Portal 2 PC User Review Backlash

I've completed the game and have the majority of the achievements out there, and have greatly enjoyed it so far. I think it's a brilliant title in many regards, but I do have one rather profound disappointment, and that is the extreme lack of gray matter needed to pass these tests.

I can only think of a few levels where I wasn't able to simply glance around and know exactly what to do within 30 seconds of arriving in it. In P1, some times it was also easy to see what needed to be done, but the actual execution was often quite difficult. With P2, the challenge just plain isn't there. There was only one map that took me longer than 10 minutes to figure out and execute.

While I in no way think P2 is a console port, I very much doubt anyone could make a convincing argument that the game was not intentionally "dumbed down" to make it easier on the console crowd.
 
Oh yah. A 5 gig update for Portal 2. So far, I've downloaded a 5 gig preload, 1 gig update, 5 gig after release, and now another 5 gigs. Seriously, WTF.
 
I absolutely love the Portal Series.. The problem with you fan bois is you take it all too seriously.. So what if it mentioned console in the load screen.. What if it said "Press A to Continue", would you still have lost your shit about it?.. A is on a keyboard and Controller.... Ill happily throw money at valve for sequels.. This is a developing CONCEPT game... I imagine that its pretty difficult to make something categorized as a "first person SHOOTER" where you dont essentially kill anything.. Cut em a break, its creative, fun, and funny..

While I did find P2 easier Im glad it was longer, the story had some funny turns.. While there was a lack of extremely difficult puzzles that required reaction vs standing in the middle of the room and figure out how to rube goldberg it, I like the additional game changers like the orange/blue/white goo's..

Cant wait till there is a dev kit and user created test chambers.
 
Ya, I'd enjoy more reaction required puzzles. I found myself just walking around, trying to figure out the puzzle.
 
Oldie said:
I've completed the game and have the majority of the achievements out there, and have greatly enjoyed it so far. I think it's a brilliant title in many regards, but I do have one rather profound disappointment, and that is the extreme lack of gray matter needed to pass these tests.

I can only think of a few levels where I wasn't able to simply glance around and know exactly what to do within 30 seconds of arriving in it. In P1, some times it was also easy to see what needed to be done, but the actual execution was often quite difficult. With P2, the challenge just plain isn't there. There was only one map that took me longer than 10 minutes to figure out and execute.

While I in no way think P2 is a console port, I very much doubt anyone could make a convincing argument that the game was not intentionally "dumbed down" to make it easier on the console crowd.
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Couldn't agree more.

+100

By the end I was just sick of running into the same lift every 5-10 minutes.Despite all the build up it has just left me a bit, meh. In general I don't mind a bit of a "guided" experience in fps type games, it can help with the flow of things, but...

I just found boring, listening to the (admittedly funny the first time) Mr Merchant, and going left/right/straight on just to get to another easy puzzle room. Fun but not much of it, for a full blown (priced) game. HL/Portal/Orange box etc, came as a very pleasant surprise at the time. Lets just hope it is just a wheeze to cough up some readies for HL3, where Valve can earn back some of it's lost lustre. Rather than a sign of mediocrity to come.
 
They did make it easier. Less thought and planning required to beat the maps, and no speed based puzzles that would be doable with KB/M, but extremely difficult on a controller without extreme levels of aim assist. It is considerably easier than the first game.
 
I did feel like the maps probably have an underlying grid and that portals have to fit within the grid and not like, inbetween. Unlike the original Portal.

The game is fun, but it definitely doesn't feel like a full blown game. It feels as long as the original Portal, except I paid a lot more for it. Maybe cause the puzzles were easier.
 
bandit390 said:
I noticed the fail at the beginning when it was $50.

Last time I paid $50, it came with Team Fortress 2, Portal, Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode 1 and Half Life 2: Episode 2.

But i'll still buy portal 2......when its $5.
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I feel the same way. With all the consolized games being released for PC these days, devs will not get anything more the $15 from me.
BF3 is the only game I'm looking forward to, everything else I'll wait for a price drop or Steam Winter Sale.
 
Dialogue was fantastic and made the whole game. Gameplay was retard easy, as in no challenge whatsoever. I found most of my play time was spent in elevators and loading screens.
 
Valshistixol said:
Dialogue was fantastic and made the whole game. Gameplay was retard easy, as in no challenge whatsoever. I found most of my play time was spent in elevators and loading screens.
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I felt the same way about the original Portal (haven't played 2 yet), but found that it was much more of a challenge when I turned off the "floor portal funnel" in the menus, so you actually have to aim for floor portals when jumping off things.
 
