ViciousXUSMC's Portal 2 Review

I have beat Portal 2 both single player & co-op.

This game has incredibly large hype and one of the largest release events I have ever seen, so its going to raise the question of many "Is the game good, is it worth buying?"

I want to just do a short review direct from my thoughts to the forum. A small review of the game to let you know how I feel about the game to help answer those questions.



First a brief history. Portal was a small experimental game based on another game called Narbacular Drop, I do believe the actual team that made that game helped with Portal's creation. But Portal was not the first game with the concept.

As a small "pack in game" with Valves Orange Box it was a huge success, and due to the games popularity a sequel was bound to happen. This time around the game is a stand alone project, getting all of the time, funds and effort a stand alone game gets instead of just being a small project like the first game was.

So how does this translate into quality of the game?

Firstly Portal 2 is using the Source engine, this is actually a good thing as the graphics look good but its easy to run so people without high end hardware can enjoy the game properly. So graphics quality is good and thats really all I will say about graphics. Its the gameplay that really determines if the game is good or not.

The first and largest difference between Portal 1 and 2 is probably the amount of time spent on voice acting and story development. There is a large amount of spoken dialog in the game and all of it was very well done. Some of the best I have heard in a game.

The story is actually quite good throughout the game, its not seat gripping but it was entertaining and quite fitting for the game and directly fits as a sequel to Portal 1.

You have the return of the crazy corrupted Glados, and a new character Wheatley who is quite frankly funny as hell. There is even yet another main character that I wont spoil for you, all 3 of these characters are excellently voiced and have there very own very distinct personalities.

Having two opposite personalities go head to head gives the game an interesting dynamic. I found the humor of Wheatley to be a major part of the game and one of the bigger drawings to why I would like the game. I unfortunately however found the game to open on a high note with tons of humor and great dialog and pretty quickly as you get to the mid game, that humor is all but gone and the dialog direction has changed.

I wish they would have found a way to use Wheatleys character in context longer and kept the humor notes high throughout the game.


The challenge of Portal 2 was something else I was looking forward too. From all of the teaser videos we had seen, we saw many new environmental objects and puzzle elements that gave off the impression that Portal 2 was going to be harder than ever to figure out. As a puzzle game the "figuring it out" part is what the game is all about. It needs to be challenging, the more challenging the puzzle the greater the feeling of reward when you figure it out.

I have to report sadly that I feel Portal 2 was actually easier than Portal 1 in a lot of ways despite all these new features and elements introduced in the game. It just feels a lot more linear and forced like CoD style games where you may have this huge environment to explore but 90% of it is inaccessible and filled with "invisible walls". Portal 1 was much more "sandbox" if you saw a place there was a way to get to it, if you were supposed to go there or not who knows.

Portal 2 will use differences in texture on the wall to hint where a portal needs to go to progress through the stage, and pretty much any surface/wall/place that you are not supposed to go is a type of wall that a portal can not be placed on. This eliminates much of the puzzle solving element to the game and really lays it out for you in a way that you just have to figure out the order of things to solve a puzzle and not the puzzle itself.

Some say it was dumbed down for consoles because it was released for PS3 and PC, this may very well be true. I noticed other small things that make a difference like how portal behavior works, it seems like more stuff is done for you now rather than relying completely on your portal placement and ability to properly enter the portals.

So gameplay wise the game is very good, but not very great. It has more potential than what is really being used.

My biggest floating thought about the game right now: I hope that user created maps make it to the scene to expand the replay value of the game and difficulty.

But that takes us back to the cross platform play again. I am afraid that having this on PS3 may effect PC users. I have already seen "warnings" stating things like a skin purchased for the PC version of the game will not be visible to PS3 players. If Portal 2 is not able to share a simple skin file with PS3 than how are we going to add entire new levels? Will Valve be willing to let PC users have access to content that the PS3 players will not? What will happen if its a map they can not play and your in co-op mode? I think this is going to damn the game in the long run.

If they have locked down the PC version for the sake of sharing with consoles they pretty much already placed the dead end sign on this games life span ahead of time instead of letting it run on for as long as possible.

