RockyRan Posted October 11, 2011 Report Share Posted October 11, 2011 (edited) SINGLE PLAYER SPOILERS IN POST Finished the single player yesterday. I was impressed with the puzzles, the voice acting, the quality of the cutscenes, the physics scenery porn, and the music. Individually. I actually didn't like how they gelled together. Of note is the story side of the game. Didn't like the story at all. Given how much larger in length the sequel was and how Portal 1 ended it was obvious they needed to "crank it up" in general, but they did it far too much. As I see it, Portal 1 is to a Simpson's episode from season 2 as Portal 2 is to an episode from season 22. The characters, setting, and characterization are there, but they're just barely there. I can say with confidence that GladOS's character was completely butchered in the second game, and since she was the only character with a voice in the first game it made a tremendous difference in the overall tone. What's more lamentable is the fact that the story itself is just marginally more complex overall than the first game. It was just that they made the second far more bombastic, less funny, and borderline obnoxious in some places for reasons beyond my comprehension. It's not like the story of the second game is really that much more complex, it was just handled poorly. First was that the humor was fairly witless, which is disappointing especially given how Valve are usually really, really good at humor. Far more slapstick-y, far too many jokes that simply fell flat, and too much humor in places that didn't need any. Portal 1's humor was just as abundant, but not nearly as "in your face" but rather far more subtle. Portal 2's humor started off fairly well but right when you revived GladOS it took a gigantic tumble and just kept falling until it hit rock bottom with the turret "opera" (it was seriously cringe-worthy) at the end. Subtlety was really what the game's presentation in general lacked. There really was no need to make the game "epic", but for some strange reason Valve tried far too hard to make it that way. The first game was about subtlety and quiet realizations that all is not well in this clinical "testing" facility, whereas the second was about BLAH BLAH BLAH HERE'S A FUNNY JOKE BLAH BLAH OH LOOK HERE'S A PLOT TWIST COMING 3 MILES AWAY LET ME EASE YOU INTO IT A HALF AN HOUR BEFORE WE SHOW IT. Had Portal 1 been done in Portal 2's style we would've had some squawkbox companion pointing out every last minutiae that the game laid out for you. "OOOH LOOK OVER THERE!! THERE'S NO SCIENTISTS BEHIND THAT GLASS WALL OVER THERE. ISN'T THAT MYSTERIOUS?? I WONDER WHY NOBODY'S WATCHING YOU QUESTION MARK QUESTION MARK?????????" No need for that at all. Valve is the king of subtle detail and for some mysterious reason they instead of opted to have chatterbox characters pointing everything out. It was even worse when they turned GladOS herself into the annoying chatterbox character to replace Wheatley. Seriously? Game-wise, it was fantastic. Can't think of anything they did particularly wrong, except maybe they shouldn't have bogged down the middle part with pixel-hunting puzzles so you could place a portal so you could get to the next puzzle. I understand they were trying to go for the whole "it's a patchwork of ruined testing sites and you have to venture out in this hostile area", but it didn't have to be so frequent or annoying. Everything else, though, was ace. Puzzles were of the perfect length with a few head scratchers, but even when they were easy they were designed in some way to make you feel great for figuring it out. Layering elements like using the anti-gravity beam (or whatever it's called) to transport gel to remote areas, using light walkways as protective walls against turrets, combining gels to make crazy acrobatic courses were great. I loved loved LOVED the creative uses of the white gel. Using portals to splatter white gel in walls so you could use those walls to splatter more white gel across more walls had me smiling. Despite the fact that it wasn't the most creative mechanic I absolutely loved it for some reason. All in all, I think the game is far more interesting in terms of the gameplay. For me, a NeoGAF post summed up my statements perfectly: Portal 2 was the better game, but Portal 1 is the better experience. (Looking forward to the co-op. I heard the puzzles in it were even better. Can't wait ) Edited October 11, 2011 by RockyRan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted October 12, 2011 Report Share Posted October 12, 2011 Yeah, the coop is more along the lines of the first Portal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted October 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2011 The level editor. Looks sweet n really piss easy if it's gonna be like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted April 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2012 wow it's taken a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted April 28, 2012 Report Share Posted April 28, 2012 It's Valve, what did you expect? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted May 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luftwaffles Posted May 1, 2012 Report Share Posted May 1, 2012 I can see the posts now. "How do I exit the Portal 2 steam workshop thingy? I pushed the X but the window only went away! Help!" Perhaps that's not final, though. I just think it'd be nice to have an in-game browser for that type of thing rather than having to use the overlay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted May 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2012 So it's out now, it's pretty damn slick. Few issues with navigation, but that's always a case with single view 3D applications. Not as many items as appear in the game though (one I'm annoyed on losing is the hole in the glass.) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=68493962 First map, friends only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Posted May 12, 2012 Report Share Posted May 12, 2012 I am loving the level editor. Easy to use and still allows you to make some fairly complex stuff. Especially once you start "cheating" it by creating functions more complex than it really wants you to in the background. http://steamcommunity.com/id/robotinblack/myworkshopfiles/?appid=620 Here's my three maps. I'd appreciate any criticism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorgiShinobi Posted May 26, 2012 Report Share Posted May 26, 2012 Aperture Combustible Lemon Mug Certainly would make the office feel a little more appealing with some classic Portal humor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 I am loving the level editor. Easy to use and still allows you to make some fairly complex stuff. Especially once you start "cheating" it by creating functions more complex than it really wants you to in the background. http://steamcommunit...iles/?appid=620 Here's my three maps. I'd appreciate any criticism. Your second one, the drop? The bit where you have 4 pillars with turrets on. Is bastard hard. Is it possible to put checkpoints in? Because a checkpoint just there would be great. Otherwise I have to go through the whole thing again. Which is frustrating. I liked the first one, with the lasers. That was some good puzzling. Didn't get to the third one. Because, well, you know. Checkpoints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 When I did it a couple weeks ago it gave me a checkpoint right before that part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P4: Gritty Reboot Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 Why dont you just quicksave? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 (edited) How do you quicksave? Never mind, I googled it. F6 to save, F9 to load. Goodo. May have another crack at them this evening. P.S. Never meant to imply that I don't like the map. Just that the difficulty spike at the end plus the lack of checkpoint was frustrating. I think the two maps I've played are well put together. Edited May 29, 2012 by Thursday Next Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 I am loving the level editor. Easy to use and still allows you to make some fairly complex stuff. Especially once you start "cheating" it by creating functions more complex than it really wants you to in the background. http://steamcommunit...iles/?appid=620 Here's my three maps. I'd appreciate any criticism. Your second one, the drop? The bit where you have 4 pillars with turrets on. Is bastard hard. Is it possible to put checkpoints in? Because a checkpoint just there would be great. Otherwise I have to go through the whole thing again. Which is frustrating. I liked the first one, with the lasers. That was some good puzzling. Didn't get to the third one. Because, well, you know. Checkpoints. It is not possible to put in checkpoints using the in-game editor; you'd have to do some fancy stuff in Hammer to get at that. Also I don't think you can quicksave in community maps either. Do note that The Drop is supposed to be Challenging, and Turret Tragedy is supposed to be Hard, so if people who are up for that kind of thing liked them (which they did) and people who are not up for that disliked them, I still consider that a success. Laser Run is supposed to be a more traditional puzzling affair on the sort of easy scale, so I consider that a success based on the reaction I've seen to it thus far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 (edited) Also I don't think you can quicksave in community maps either. It was letting me quicksave on that level. But then again, it was also checkpointing me, so idk. *Edit* - I remember now, it wasn't checkpointing me, I had quicksaved right before that part and so when I died it was automatically reloading the most recent quicksave. Edited May 28, 2012 by TheMightyEthan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Posted May 28, 2012 Report Share Posted May 28, 2012 So you CAN quicksave, huh. That lets me get away with so much more dickery without making the levels impossible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted November 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2012 http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/11/01/portal-2-in-motion-on-psn-tuesday-full-game-getting-ps-move-support/ Portal 2 on PS3 getting a DLC pack next week. It's basically the exclusive level pack from the Razer Hydra but now with PS Move like everyone said it should have been back when the game first came out. Oh and it's $10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted November 7, 2012 Report Share Posted November 7, 2012 $6.99 for PS+ subscribers! I'll download it soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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