There's a floor portal funnel? WTF? No wonder I never missed a floor portal.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037181164 said:
I felt the same way about the original Portal (haven't played 2 yet), but found that it was much more of a challenge when I turned off the "floor portal funnel" in the menus, so you actually have to aim for floor portals when jumping off things.
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The first one was pretty easy but Portal 2 pretty much caters to brain dead retards.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037181190 said:
Again, I've never played Portal 2, but I know there is in the original. Its a checkbox in the options menu.
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I found it when searching through he options to set the game up before I first played it, and immediately turned it off. I left it that way until Test Chember 18 when you have to hit all the successive portals on the floors to climb up to the top. This was bloody impossible without the floor portal funnel, so I had to turn it back on again.
 
I don't remember it in the original either. Wonder if they added it in a patch later on or something. I remembering missing the portals a lot in the original.
 
and this is why I don't listen to 'gamers' (nor reviewers) about what makes a good game. Portal 2 is a fantastic title
 
krotch said:
I don't remember it in the original either. Wonder if they added it in a patch later on or something. I remembering missing the portals a lot in the original.
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Well, when I came across it, the default setting was ON.
 
dr.stevil said:
and this is why I don't listen to 'gamers' (nor reviewers) about what makes a good game. Portal 2 is a fantastic title
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I can't say it's a fantastic title. It's good, not fantastic. Puzzles are easier and it really wasn't that long of a game. I spent more time on Crysis 2 or Dead Space 2. I think those 2 are superior to Portal 2.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037148132 said:
It's usually just a bunch of cheap action thrills, reminiscent of the bad old days of Quake and Doom before Half Life and Deus Ex came along (not to mention Counter-Strike) and changed things up for the better.
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I have nothing to add to this discussion other than BAD OLD DAYS OF QUAKE AND DOOM?????????????????????????????:eek::eek::eek:
 
I'm not really upset, but I expected more given this is a full title as opposed to part of something like the orange box.

There were chambers in the original where you had to not only figure out the solution, but also implement it. The solutions were overall much too simple and physically completing them couldn't be any easier.

Overall, I am a fan of the co-op.

I really thought this game would go the opposite direction it went. I thought it would be faster paced.
 
Radical said:
I have nothing to add to this discussion other than BAD OLD DAYS OF QUAKE AND DOOM?????????????????????????????:eek::eek::eek:
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Yeah, those simple, dumb, deathmatch games with no team aspects set completely in some made up fantasy land with made up weapons were really just retarded.

Sure, they paved the way for the amazing things that were to come (primarily Half-Life, and later mods) but in and of themselves those pre-Half Life first person shooters were complete and total crap, we just didn't know it yet, because we didn't know the magnificence that was to come. :p

Quake 3 was the lamest game I have ever played. I fired it up. Logged on to a couple of servers and was bored to tears within 15 minutes. Quake 2 I played a lot in multi-player simply because there wasn't anything better out yet. (that's why I refer to them as the bad old days) Same for Quake 1, I played this a lot at mini lans in my parents basement when I was younger (because the internet wasn't really around yet) Same goes for the Doom series.

I view multi player FPS gaming in a and pre and post Counter-Strike way. There was everything pre-Counter-Strike that was pretty lame, and then there was everything post-Counter-Strike that started to become more interesting.

When the free Counter-Strike mod came along in 2000 it completely changed multiplayer FPS gaming for the significant better, and anything from before this time simply can not measure up in any way shape or form.

Sure, I have fond memories of playing the original Doom when I was 13 and it first came out or the original Quake when I was 16 and it first came out, and I had some fun freshman year in college in '99 playing dorm-wide Quake 2 deathmatches, but in a post Counter-Strike landscape simple childish deathmatch games like this simply have no place. They just seem kind of silly...

IMHO Carmack may have known how to code a decent 3D FPS engine, but he had no idea how to make an interesting game out of that engine.

Even the worst of modern multiplayer FPS games are orders of magnitude better than anything Doom or Quake or any other deathmatch game for that matter can ever be.
 
I haven't liked a multiplayer PC FPS since Q3, UT, and BF1942 + DC. CS, BFBC2, TF2, etc are all boring as hell.
 
CS:Source and Borderlands was pretty much the last time I've done multiplayer. Except the occassional MMORPG, like RF Online.
 
Bankie said:
I haven't liked a multiplayer PC FPS since Q3, UT, and BF1942 + DC. CS, BFBC2, TF2, etc are all boring as hell.
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I guess we're just different then. Couldn't stand Q3, never even bothered playing any game in the UT series.