I can tell you Portal 1 lasted much longer because of the player created content available. I have even re-installed it a few times just to play some new map packs. As a puzzle solving game once you have all the puzzles figured out there is not much left to do unless you can get new puzzles pretty simple really.

They maybe wanted extra sales to the game by adding PS3 to the platform list, but I think that having more people done with the game because there is nothing left to do is worse than letting it be PC only where the game could live on as a legend for quite some time.

Talking about replay value, let us now talk about co-op mode. This is another of the large differences in the new game. Now you and a friend can go online and solve a whole new set of stages designed just for co-op play. This is good fun, the game has built in text chat & voice chat. (Note to all readers, the game defaults with your microphone open, put it on push to talk as to not disturb other players unless your using a headset!)

Having co-op adds more gameplay hours, but does it add more replay value? I say yes it does but not greatly. The first time you do co-op is still going to be the only "real" time you get the play it by facing the puzzles and challenges for the first time. After you figure them out doing it again with a new friend is more like just going through the paces. You will only be able to do this so many times before you feel its just pointless to do it again.

This leads to the next part of the discussion... "The curse of the hats" everybody knows what has happened to Team Fortress 2, the mad craze over items and hats. Well the virus has spread and Portal 2 co-op has a full blown item store to buy skins, hats, and accessories for your bot.

I simply cant understand this as a player, TF2 is a competitive FPS game. There is not "do it once and never again" aspect like Portal. So if you have an item to wear you have a reason to wear it and a reason to keep playing the game. I really cant see anybody playing Portal 2 co-op so often and so many times to make purchasing a skin worth it. Sadly the items are so small and minor that you can hardly see them anyways. Also keep in mind you wont see your own skins/items only your partner. Just one person... in a game like TF2 you are showing it to many people at once.

Last I checked all the unlocks to TF2 are found and not purchased anyways with the exception of those you get for buying other games not related to TF2 that gives a TF2 hat.

I think it would have been a much much better idea to have these in the game as unlockable items via achievements, this would promote playing the game more and add some replay value. Something any game desperately needs to try and capitalize on. If you want all the current items you have to spend $35 for the complete pack when the game itself can be purchased for $35.00.... Yeah you probably know where I am going with this.

So co-op is great, but just like single player it may be lacking replay value and desperately needs a way to get new stages added to keep the game alive over a longer period of time. I am sure they will release new stages at some point but I can only hope its free and not some DLC we have to pay for.

In summary, Portal 2 is great and a worthy sequel to the first. I do recommend you play Portal 1 first and beat it before playing Portal 2 as to know the games story and to get full enjoyment out of the title. Playtime was under 7 hours for me to beat both single player & co-op, it can take longer for other people and quicker for pros.

You can see that being a full blown title that the game has more work on the graphics, more audio, more stages. However I do think that they overlooked the core values that made Portal 1 so great and just tried to pretty it up and fancy it up instead of expanding on those core values.

Definitely worth buying, but definitely room to be better as well.

 

First off, nice review, thanks ViciousXUSMC.

Minor spoilers below, nothing heartbreaking though.

I felt this was definitely more of the same, and easier in a lot of respects than Portal 1. Story was good for sure, and environments in some places were massive, but really no need for it because there's nothing you can do with it. It would have been nice to have more open options to get from A to B instead of a fixed solution. Use the environment more, something like the original Splinter Cell games.

Regarding your play time. I don't want to question but 7 hours total for single player and co-op doesn't seem right. If you are basing this on your Steam clock, then there have been numerous articles showing this to be inaccurate for some reason, and are looking for clarification (I'll post links if I find them again). I'm slower than most, but still finished it in about 8 real-time hours for single player. I'd say the last two chapters take about 30% of the time compared to all the rest together. Just requires a little more thought.

And don't even get me started with the in-game store. I guess ok, but why? That's all I'll say.

I also would highly recommend playing Portal 1 before 2 because the whole story will make a lot more sense.

I guess there's lots of positives to this game too. Just look at Portal 1 positives, plus add in the few new mechanics of gameplay and Co-op (which I haven't done yet).

