Portal 2, a year and a half on

[Mr. Bungle]

MOD EDIT: This thread was split off from What are you playing right now? V, specifically from Manco's quoted post.

I got around to playing and completing Portal 2, about a year after it came out.

By god that’s an amazing game.

I still need to play that. For some reason it just never grabbed my attention; I felt the adcertisements made it look really silly, and childish. I never saw anything regardimg the single player, though, so I guess I'm missing out.

[Manco]

I still need to play that. For some reason it just never grabbed my attention; I felt the adcertisements made it look really silly, and childish. I never saw anything regardimg the single player, though, so I guess I'm missing out.

It’s ridiculously fun. If you’ve played the original, Valve basically took the best parts from there—the strong puzzle mechanics, the character dynamics, and the humor—and expanded on and refined those elements to a mirror polish.

It’s longer than the original, there’s way more puzzles and puzzle mechanics to get to grips with, there’s a ton more story, and the writing is excellent.

[Nate]

Let's not overstate it, though. They took all the best parts from the original game and dumbed them down. None of the test chamber levels gave me any more than a moment's pause to work out. And whilst the bits in between the test chambers are impressive, they're mostly just big rooms with one or two puzzles in them.

[Manco]

Well you don’t exactly want to be flailing around for hours before being able to advance, otherwise it would take an age to experience all the writing and humor they injected.

There are definitely some areas that stumped me pretty hard, but the low difficulty of most of the puzzles keeps the flow and pacing of the game from dragging.

[Phylum]

I was stuck on Chamber 16 in chapter 8 for a while, but other than that I thought it was a good balance between being complex but not hugely challenging. It was much more story based that Portal, but the story was good and the voice acting was top-notch.

I enjoyed the world so much that I didn't mind the space-filling, white surface hunting sections.

[Nate]

Well you don’t exactly want to be flailing around for hours before being able to advance, otherwise it would take an age to experience all the writing and humor they injected.

So you're saying that gameplay should take the backseat to story? Why can't they both be balanced?

My main issue with the chambers wasn't the overall structure or the solutions. It was that many of the chambers only placed portal-able walls in the locations where you had to place a portal. Or they had lots of portal-able walls, but marked the one where you had the place the portal with the checker pattern. It meant that I immediately saw what I had to do and didn't have the opportunity to experiment.

[Nepsotic]

Portal 1 did that more.

Some of the chambers in chapter 4, 7 and 8 were pretty challenging, mainly because I overthink things, and that's one thing you really can't do on a game like Portal.

Steven Merchant is the best thing about Portal 2.

[Wings of Fire]

I think the second game was mostly so easy because I had so much practice from the first game.

The people I knew who hadn't played the first game were clueless in some parts.

Steven Merchant is the best thing about Portal 2.

Urgh, God no.

[Nepsotic]

Yeah, I played 2 before I played the first one, big mistake.

[OANST]

Let's not overstate it, though. They took all the best parts from the original game and dumbed them down. None of the test chamber levels gave me any more than a moment's pause to work out. And whilst the bits in between the test chambers are impressive, they're mostly just big rooms with one or two puzzles in them.

I definitely enjoyed the puzzles in the first game more. Really, I just plain enjoyed the first game more. But I also see how hard it is to make a long, compelling experience when the entirety of the game is kept to a single location, and there are no living entities to encounter. They had to strike a balance with your AI friends to keep a lively experience going without getting too silly.

Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as the original.

[Nepsotic]

Urgh, God no.

Are you serious?

[Wings of Fire]

Are you serious?

Absolutely. I never liked Wheatley.

The best thing about Portal 2 was the same as the best thing about Portal: Ellen McLain.

[Nepsotic]

Without Wheatley Portal 2 would just get boring, it doesn't matter how much GLaDOS dialogue you have, you can't stretch it for 3 or 4 hours and have it still be the sole reason the game is interesting.

[Wings of Fire]

Without Wheatley Portal 2 would have been different. They wouldn't have just not had him, they'd have done something else. It may have been worse, it may have been better. There is no way we will ever know. What we do know, however, is that Valve are competent writers and it would have been something good.

Also the main reason I dislike Wheatley is his voice and dialogue. I just really don't like that form of comedy. It reminds me too much of Ricky Gervais.

[Nepsotic]

Well, that must be purely because Steve Merchant is Ricky Gervais' partner, because, Wheatley humor and Ricky Gervais' humor are both extremely different.

[Manco]

So you're saying that gameplay should take the backseat to story? Why can't they both be balanced?

Not quite, I’m saying that Valve clearly wanted to make players enjoy the writing and plot as much as possible and they needed to find a way to ensure people didn’t get too fed up to continue.

I think the puzzles were often easier than some of the late-game Portal 1 puzzles. But I think that was a mix of needing to introduce several new puzzle mechanics (the catapults, the gel, light paths etc.), needing to keep the story flowing smoothly, and even for some plot-related reasons (a lot of Wheatley’s early puzzles are easy because Wheatley is an idiot).

[Wings of Fire]

Oh, I hated the gel and the gel levels.

I just want to remind everyone about that. I'm sure I've said it enough times.

[Strike Witch]

I enjoyed the second game more because it developed the player's relationship with GladOS beyond "snarky evil computer".

And I liked the gel puzzles.

[Phylum]

The gel puzzles were the most engaging and complex of any in the game.

The only time gel became tedious was in Chapter 8, chamber 16. That was more the fault of the funnel than the gel, though.

[enchilado]

Most of the time for me it felt more like an interactive movie than a game. I still loved it, though.

[Nepsotic]

I hated the gels the first time around, because I was terrible at them, now I've had time to appreciate thm properly.

[Crashpunk]

I last played Portal 2 single-player was about a year ago and I loved it. The laser puzzles and the gels were great additions to the gameplay and I just loved the overgrown, run-down tests at the start. They looked amazing.

The only part I didn't like was the underground sections. I liked them visually but I hated how linear it was at times, How you have to look a tiny white wall in this massive open space? god it was irritating.

Steven Merchant is the best thing about Portal 2.

Wow. You kidding me right?

[Nepsotic]

No, Wheatley was great.

[enchilado]

No, he wasn't.

[Manco]

I thought Wheatley was pretty damn funny. He had a great, likeable bumbling personality and his comedic timing was pretty much spot on.

[Nepsotic]

No, he wasn't.

I've literally just had this discussion in this thread.

[Crashpunk]

I'm not saying Steven/Wheatley wasn't great. I'm saying he wasn't the best thing about the game. He wasn't by any means.

[MeechMunchie]

Well at least everyone has found something to like about Portal 2.

[Nepsotic]

I'm not saying Steven/Wheatley wasn't great. I'm saying he wasn't the best thing about the game. He wasn't by any means.

No, but he was great.

[Wings of Fire]

Well at least everyone has found something to like about Portal 2.

Sure.

I don't think you'll find a single person on this forum who didn't think the game was in solme way really good.