Followed the arg for the last few weeks, and got super excited for launch. Played from 9:30 to 1:30 last night, had work. Will finish the game tonight.
It’s basically Portal 1, with double the mechanics and triple the production value. The story seems pretty good so far too
Beat it last night. Kind of disappointed the single player clocked in at under 7 hours without me speeding through the whole thing (well, maybe the last 1/3 more than the first 2/3rds) when we were promised a much longer game this time around. I guess at least theres co-op to extend the games life
Ending
The ending was a bit underwhelming I think. Chell just gets put out into the middle of Michigan, and thats it? So weird. The moon portal thing was pretty cool though : )
And of course the end song doesn’t hold a candle to the original song AT ALL, no contest
Sounds longer then portal 1 which i finished at about 4 hours.
Yeah, I think what let me down was how since this was supposed to be a “full game” as opposed to Portal 1’s “Tech Demo” is I expected 10+ hours of gameplay. I swear I read 16 hours in preview articles, but its barely enough. I guess it’s alright because the last 1/3 kind of drug on as it is, no need to artificially inflate the length.
I still have coop and developer commentary and stuff to tide me over until the inevitable DLC coop packs come out, and I need to find the missing experiement and stuff as well
Oh most I heard from everything I looked at was 8 to 9 hours with one of the devs saying “Hey the dumber you are the longer the game is.” lol.
I honestly wanted to be over sooner. After I beat it I went on Ars Techinca and they didn’t have a review but they had some things to say and the author was all like “Break it up. Don’t play it all at once.” I wish I had of read that because I got burned out. I felt like I was in a loop…
Loop
[details=Spoiler]
Like once you meet Glados with Wheately in tow it’s like oh shit so soon?! But then everything goes crazy and you fall for miles (and as cute as the middle of Michigan jokes was it can’t be there because the facility was shown to be under a mountain on one of the signs). That was neat. But trudging through the bowels of the facility got old. It was the same damn loop of puzzle, exit, puzzle, exit.
What I expected from a Portal 2 was more of a free use of the portal gun outside of large puzzle rooms. Like in the streets or somewhere with some actual enemy AI to chase you. I mean we get the cool gels and the laser but it’s all still within the context of puzzle rooms. Felt like Valve played up the Pixar like fun and moved away from it’s HL roots and that disappoints me. I would have rather waited another two more years before Portal 2 if it mean really taking the gun outside of the facility.
Like what if Chell found a gun that could shoot like a paintball all three gels? Imagine her running around a town with that shit.
And with the sky so blue and the grains so yellow this all happened before the events of Black Mesa (I figured Portal was during or right before HL2). And outside of the Cave Johnson Black Mesa comment I figured there would be more to connect the two game series but it feels even further apart.
In short I just want my damn Episode 3 featuring Chell![/details]
I like what Joystiq compared Portal to: A crush. Portal was like that girl you were crushing hard over but never got the chance to really be with. Portal 2 is like getting to be with that crush and she’s still awesome but a bit of that magic is gone.
I never thought I’d hear myself say this but I hope Valve doesn’t touch Portal for another sequel EVER AGAIN.
You try co-op yet, dog? That’s just plain magical.
^^^After burning through the game yesterday I’m taking a break before I shoot another portal. I’m sure it is. Most TRUE co-op games are magical because there is magic in cooperation.
Im glad the game is only 8 hours or so. It will take me a week or more to finish it. Games any longer than that I never finish.
Anyhow, the colors on the ps3 version look so much better than they do on the pc. Maybe I need to adjust my monitor but pretty bland on the pc where as the ps3 was very vivid.
Loop
[details=Spoiler]Game takes a place “Hundreds of years” after Portal 1 actually, so yeah it’s gotten as far as it can get from the HL2 universe. Although you can see the “Borealis” research ship docking station in game or what’s left of it since it took part of it with it lol. Big connection between the Episode 2 and Portal.
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Oh well Episode 3 is next followed by Counter Strike 2.
I thought it was the other way around. New Counter Strike then Episode 3.
I rarely buy computer games when they first come out because they’re like 60$. i’ll wait for it to drop down to 20$ and then I’ll get it, kinda like how I wait for orange box to be like 30$.
So I can’t WAIT to try this game out in a year or two!
looking forward to episode 3 and more gravity gun goodness and hot alyx vance.
Bit the bullet and brought it during lunch. The extra $10 gift card from BB helped a bit lol. Can’t wait to play this shit.
I missed all that. Thanks for clearing it up. But that kind of spoils the ending for Episode 3
Yeah Gabe said it would be Portal 2>Episode 3>Counter Strike 2. There was a somewhat big title update to CS:Source last year so I doubt they will be touching Counter Strike again for at least a while.
Yeah I agree Portal 2’s ending spoils Episodes 3 slightly but I still want to play it and see how it went down. :tup:
Portal 2 coop is simply too awesome!
Funniest moment in coop was when both robots gave a high five after a succesful stage clear and GlaDOS immiediately said “STOP IT!!!”. What a bitch lol!
Lucky I only spent $45 with a $10 gift card, priced matched it at Best Buy from Best Buy’s website lol. They just changed the price to $55 dollars now.
I don’t mind the game being short, I don’t have time to spend a lot of time on games nowadays.
aperture science
[details=Spoiler]The newspaper in the aperture labs lobby before the first test shows that Cave Johnson bought a salt mine under michigan and is going to bring Science there. Where do we ever see the lab being under a mountain? I’m interested because I missed that
Also do we know why they sealed the gel labs so harshly? It seemed rather tame compared to the rest of their experiments. Maybe it had to do with one of the other 7 test tracks?[/details]
Ending is awesome too!
I didnt play, but I like the what valve does with games…
does it mention cake in this one?
I missed that
[details=Spoiler]
What I saw was a sign that showed how far down you were and it looked like the top layer was Mountains but I mean it could have been hills? Anyway if the game said MI then MI it will be. Lately I feel like there’s been a lot of nods to MI in games. Like the new EDF takes place in “New Detroit” and this one survival horror game on the DS took place in MI. There’s been other stuff too but I can’t think of it. Michigan, the quiet strange place.[/details]
I liked it, it’s about 5-6 hours long though. No desire to play Co-Op.