the two series don't really share anything. The Borealis, for example, is firmly Half Life's "thing", in spite of it coming from Aperture.

 

[Akihiko]

1) The Where's Waldo style puzzles in the second third. It was great seeing those truly epic spaces, but I ended up consulting a video walkthrough a couple of times because I simply couldn't find the portal wall I needed. And the IGN videos show the guy having the exact same problem, with him searching for several minutes simply trying to figure out where to go next.

Agreed with that point. Most of the puzzles themselves are actually fairly easy, and I suppose that links to your 3rd point. However, trying to find those miniscule white squares on the wall so I could create a portal was just a nightmare. Chapter 6 was full of them, infact the entire first half was mostly finding the white wall, rather than actual puzzles.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I didn't really feel that challenged through singleplayer. The parts I felt I had to think were usually the test chambers, which make up half the game. The rest of the parts are basically "find a surface to put portal on" puzzles, which I was really annoyed with.

Scenery, voice-acting and humor were top-notch.

The co-op was a lot harder and a lot more enjoyable, and pretty fun.

EDIT: Oh, and definitly get it.

 

[MarsProbe]

But I prefer to think the turret guns have taken over.

Too right. Forget the Xen aliens or the Combine, it's the Animal King you've got to watch out for.

On topic, I enjoyed the game. Knowing Portal 1 perhaps made it seem easier as you knew how the portals worked, though some of the excursion funnel related tests had me stumped for a while. I just tried the co-op for the first time yesterday, that's a good bit more challenging.

As far as the dialogue and humour go however, Portal 2 has entertained me more than any game I've played in a long time. You really just have to look at Portal as the slightly goofier side of the Half-Life universe.

 

[VaudevillianVeteran]

I loved it. It's my GOTY so far. I'll be honest, I wasn't like my brother who was hyping it up all the way, I was preparing myself for an onslaught of cake jokes and sighing all the way. Instead, I got a shining gem that i definitely needed after playing Bulletstorm.
The co-op wasn't what I expected either- But I will say that you really need to be playing with the right person to get optimal fun out of it. Playing with my brother was more of a frustrating headache while playing with my best friend was a ton of fun. So yeah, I liked it.
If you have the money/liked the first game/ hated the first game, get it.

 

[Woodsey]

I don't know when Aperture was described as a small competitor, but if they are described as that then its as a result of all their other stuff being kept secret. The facility goes very deep underground for a reason. If you're just judging by the fact that they never appeared to measure up against Black Mesa (the slideshow in the first game), its because they were fucking insane. Cave Johnson was an eccentric who was also suffering from Mercury poisoning.

They're only insane in the second game; all the way through the first one including the tie-in comic Valve made makes no such implications. Neither is there an implication that Aperture is bigger than what it seemed to be. These are retcons, plain and simple, made to accommodate the bigger scope Valve wanted for the sequel and to open the door to more jokes. Same as the whole stupid Catherine thing, same as the. modified ending to the first game, same as Glados not actually being destroyed.

The two exist in the same universe, but the two series don't really share anything. The Borealis, for example, is firmly Half Life's "thing", in spite of it coming from Aperture.

They don't really share anything anymore, which is why I have a problem with it. Unless there is another Aperture Science facility with the same logo in the Half-Life universe that's completely unrelated to this one, the Borealis by default can't firmly be Half-Life's thing.

OK, a retcon is when you actively change something that was firmly established. It was never firmly established in the first game that your single test chamber was the entire facility. Nor is it a retcon that Glados survives - there is a reason why Still Alive is called Still Alive.

I meant Cave Johnson is insane, and he doesn't feature in the first game or the comic. And no, its not a retcon that he is introduced, just because he isn't mentioned in the first. And why is the Catherine thing a bloody retcon? Do you have any idea of the difference between a retcon and expanding a backstory? There's a rather large difference between changing something and adding something.

And I've gone over this Borealis issue with someone else, and it took a very long time, so just think. The Borealis comes from Aperture. By Half Life's nature, the Borealis will be more serious because Half Life is a more serious series. As such, there'll be no direct cross-over of the two series beyond the fact that whatever's on the Borealis came from Aperture. Aperture only existed in the HL universe to begin with because they needed to have another place for the Borealis to come from. It was introduced in Half Life, it will be dealt with in Half Life. It is therefore Half Life's "thing".

They didn't share any more in the first game.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Right next to Portal 1 the gameplay was quite flawed, but that's just because Portal did such an awesome job, love the extra story tho.
I was going to list all the flaws I found but that wall of text doesn't really help anyone, the developers know what went wrong and alot of it was done to make it for every granny.

I hope they release some advanced/challenge levels(which are mysteriously missing), or that the user generated levels give us more to chew on.

 

[ciancon]

The only tiny flaw i noticed was that it didn't matter which portal you fired last in the final battle, it had the same cutscene result. Tut-tut valve...

 

[FarleShadow]

The only tiny flaw i noticed was that it didn't matter which portal you fired last in the final battle, it had the same cutscene result. Tut-tut valve...

Actually, after the fire is extingushed in the annex, the only place to put a portal is directly below Wheatley as its the only place the moondust portal gel is left.

edit: Oh WHICH portal? Well, give them a break, how hard would it have been if they'd 'Did that just happen' and the result is half the annex breaking off

 

[ciancon]

The only tiny flaw i noticed was that it didn't matter which portal you fired last in the final battle, it had the same cutscene result. Tut-tut valve...

Actually, after the fire is extingushed in the annex, the only place to put a portal is directly below Wheatley as its the only place the moondust portal gel is left.

edit: Oh WHICH portal? Well, give them a break, how hard would it have been if they'd 'Did that just happen' and the result is half the annex breaking off

I thought that, at the moment of firing the last portal, there were already two portals in the room; one beneath Wheatley and one in the button room. So if you got rid of the one below Wheatley the last portal would've had the same effect, but you would've been sucked into the other room before going through it.