Portal 2 PC User Review Backlash

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It looks like people that bought the PC version of Portal 2 are plenty pissed over the fact the game is a console port. There are even reminders not to "turn off your console" when saving...much the way Crysis 2 left in references to "press start" and so on.

The complaints appear to come primarily from PC users, upset that the game is a console port - and even includes references to turning off the 'console' when saving. Most anger, though, seems to be directed at the online store - which is already filled with downloadable content.
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I posted this earlier in our gaming links section but I am reposting it here so you guys can express your thoughts on the matter.
 
I don't care about the DLC in "Store" at all.. Its just crap for your co-op bot. You can unlock most of whats available by getting achievments.

As for it being a console port... I couldn't tell. The game was played great on PC and I honestly couldn't tell it was a port.
 
Funny thing about the console thing is that Valve stepped up right away and explained it. Ignoring double standards for the moment I think Crytek could have saved a lot of face by saying the same thing. Having heard a lot of stories about the things needed to be done to pass certification on consoles some of it is pretty asinine and that is one of them. The "press start" screen is another.
 
While I saw the whole don't turn off your console thing I didn't actually think about it being a port from a console. Does anyone have any concrete proof or is it just speculation? You have to remember it is a multi-platform game and is even a 2for1 for PS3/PC users.

The only thing I notice people are angry about is the "turn off console", the DLC, and perhaps the length of the game. Those are some seriously sad things to be enraged over. The DLC is an option which you can get some of it by just completing achievements and if you play TF2 some of those items can be used on your bots which is an interesting touch. I'm not sure how long they expected the game to be but I went through it in 6.5 hours for single player and while I didn't try to speed run the puzzles I wasn't slow either. I'm about to start the co-op and I expect that to be another 2-3. Without even going back and getting all the achievements this game is going to be clocking in over 10 hours. 10 hours+ for a single player game that relies on puzzles and humor(the humor in this game is pure gold BTW, the voice acting is genius and genuine. The bots also feel and look more alive than animated humans) is amazingly good.

Sites like Metacritic also took down hundreds of user reviews today and real reviews are clocking in near perfects. I can guarantee all the hater reviews are jealousy at it's finest and this game will win a lot of awards.
 
Hate hate hate. Some reviews saying the PC version should look better yet, its still on the source engine... Even if it is a console port, which i'm not sure if Valve has admitted to. It's still great.
The puzzles are fun, there co-op & cross platform co-op! So while not quite GOTY in my books, it's a great follow up and worth the price of admission easily.
Though I'm glad I got it for free ;)
 
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.
 
overlord20 said:
I don't care about the DLC in "Store" at all.. Its just crap for your co-op bot. You can unlock most of whats available by getting achievments.
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Does "most" = "all"?

If not, it's gotten to the point where pre-ordering disadvantages early-adopters. I'd rather wait a few months to get the inevitable special edition that includes everything... at a cheaper-than-release price.

At least with DLC being available at launch, I can expect that package to come out sooner... right?
 
I remember when 40 hours for a single player PC game was considered short.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with ports as long as they are good ports. And the DLC is just a reason for me to wait for the inevitable "Game of the Year" edition that includes everything for half the price.
 
srangara said:
Does "most" = "all"?

If not, it's gotten to the point where pre-ordering disadvantages early-adopters. I'd rather wait a few months to get the inevitable special edition that includes everything... at a cheaper-than-release price.

At least with DLC being available at launch, I can expect that package to come out sooner... right?
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I take it you haven't looked in the store? It's hats and banners for your characters -- just like the stuff in TF2. There is no reason for them to bundle that into a packaged goty edition, or for people to care at all about it being there.
 
I am an admitted Valve fanboy. I've loved most anything they've done and have defended them for eons.

....Console ports, however, crosses the line. The Mann Co. store is also something that needs to go, as its one of the main reasons TF2 is gone in a huge slum for me and plenty of other people. Moreso then the store is again, the idea of Valve, one of the last great PC devs, putting out a fucking *console port* of its most hyped game yet. This is the beginning of a very disturbing trend, and we should NOT defend it, we should in fact be vocal, so as Valve does not go the way of Epic and Crytek: former PC devs who turned their back on their core fanbase in order to earn a quick buck on consoles by exploiting the lowest common denominator.
 
My 2 pennies reads as this:
Consoles are to games as what WebTV was for the internet. Made for idiots. Pisses me off though that most people are indeed idiots and companies are spending their time appealing to them and leaving the true gamers with 'ports'. The way things are going it won't be long until you'll need an Xbox emulator to even play a game on the PC.
 
inho it is pretty obviously a console port. For this game though its not a big deal, there are what 4 buttons total.

What kind of annoys me is the menus, trying to exit the game is a little confusing. The OK/Cancel buttons don't highlight for me so I just hit enter... and it seems to work. Though I would be screwed if I had to hit cancel cause there is no mouse pointer.
 
whats the big deal over a console port?

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CHAoS_NiNJA said:
Link?
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Its somewhere in one of the two giant Portal 2 threads in the games section. I don't remember which one, but I'll look. Anyway they basically said it was something they had to do to get it passed console certification and somehow it got switched on the PC. It was a little more technical than that, but that is the gist.
 
"turn off your console"

Oh, dear. That's just plain shitty craftsmanship!
 
Koolthulu said:
I remember when 40 hours for a single player PC game was considered short.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with ports as long as they are good ports. And the DLC is just a reason for me to wait for the inevitable "Game of the Year" edition that includes everything for half the price.
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40 hours for a FPS was normal? I sure as hell don't remember that.
 
