Zero Punctuation: Portal 2

[mikepyro]

Yeah it seems to me this is more of Yahtzees classic nitpicking.
Honestly, no one I've spoken to liked portal 1 better. Portal 2 succeeds over it in every way for me be it story, characters, humor, variety, enviorment, gameplay. Plus a fun coop (not much replay, well wtf did you expect?). Not to mention how valve finally mastered their way of telling a story without words, ie. every bit of the apature underground, with the history of it slowly being revealed.

 

[esliang]

Leave it to Yahtzee to be completely fair to the sequel of his favorite game. I didn't really expect Portal 2 to be as good as the first, but I didn't think it would be because of more funding or backing.

 

[Pescetarian]

Right now, despite what Mr. Croshaw says, games need to be good looking, for them to sell, and we can't just make a game with great gameplay and ugly graphics.

Though I hate to admit it, I'll give you one word: Minecraft.

 

[Hyakunin Isshu]

Thank you for replying back to my post, and sorry for the long wait.

The need for faster rendering of more complex simulations and lighting is always there and that need will be constantly filled. We can depend on computer power to keep increasing.

Not really. We are near the end of Moore's Law as it is. look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIkMaQJSyP8

When 2015 comes, Moore's Law will stop, or something big is going to happen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_nanometer

Do you know how much it is going to cost to make a new, smaller computer chip? In the billions! And the cost just keeps getting higher:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_fabrication_plant

My point is: 99% of movies already looks Photorealistic, and there will be no need for movies-makers to have more. Well, that's not true -- they will always want more, but they can't keep the semiconductor industry alive just by themselves. We *all need to upgrade and bye new PCs, at least, once every 3 years, or so.

And let me ask you something: is there an ugly FPS game you can think of, on the playstation 1 (not Doom) that you would like to play over a PS3/360 FPS game?

One more thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUSo6ehRCHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg
If there was a PS5 game with that kind of Physics, would you want to go back to Doom 1?

The problem arises when we rely on graphics as a stand-in for innovation. Along comes another console generation and instead of actually exploring more complex ideas and creating new gaming experiences, we're creating the same experiences again and again, but with higher resolution and more bad guys in one room at a time.

(Like if you would play anything else.)

The problem isn't that we aren't trying new ideas. The problem is we already tried most of them in the 90s(Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Sim(something), X-COM, Star Control, Master of Orion, Syndicate, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Moonbase Commander, Grim Fandango, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Homeworld etc.), But most gamers didn't like them. And Old man Croshaw is ***NOT*** helping to change that! Mr. Croshaw knows about Civilization 5, but he doesn't want to even try it!So what can we do? If you want to try new ideas, then you can't ask the Big Guys to do it, no, you need the smaller makers to do it first.

And look at the Wii: the whole idea behind that was "no graphics, all gameplay". How did that work out?


damn that "spam checking"

PS, Croshaw sucks for being evil and rude!

 

[Hyakunin Isshu]

Right now, despite what Mr. Croshaw says, games need to be good looking, for them to sell, and we can't just make a game with great gameplay and ugly graphics.

Though I hate to admit it, I'll give you one word: Minecraft.

Thank you for your post.

Minecraft, hmm.... there is two types of graphics that gamers like:
1. Photorealistic.
2. Colorful/Weird.

Minecraft is Colorful/Weird. It also has gameplay that no one had ever tried before (thanks to the power of today's PCs). And, most of all, it has hype. I never wanted to see it until people kept on talking about it.

 

[VeryOblivious]

It also has gameplay that no one had ever tried before (thanks to the power of today's PCs).

No. Not only java programs have extra work to do because they have to run over the JVM to translate bytecodes to native hardware opcodes, they also have reduced perfomance in graphics applications. Computing power isn't the issue, it could have existed a long time ago.

 

[Scott Pilgrim]

Easier, perhaps, but still amazing. The dark humour's back, there's enough meme-worthy content to keep 4chan running for a bit, and it has portals!

The co-op does have a distinct lack of replay to it. Best way to do it? Get 3 people. One who watches/helps the other 2 at first, and then one of them runs through it again with the watcher, with more of an emphasis on screwing each other over than on actually completing the puzzles. Obviously this only makes any sense to do if you want the professor portal achievement thingy

 

[Hyakunin Isshu]

It also has gameplay that no one had ever tried before (thanks to the power of today's PCs).

No. Not only java programs have extra work to do because they have to run over the JVM to translate bytecodes to native hardware opcodes, they also have reduced perfomance in graphics applications. Computing power isn't the issue, it could have existed a long time ago.

oh, my mistake then.

 

[Deckyleaf]

I agree the puzzles are easier but I do like how well they developed the story and all the small hidden treasures which to me made up for how you FLEW through the game. From Ratman's transmission or the little hidden treasure in the different rooms. Thanks for not trashing it

 

[Frankfurter4444]

I waited until I finished Portal 2 and just now watched this review and yeah, this is pretty much exactly my take on Portal 2.

 

[GoddyofAus]

Now all i need to see is his review of Duke Nukem Forever and my life will be complete. For a bit.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/748-Duke-Nukem-Forever

Here ya go

 

[Lord Chaos 2]

Portal 2 is much better than Portal and has so much more contained in it. The new kinds of puzzles were genious, the acting were great and the pacing was good. The introduction of co-op was great too and it really depends on who you play it with, whether it will have any replay value and who cares if it doesn't. The game itself is good for several replays, as is it for the commentaries.

So while Portal is a 10/10 game, then Portal 2 is an 11/10 game. It was fantastic from start to finish.

And there was really no way for him to review it any differently, as he had already picked Portal as his favorite game.

 

[Vault101]

portal 2 was amazing...thats all I can say

 

[Infernai]

No memes?

Well my response to that is Lemons and Spaaaaaaaaaaaace!

Great job leaving out the potato *slow clap* Oh yeah, we also have slow claps now...

 

[AdmiralMemo]

Awesome review. It didn't let down on some of the ball-busting Portal 2 deserves, but it also didn't let down on the serious fun and great game it is.

 

[Svetoslav Savov]

some jokes worked.....ok all jokes work for me but that dose not say a bad thing about the game.
i was gonna be happy if ALL puzzles had 2 or more different ways to solve them. so the game will have replay value.
all in all good game, lest see how they will ruin it in portal 3