Zero Punctuation: Portal 2

[Serge A. Storms]

The really massive puzzles in the middle of the game bugged me at first but I got used to looking for the right spot and in retrospect it makes sense that they'd take full advantage of the "gun" part of the portal gun. Honestly the only thing about the entire experience that I was legitimately disappointed about was that all the really massive levels are all so dark and brown.

 

[Count Igor]

When it comes to decent sequels, Portal 2...
Takes the Cake!
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

You're my favorite poster.
Ever.

OT: No Memes?
SPACE LEMONS.
HA.
Though you're right, it was a little too spacey. (Eyyy). Especially "The Fall" level, I thought.
Still great though!

 

[Slash Joel]

What i want to see is a flame war. Come on people put those troll faces on with half of u defending Yahztee and half of u screaming blood murder at him or we can all just scream at him. This video was a dissapointment he has yet to realize that he is just as funny being positive as he is when he is negative.

 

[Hungry Donner]

I'll join the "very fair" chorus. I would have been happy to excuse the easy of the main quest if there was an option for harder stand alone puzzles . . . just like Portal 1. Instead even the toughest puzzles in Portal 2 didn't stand up to the toughest puzzles of the Portal 1 campaign and that was quite disappointing.

 

[xdiesp]

Oh come on, this review is so fully agreeable it's boring.

 

[Gigatoast]

Actually, there was ONE reference to cake in Portal 2, you may not have seen it.

Is it just me or is Yahtzee the Hipster Cat of game reviewers, the less money a game has behind it the better it is I guess. Well in that case QWOP is the best game ever made.

 

[Owlslayer]

Nice review, good to see Yahtzee finding positive stuff.
Though I don't see Portal 2 inferior to the original. I actually think it had a better ending. However, Portal 1 had it's own pros.
SO they balance out, in some weird way. Anyways, so far the Portal series has been damn enjoyable.

 

[Namewithheld]

Very, VERY surprised he didn't complain at all about the shameless retconning of the first game. Given how he feels about shameless sequels, even if Portal 2 doesn't qualify as one by a wide margin, I would think yoinking away a happy ending in a patch, just so there can be a sequel, would be on his top-ten list of biggest dick moves a developer can pull.

Maybe this is just me, but I never thought the original ending to Portal was all that happy...I felt as though I was laying on my back, dying slowly of explosionitus on the ground. Portal 2's ending is a lot more definitively happy and I liked it quite a lot.

 

[Tom Hill]

You sir are acting as if you were raped by scarlett johansson, telling yourself you didn't love it. but by god you did.

 

[mcnally86]

No I thought Y man might pick up that the "biggest moron ever created" is inexplicably the only person in the Half Life UNIVERSE with a British accent.

As for hats I too was disappointed by the design. I unlocked only the beany hat. Looks fine on my cone head guy as it morphs into a cone shape such as one might imagine it would looked pulled tight on his misshapen pinhead. In the icon it is human shaped but when he wears it BAM its conforms to his head. I like that.

Now when my round fellow wears it it is still cone shaped. Which is odd because he is basically a sphere. After putting the hat on he is a now sphere with an inexplicably stiff woolen cone pasted on top like a party hat. I expected it to be pulled down on his head shaped like half a circle, but they decided to make the hat look the same for both.
o> and O->

 

[FROGGEman2]

I find it annoying that you, self-proclaimed lover of quality in game stories, didn't even bring up the game's thematic depth. A game that actually discusses abusive motherhood is worthy of praise, methinks.

 

[SickBritKid]

IIRC, the creators of Portal 2 got fucking tired of the fanbase cracking "Cake is a Lie" jokes to them at cons and Q&As about the game, or some shit, so they decided "Fuck it! No cake for you!"

 

[Andronicus]

If Portal 3 takes place in space, how would momentum work?

The Experimental Aperture Science Stellar Gravitation and Inertia Simulator? I'm sure they could make a whole bunch of new puzzles based on physics in space.

 

[Drummodino]

No memes?

Well my response to that is Lemons and Spaaaaaaaaaaaace!

I personally believe people only found those memes in this game because they were looking for them. They are nowhere near as memorable as the cake.

By the way, I love the doctor who reference in your title thingy

 

[MowDownJoe]

Nothing memetic? If reddit is a barometer, Cave Johnson's lemon rant would disagree with you.

Spoiler

So would Space Core [http://spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccee.com/].

Meanwhile, I'll happily laugh at the defective turret dialog by myself, as everyone seems to be ignoring those poor broken turrets.

 

[mew4ever23]

This was exactly the review I was expecting, Yahtzee.

The 2 issues I have with portal 2 as a whole are that the Co-op mode has 0 replay value once you complete it, and that more than a few of the "backstage puzzles" are all about finding that small area that you can place a portal on.

Fortunately there is true DLC on the way for the game. I just hope that Valve doesn't go hat crazy like they did with TF2.

 

[kodra]

I feel like this entire review lacks perspective. I actually went back and replayed Portal to compare it to Portal 2.

Every non-tutorial puzzle provided me with significantly more difficulty than any of the non-challenge portals in the original.

The physics of the game were also much crisper in Portal 2 with the tech behind it receiving major improvements. Playing Portal now seems slightly choppy after playing through Portal 2.

The only complaint I had with the game were the loading screens which broke flow in a big way.

 

[Kolby Jack]

I knew Yahtzee wouldn't like it much.But he's right about most of the Portal 1 fans ,they're really annoying with their "the cake is a lie" phrases.I personally enjoyed portal 2 more because it's a little bit harder and the story evolves.

Maybe watch it again. He loved it, he just didn't love it as much as Portal 1. He even said in the video that were Portal 2 a standalone game he'd be gushing over it like crazy; the only reason he isn't is because of its superior (to him) predecessor.

 

[1nfinite_Cros5]

Wait! I think I have a complaint about Portal!

Regenerating health.

 

[Existential Banana]

I think Yahtzee was wrong when he said Portal 2 has no memetic appeal. What about the combustible lemons? You know, THE ONES THAT WILL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!