I'm going to go out on a limb and say valve uses localization files to handle all text in the game to make language settings and patching.

Somewhere someone mixed up something like US-ENG-RETAIL-PC.xml with US-ENG-RETAIL-CONSOLE.xml.

Not a huge deal. At all.
 
I think the disappointment pretty much stems from what we've come to expect from Valve. Every prior purchase from them has given a ton of value for the money and Portal 2 goes directly against that. Half-life was $35 when I bought it at release and supported more free mods than I can count. HL2 was the same with several free addons coming out (hl2 dm, hl2 ricochet, the docks demo thing). Orange box was an insane deal. People came to expect that paying Valve $50 will get you more content than most games.

Portal 2 with its day 1 dlc, shorter campaign, and no signs of freebies just hurts. Valve along side Blizzard was one of the last devs who really did post release support right, and Portal 2 defiantely shows a new direction sadly.
 
I played the Single Player Campaign and I don't recall seeing the messages mentioned...
 
CHAoS_NiNJA said:
Link?
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http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21926759&postcount=9


It took me about 8 hours to finish the game, normal pace and that's without searching every nook and cranny for hidden stuff and skipping some of the dialog.

As for the "DLC Store", I honestly don't care. None of it affects the game in anyway (aka doesn't add levels or give someone an advantage), it's just cosmetic crap you can ignore if you want to. Same with TF2, I don't care about hats.

As for it being a "port", I'd say no. It certainly looks a lot better on PC than it does on Consoles. The Graphics options on are on par with Left 4 Dead 2 and TF2. I do hate the fact that any time I want to change AA/AF or VSync it has to tell me about it first. I know what they do.

The only thing I am worried about is how far this micro transaction thing goes. If they start forcing use to pay extra for stuff that is more than just cosmetic optional stuff, that's when I start having problems
 
demingo said:
Portal 2 with its day 1 dlc, shorter campaign, and no signs of freebies just hurts. Valve along side Blizzard was one of the last devs who really did post release support right, and Portal 2 defiantely shows a new direction sadly.
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Portal 2 is LONGER than the original by more than 50%, and that's just the single player. The co-op adds hours more still. And the DLC is just TF2 style hats and skins and crap. Nothing that effects gameplay in any way.

Please don't talk out of your ass.
 
CHAoS_NiNJA said:
I am an admitted Valve fanboy. I've loved most anything they've done and have defended them for eons.

....Console ports, however, crosses the line.
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Are you naturally retarded or is it something you work towards? First of all no one said they ported it from the consoles. This is Valve were talking about here. All the technology in the game was made and developed on and for PC's. It is their primary market and it is evident as they give out sales on pre-orders. They are the only company who gives a sale on a game before it is even out, try to ask anyone else to do that. The "turn of" warning is something that has to be their and considering how they were trying to bring this great experience to everyone (PS3/PC owner is a 2for1 deal) it's not hard to see them leaving that in. While I know PC users get hurt by things like this it's time to grow up. (I'm a huge Valve fan boy BTW and play primarily on my PC)
 
Brak710 said:
I'm going to go out on a limb and say valve uses localization files to handle all text in the game to make language settings and patching.

Somewhere someone mixed up something like US-ENG-RETAIL-PC.xml with US-ENG-RETAIL-CONSOLE.xml.

Not a huge deal. At all.
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Agreed. In fact.. it's probably a last minute thing that is added just before certification and it was added to the PC version by error. I mean.. the game run on the Source engine which, as far as I know, was made for PC from the beginning. People simply don't understand what a console port is and that's sad.
 
It appears really briefly when you manually save your game. It's really really brief on the pc since we have more than 256mb of RAM and stuff. ;)

You can't actually read it on PC, you have to take a screenshot really really quickly.
 
this is the reason why I'm asking for official link that this is in fact a console port, but I highly doubt it that we will ever seen one because it isnt console port. The "Dont turn off your console" has been blown out of proportion.
 
At the metacritic site its sad to read some of their reviews because hardly any of them have the balls to say something bad about the game. It seems like many reviewers are either scared to come into a bad light in from a game developer so their goodies stop flowing or they are just out right being bought off.
 
I've completed the co-op mode and I'm about halfway through single player and already I think my money has been well spent. I seriously don't know where all this hate is coming from.

As for the DLC, I'm an avid TF2 player and Valve has been shoving hats down my throat for months now so I guess I'm used to it. At least there isn't different weapons/tools for players to buy (yet) that actually effect game play.
 
KleeziE said:
At the metacritic site its sad to read some of their reviews because hardly any of them have the balls to say something bad about the game. It seems like many reviewers are either scared to come into a bad light in from a game developer so their goodies stop flowing or they are just out right being bought off.
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Or maybe the game is really that good? I've never smiled like that playing a game for a long time.. and I only played 3 hours.
 
KleeziE said:
At the metacritic site its sad to read some of their reviews because hardly any of them have the balls to say something bad about the game. It seems like many reviewers are either scared to come into a bad light in from a game developer so their goodies stop flowing or they are just out right being bought off.
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After having played through single-player and getting a good start on co-op, I don't have anything bad to say about the game. And I dont give two fucks what the developer thinks, nor does Valve pay me a damn thing. In fact, I'm pretty much pre-disposed to disliking Valve for their neglect of the Half Life franchise. But I still don't have any complaints about Portal 2.

I enjoyed it as much as the first, if not more so due to the co-op.
 
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