In my mind this game just begs a capture the flag type map where you drop the opponents flag if you go through one of their portals. I think it would be great fun.

That in mind, there is supposed to be an SDK out in the coming weeks, so there will definitely be user made mods at least, and hints of Valve DLC.

 

Capture the flag? You mean capture the companion cube (or edgeless safety cube)

Having some "game" type maps would add some replay value to the game for sure.

I miss some of the old puzzle methods. I do not think even once in the entire game did I have to do a double portal lunge jump (forget the name used for this move)

Where you have to get across a distance and cant put a portal on the other side so you put a portal on the floor and one high up on the wall behind you. Fall out of the wall, and then back into the portal on the floor, and the momentum from the fall when you come out of the portal on the wall the 2nd time sends you flying.

This kind of trick is more portal 1 nature, nothing like this really in portal 2. If they wanted you to do this in P2 they would have a blatantly obvious fall with just a few tiles down below that hold a portal to signal you that you must fall and use a portal.

This kind of hand holding is what made the game so easy even with all the new elements in the game.

 

Yeah, it was easier than p1, but it was more fun and more content. Some of the more advanced portal 1 techniques were... frustrating, to say the least. I noticed they removed the ability to pick up aperture computers, and you can't seem to do the item/camera-hopping thing that you pretty much needed to do in p1 for the advanced gold medals.

I do think that one of the few things they could have improved on was a simple difficulty setting. I'm going to play through SP again (and probably more than once after that), it would have been nice to look at a puzzle on a hard difficulty and go "what the heck, I don't remember this being like this at all". Difficulty changes are pretty simple things to add to your game to encourage replays, you know? It works for almost every other SP game I have.

 

I remember one double portal jump I had to do I think somewhere in Chapter 8, but maybe I wasn't doing it the "intended way". In any case, I did think it was easier. I guess I just took my time, and figured stuff out. If I couldn't, I just quit the game, did something else, then tried again and it came to me. I only "cheated" once by watching a walk-thru, and it ended up I was doing the right thing, it just wasn't working for me for some reason. Took dozens of portal throws for it to finally catch then it worked, whatever.

The final battle also CTD'd to me three times. Thankfully that wasn't too difficult either.

I may actually go back and play again after I finish co-op though and see if I can run through it at a decent clip. There were a few areas even when I knew what to do it took me several tries.

 

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Oh man you used a walkthru? I banned myself no matter how stuck I got to look at once since I knew that the only real goal of the game is the solving part.

I got stuck for about 10 minutes on 2 occasions in single player, other than that it was like walking through a movie

 

I have never laughed so much in a game before, but oh boy portal 2 so far has made me laugh so hard just from the damn dialogues.

Spoiler

I just got to the point where turrets are being made and discarded/passed. Some of the lines that either the defects or the working ones blurt out while they get tossed into the incineration room are so freaking funny!

hopefully the game has some replay values.

 

Portal 2 was totally worth the preorder. xD
Completed it yesterday and then did some Coop with ViciousXUSMC.

But its back to my Minecraft server now, i feel like i have neglected it. lawl
(My boat even got griefed, but i got my backup. hehe)

 

Lol @ the youtube video , so much bloody but still a nice video.

 

Thanks for the great review and taking the time to write it up (+rep )

I've had the orange box for a few years now, but never played portal.

With all the hype I started playing the first one and its awesome. I love puzle games and the way they have implemented it is awesome.

Will definitely be buying portal 2 once I get through this, in light of all the great reviews.

Also, I agree that having it on the PS3 might reduce the amount of user created and implemented content. Although it does help increase awareness about valve, user content for valve games is great, I mean just look at TF2 and the amount user created content that has been implemented.

 

Doesent hurt to buy the PS3 version.
In fact i would recommend buying it if you own both a PS3 and PC, since you get a key for PC Portal 2 included.
I got high hopes for Steam for PS3, and if we get crossover coop its win win.

 

We already have the cross platform between PC and ps3 I think, unless they are adding it later. In any case, if we don't we will definitely have it later.