The Portal 2 Thread **Warning May Contain Spoilers**

My god some people here are impossible to please. Portal 2 is one of the finest pieces of media I have experienced. It's a good game, has a great story, excellent dialogue. I haven't laughed this much at anything sober in forever. Also, the ending was excellent. The whole thing reminded me of a playable Pixar movie. And the animations, the sense of scale, it's just a damn good game.

Yup, Portal 2 is just a really good, well polished game.
 
Is amazing how they could make a game called "Portal 2", revolving around a portal gun, and yet have the game feel so constrained and limiting.

In the first game, when they had you traveling outside of the test chamber areas, they at least allowed you to feel that sense of power/freedom by seemingly let you go where you otherwise were not supposed to. In Portal 2 that's replaced by walking long straight lines on catwalks with guardrails so high you can't even accidentally jump over them.

So few walls are able to be utilized with portals, that it's pretty much impossible to attempt the wrong path to your goal. In a game spanning 6+ hours, I'm hard pressed to come up with examples where I was testing portals in different spots to feel out a solution to a puzzle. Considering all the new neat tools and game mechanics, there was virtually no ability to get creative with them.

that is true also. all those speedruns of portal 1 are gone, for example. there is ONE solution to the chambers, and one only. which is dumbing the game down in my opinion.
why take one of the most innovative games ever and limit gamers for the sequel? still enjoyed the game though. but could have been better.
 
that is true also. all those speedruns of portal 1 are gone, for example. there is ONE solution to the chambers, and one only. which is dumbing the game down in my opinion.
why take one of the most innovative games ever and limit gamers for the sequel? still enjoyed the game though. but could have been better.

I wouldn't argue against more ways to solve the puzzles.

But don't bring up speedruns as a feature that was overlooked. Those use so many glitches and exploits, Portal 1 was never intended to be played remotely like that (jumping backwards while crouched to go faster, shooting portals at glitched corners to shoot across the map, etc.)
 
So what you are really saying is you don't like the Cave Johnson character. Well not everyone is gong to love up but giving this game anything less than a 9/10 is just silly. Without a doubt it's the best of the year so far.

Your description sounds like you have not played the co-op? If that is case you have only played half the game and passing judgement prematurely:eek:.

I didn't like the Cave Johnson character, the entire area between the test chambers, or the lack of GlaDOS for much of the game. GlaDOS' humor makes the game and once she's gone it becomes glaringly obvious that this is absolutely the most linear and easy FPS I've ever played. Like others have said above, there is hardly ever an alternate path, all you have to do is look for the one white wall to put a portal on, and most of the rooms even have different textures on the portal walls just so you don't get confused and put a portal in the wrong place. There's no way I'd give it a 9 or even an 8/10. It's a good game but I have to wonder what everyone has been playing if its "the best game in 10 years". I can't decide between a 6/10 or a 7/10 so I'll go 6.5/10.

It's the first game from 2011 that I've bought and I'll be disappointed if it's the best I have to look forward to. :mad:
 
Finished SP, was disappointed with the difficulty level. There were only a couple of rooms that left me scratching my head but only for a couple of minutes at most.
 
My god some people here are impossible to please. Portal 2 is one of the finest pieces of media I have experienced. It's a good game, has a great story, excellent dialogue. I havent laughed this much at anything sober in forever. Also, the ending was excellent. The whole thing reminded me of a playable Pixar movie. And the animations, the sense of scale, it's just a damn good game.

Its why I don't take peoples' opinions on forums seriously. You know there is someone out there that thinks Raiders Of The Lost Ark isn't a good movie. Whatever, everyone has an opinion, even bad ones. :)
 
Hehe, I have my own theory on Chell's parental lineage:

Chell is actually the offspring of Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance. To those who think it's Caroline/Cave. Looking at her skin texture, she's definitely got a tan, darker hair, nice thick wide lips and a flatter nose, and Caroline's voice sounds whiter than white. Clearly the G-Man wanted the offspring of Freeman, so why not choose Alyx as a mother. He took their DNA and gave it to Aperture to make a little Gordon baby, and then Caroline raised the baby as her own.