These days I can't stand any FPS that doesn't have at least semi-real weapons and if it's multiplayer, team based game play is a must. None of that deathmatch crap. I also highly prefer CS style rounds where once you die, you wait until the next round to respawn. (makes it feel more real, besides it's an incentive not to get killed :p )

Any FPS game that doesn't have the above is highly unlikely to get me playing it.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037181728 said:
These days I can't stand any FPS that doesn't have at least semi-real weapons and if it's multiplayer, team based game play is a must. None of that deathmatch crap. I also highly prefer CS style rounds where once you die, you wait until the next round to respawn. (makes it feel more real, besides it's an incentive not to get killed :p )

Any FPS game that doesn't have the above is highly unlikely to get me playing it.
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Team based gameplay didn't start with CS. Neither did last man standing game types. You could have all of that all the way back to the Q2 (maybe even Q1) days. I played Q2 mods that had "semi-real" weapons.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037181728 said:
I guess we're just different then. Couldn't stand Q3, never even bothered playing any game in the UT series.

These days I can't stand any FPS that doesn't have at least semi-real weapons and if it's multiplayer, team based game play is a must. None of that deathmatch crap. I also highly prefer CS style rounds where once you die, you wait until the next round to respawn. (makes it feel more real, besides it's an incentive not to get killed :p )

Any FPS game that doesn't have the above is highly unlikely to get me playing it.
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You never played UT... wtf?
 
Valshistixol said:
You never played UT... wtf?
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yeah.. Faces... ctf map.. WOW was always fun... dont fall off and dont fall in the middle....
bounce the razor's off the ground all over the place!!!!

face3-1024.jpg
 
TeleFragger said:
yeah.. Faces... ctf map.. WOW was always fun... dont fall off and dont fall in the middle....
bounce the razor's off the ground all over the place!!!!

face3-1024.jpg
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Not even trying to be remotely realistic = not even remotely fun, at least to me.
 
Are games even remotely realistic? Seriously, how far can anyone run, when wearing full battle rattle, carrying 2 or more guns, not to mention grenades and hand grenades.

I'm probably more in shape than at least 25% of gamers out there and I can tell you. When I'm wearing my battle rattle, carrying an M4 with 210 rounds, M9 with 60 rounds, 1 hand grenade and a camelback full of water, I'm not running more than a couple miles. I'm also not going to hit shit when I shoot after that either. I also don't instantly heal by hiding behind a wall for 30 seconds.

Realistic? Pfff, who the hell really wants that in games? It'd be boring as hell.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037186326 said:
Not even trying to be remotely realistic = not even remotely fun, at least to me.
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So I take it you can't read fantasy books or watch science fiction movies or TV shows?
 
mannyman said:
Call of duty is not realistic.
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1.) I did not say I liked Call of Duty. In fact, I find it to be a terrible game.

2.) At least the settings are somewhat remotely believable.

One of the games I liked the best from a weapons and gameplay standpoint was the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series. Semi-realistic ballistics, real guns, less emphasis on fast twitching all combined to make it a great game.

Unfortunately it didn't have a particularly good multiplayer ability. I thoroughly enjoyed single player though :)

The perfect game to me would be as follows:
Start with Counter-Strike.
Update the visuals to modern graphics.
Take the movement and ballistics from S.T.A.L.K.E.R and apply it intelligently to the CS lineup of guns.
Make the guns less accurate than they currently are in CS. Take bullet drop over distance into account.
Tweak it to limit silly things like running and zooming with sniper weapons, etc.

This I would really enjoy playing I think.
 
krotch said:
Realistic? Pfff, who the hell really wants that in games? It'd be boring as hell.
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I partially agree here. Too realistic and it becomes desperately boring.

There is a perfect balance somewhere in there between fast, twitchy and fake, and slow boring and realistic. I think current games fall a little bit too much on the twitchy fake side, but they are better than games of the past.
 
phide said:
So I take it you can't read fantasy books or watch science fiction movies or TV shows?
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Correct. I am completely unable to enjoy anything fantasy/magic based.

I do enjoy good science fiction, but only if its believable enough as a possible future reality.
 
krotch said:
Are games even remotely realistic? Seriously, how far can anyone run, when wearing full battle rattle, carrying 2 or more guns, not to mention grenades and hand grenades.

I'm probably more in shape than at least 25% of gamers out there and I can tell you. When I'm wearing my battle rattle, carrying an M4 with 210 rounds, M9 with 60 rounds, 1 hand grenade and a camelback full of water, I'm not running more than a couple miles. I'm also not going to hit shit when I shoot after that either. I also don't instantly heal by hiding behind a wall for 30 seconds.

Realistic? Pfff, who the hell really wants that in games? It'd be boring as hell.
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Also I should add, I think part of why people play games is to get an experience they otherwise wouldn't. I will certainly never run anywhere carrying real weapons and wearing body armor, and as such, a more realistic approach to this in games appeals to me.

I can see how someone who has experienced this in person would find it silly and undesirable and look for something else in games, just like how racing games must seem silly to those who race cars for a living.
 
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