Love the game. Love love it. I’m not finished yet, but I have enjoyed the puzzles, and I do agree they are a little bit easier than I would hope. But, I still am enjoying things.
I tried out the coop and had a blast. But, I feel really weird doing it, because it takes me a couple of seconds to figure out what to do next, and I feel bad for my random partner. Plus, a little embarrassed. I kind of wish I could just play coop with a computer partner. Obviously, I am not used to co op games.
I guess that is phenomenally anti-social. as well.
I haven’t read much of the thread, because I don’t want to be spoiled. But, the main game story has been plenty of fun. I keep hoping it keeps going, because I know it’s probably going to feel short. The first one did, and I still loved it.
oops. Just spotted something. I do think the puzzles FEEL easier than the first portal. But, I don’t know if that is because they are easier, or because I am just more used to what to do with portals and how they work.
Ok I just finished the single player so spoilers away!
And yes, I did shoot the moon just because it was there. I was just thinking to myself, huh, why does the moon conduct portals? Doesn’t make sense. Completely forgot the clue about the lunar dust.
Anyway I took 8 hours and it was completely worth it for me, for the experience. I think too much padding would spoil the pacing - it was perfectly paced as is.
My only complaint would be the characterisation of GlaDOS this time around - it wasn’t quite the same as “You will be - MISSED”. Or “First you will be baked, and then there will be cake”. Or even “You should have gone left” <- that was a real mindfuck.
Still, it’s never bad, or out of place, but I do wish it were more consistent with Portal 1.
Also, I wish that we spent more time exploring Cave Johnson and Carol.
Yeah, but GlaDOS had several inhibitor cores installed in Portal 1, especially her morality core. Most of the glitching and obvious non-truths were because she was trying to subvert her morality core. You took care of THAT problem in P1, so she’s free to be as (passive-)aggressive as she wanted, and in fact, she’s much more in line with her post-core-destruction personality when revived.
I loved him. LOVED him. The funniest videogame character I’ve ever seen. “Say yes…okay, that was more of a jump…”
What I didn’t like was the twist with him later…
I mean, I adored him even as an incompetent bad guy! There simply wasn’t much satisfaction in defeating someone who was so damn endearing. GLADoS was a strong compelling character who you WANTED to kill. Not so with him.
I also wasn’t too keen on the twist with GLADoS halfway through. Seemed too goofy, even by Portal standards. And especially goofy when you consider this is supposed to take place in the Half-Life universe.
[spoiler]I actually loved villain Wheatley, especially when he suddenly became competent right around STEP NUMBER 5: BOOBY TRAP THE CONFLICT RESOLUTION BUTTON! I especially liked it when you realize it was an “absolute power” thing, since he was sincerely apologizing in space.
As for the GLaDOS twist, I thought it was silly until “Caroline has been Deleted” then I liked it again. But then, I was waiting for that punchline the entire game since it was introduced.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I was disappointed that the writers chose to turn her into a (nominal, I guess) good guy. Especially the way they chose to do it, which was by yoking her with all of these artificial constraints, these programmed personality-enhancers that warped who she had been in a previous life to create the GLADoS we know from the first game. Actually, now that I think about it, I was especially disappointed to find out that she had been a human at one point, which I think makes her far less interesting. I’m all for a little wistful melancholy, but I think they chose to go about it the wrong way. Oh, and how she supposedly ‘deleted’ Caroline from her programming was a pointless cop-out.
Before I played the game, I read the comic that’s meant to bridge the two games, and I was really excited about the possibilities, all the different directions they could have taken it. There’s really something frighteningly existential about a massive laboratory that builds itself from pieces of itself, shifting and changing shape, iterating and reiterating. Especially when you consider it from Chell’s perspective, having beaten the thing only to wake up ages later and find yourself back where you started, the only person left living in what’s essentially a big mouse maze. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]I never got the impression that GLaDOS was literally Caroline digitized, so much as she had her personality based off of a digitized version of Caroline. If anything, I see a lot of Cave built in there as well. She never could have been Caroline, if for no reason other than Caroline wasn’t inherently homicidal, it wasn’t until GLaDOS let the Caroline personality start to take over that she really became “Caroline” in anything more than a passing voice tone and mannerism way.
I thought deleting Caroline was amusing, and I don’t think she really managed it. “Want You Gone” sounds almost like a bad breakup song, it sounds like GLaDOS, even after her Caroline deletion, truly liked Chell in some odd way, and still considered her a friend. I think the gist was supposed to be that she really can’t delete her base code, she can just try to suppress it.[/spoiler]
I highly recommend the coop campaign. They’ve got some clever puzzles, lots of GLaDOS dialogue and there’s oodles of opportunities for hilarious accidental fratricide. For the most part it’s standalone, but there’s nuggets of the continuing plot inside with a big reveal at the end. Probably about 4-5 hours total playtime.
[spoiler]Overall I enjoyed it a lot, though there’s a few problems too. I probably spent 6-8 hours on the single player campaign, though I tend to take my time.
-I was very disappointed with the first part of gameplay up to the point Weasley rescues you through the wall. I was getting worried as the puzzles were very easy, and it just didn’t seem that interesting. Luckily things did pick up a lot later on, and the puzzles got a lot harder too. I know they have to ease new players into the game a little bit, but the beginning still could have used improvement.
I found Weasley more annoying than endearing after the twist. I’d much prefer to have Glados trying to kill me.
I would have liked to see more wall drawings and extra things slightly off the gameplay path. It seemed to me like the first game had more things you could stumble upon if you explored carefully.
I loved the turret that says “I’m different.” on the turret destruction line, and “Thank you” if you save him. I wish I could have taken it to the surface with the companion cube.
[/spoiler]
Regarding pricing, it’s too rich for my blood. I didn’t play the first one until they gave it away for free on Steam*. But considering boxed versions of the original Portal are going for $80 on eBay, maybe Valve should be charging more.
*But I did go to a Jonathan Coulton show before Portal was even released, so my geek credentials are still valid.
On the plus side, it’s not really a game you can play again (at least the single player version). So once it’s done, they’ll flood the market in re-sells. If Valve were smarter, they’d have introduced a Little Big Planet like community where people could design new levels and upload em.
I’m quite surprised Vale didn’t do this too. Considering that they made it easy to mod HL1 and HL2 and that major games like Counter-strike came out of it, I really wonder if there’s some technical problem in releasing the code or if they think decent portal levels can only be done by professionals.