The thing is that
Portal takes place some time during the Half Life/Half Life 2 timeline. I don't see how she could be Gordon and Alyx's kid in those circumstances.
 
The thing is that
Portal takes place some time during the Half Life/Half Life 2 timeline. I don't see how she could be Gordon and Alyx's kid in those circumstances.

Agreed.
According to valve,

Portal games take place in the universe first established in the Half-Life games. And, yes, they do all fit together. "Portal is after Half-Life 1 and before Half-Life 2," Wolpaw said. "Without getting into it too much, Portal 2 is further down the line." I asked if that meant that Portal 2 is, say, after Half-Life Episode 2. He didn't want to get into that.

source: http://kotaku.com/#!5781121/valve-p...with-a-surprise-keep-gordon-freeman-out-of-it
 
I must be stupid or something I had to use a walk through for about six or seven puzzles. Also took me about 10 or so hours I think.
 
I thought that
Chell is a clone. So it could be at any time.
 
I must be stupid or something I had to use a walk through for about six or seven puzzles. Also took me about 10 or so hours I think.
It took me about 5 but I had to use walk through for 2 or 3 with about 20-30 min of trying with each. Great game.
 
I think it would be hilarious if someone made a mod for hl-2 singleplayer and gave freeman a portal gun, would be epic. The difficulty was my only disappointment for portal 2, but in the games defense I played through portal 1 and then played the awesome mod portal: prelude, which was quite hard. Prelude made portal 2 seem like a cakewalk, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and polish, which is lacking in like 95% of games these days unfortunately.
 
i struggled at times as well, but only because i couldnt find that one spot you needed to place the portal.
in part 1 it was more trial and error, and thats how a puzzle game should be like imho
 
I think it would be hilarious if someone made a mod for hl-2 singleplayer and gave freeman a portal gun, would be epic. .


someone did this..but I think it was kind of the other way around, they found out how to import HL2 into portal or something like that.
 
someone did this..but I think it was kind of the other way around, they found out how to import HL2 into portal or something like that.

There's an HL2 portal mod out there, I played it way back when. It put the portal gun in Gordon's inventory in the HL2 game. It was pretty skippy. :)
 
Has anyone found a solution for the missing crosshairs with multi-monitor setups?

aim better?

I actually didn't notice it was missing till I read about it... was half done...
 
I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall. Could get a bit technical.
 
Is amazing how they could make a game called "Portal 2", revolving around a portal gun, and yet have the game feel so constrained and limiting.

In the first game, when they had you traveling outside of the test chamber areas, they at least allowed you to feel that sense of power/freedom by seemingly let you go where you otherwise were not supposed to. In Portal 2 that's replaced by walking long straight lines on catwalks with guardrails so high you can't even accidentally jump over them.

So few walls are able to be utilized with portals, that it's pretty much impossible to attempt the wrong path to your goal. In a game spanning 6+ hours, I'm hard pressed to come up with examples where I was testing portals in different spots to feel out a solution to a puzzle. Considering all the new neat tools and game mechanics, there was virtually no ability to get creative with them.



I just finished the sp last night and I feel the same way. I'm sure this has been rehashed a hundred times I figured I'd throw my name in the hat. Overall the lack of freedom was the singular thing that made the game less enjoyable. Glados not being around for half the game made it less funny, but I still could've enjoyed it and gotten lost in good and interesting puzzles, if they had been there.

I hope the mod community will make up for that though.

On the bright side, I thought the ending was great. I also played a few levels of co-op and really enjoyed it.
 
I just finished the sp last night and I feel the same way. I'm sure this has been rehashed a hundred times I figured I'd throw my name in the hat. Overall the lack of freedom was the singular thing that made the game less enjoyable. Glados not being around for half the game made it less funny, but I still could've enjoyed it and gotten lost in good and interesting puzzles, if they had been there.

I hope the mod community will make up for that though.

On the bright side, I thought the ending was great. I also played a few levels of co-op and really enjoyed it.

And that's the by-product of consolitis...
 
I just finished the sp last night and I feel the same way. I'm sure this has been rehashed a hundred times I figured I'd throw my name in the hat. Overall the lack of freedom was the singular thing that made the game less enjoyable. Glados not being around for half the game made it less funny, but I still could've enjoyed it and gotten lost in good and interesting puzzles, if they had been there.

I hope the mod community will make up for that though.

On the bright side, I thought the ending was great. I also played a few levels of co-op and really enjoyed it.

And that's the by-product of consolitis...

totally agree here, to me this is what Valve always does. They make an awesome game and then they make a sequel that they just know darn well if going to sell cause it has the name on the box.
 
aim better?

I actually didn't notice it was missing till I read about it... was half done...

I played the whole game without a cross hair. Since headshots are not all that important in the First Person Portal genre, I actually enjoyed the experience more.
 
totally agree here, to me this is what Valve always does. They make an awesome game and then they make a sequel that they just know darn well if going to sell cause it has the name on the box.

So HL2 sucked?
 
I think he's implying that HL2 was a great game even disregarding the fact that it was a sequel to a great game, HL1. In fact, I think that's far more logical of a conclusion than what you came to.
 
Yes HL2 sucked...

Felt more like a tech demo than a game to me - like they made the gravity gun and then said, wow, this is fun, let's slap together a game built around this.

And Portal 2 was...disappointing. Very linear, very obvious puzzles (all you need to do to solve them is look for where the white painted walls are), forced humor. Not what I'd consider a "full game".
 
And Portal 2 was...disappointing. Very linear, very obvious puzzles (all you need to do to solve them is look for where the white painted walls are), forced humor. Not what I'd consider a "full game".

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this, some of the humour was genuinely very good but most of it seemed to be too forced, like they were trying too hard. All in all I liked it but certainly not a full game.
 
I know there are multiple solutions for a couple of the multiplayer rooms. There was one room that my partner and I beat where there was a button that went completely unused for us.
 
And Portal 2 was...disappointing. Very linear, very obvious puzzles (all you need to do to solve them is look for where the white painted walls are)
It was obviously quite a bit more complicated than "put a portal wherever you see a white wall".
 
It was obviously quite a bit more complicated than "put a portal wherever you see a white wall".

You're right, but the difference in impressions I got from the two games was this:

In Portal1, the maps were crafted by adding unportal-able surfaces only where necessary in order to maintain the integrity of the puzzle (to keep you from just bypassing the whole thing.)

In Portal2, the maps were crafted by adding portal-able surfaces only where necessary to guide you from beginning to end.

Now these sorts of blanket statements are obviously not going to hold true for every instance in the games, but I don't think I'd be unfair by saying the above.
 
I think the main reason why Portal 2 was more linear was because this time you had more items at your disposal for problem solving. Can you you imagine playing Portal 1 puzzles with the bridges, goo, tunnels etc? It would just be way too easy. If Portal 2 had more white walls and multiple ways of solving the one puzzle, with all the tools at your disposal it would have be too easy. So in this instance by making some sections (mainly the links between the puzzles) slightly more linear, it's actually making it more challenging.
 
It was obviously quite a bit more complicated than "put a portal wherever you see a white wall".

I don't know. Anytime I was unsure of what to do in a room, I just looked for where there was a white patch on an otherwise unportal-able wall, and then thought about what a portal placed there would do for me. In cases where you needed to use the "long-fall through a portal to launch across an empty space" there would be only a single white patch on the floor below a ledge, and a corresponding white patch on a nearby wall or angled surface - making it obvious what you were supposed to do. Maybe they felt they had to do that so that poeple who never played Portal could figure it out, but it seemed dumbed down compared to the first.

But I'll allow that maybe time has affected my memory of the original Portal.
 
The first game did give you more freedom to place Portals than the second... but the variety in mechanics made up for that shortfall in my playing experience.

I'm sure some awesome user created levels will come out that make use of both the new mechanics and the more open style that was in the first game.
 
Back
Top