When Steam had their big sale a month or two ago, I bought the Valve special – I think it was every game they’ve done, for 50 bucks or so. I finally got around to downloading Portal 2 and started playing it.
For a couple hours, I thought it was the best game I’d ever played. The puzzles were fun, the script was funny, and the action was cool.
Then came the “Escape,” and it turned to shit, at least for me. Instead of having a task to do and the tools to do it within an enclosed space, it turned into Doom 3, where you’re just trudging through endless dark corridors. And when I finally get out of those, I’m in a big desolate landscape with no idea of even which direction to go.
I realize that lots of people pay good money for games where they wander around without knowing where they are supposed to go or what they are going to do when they get there, and that’s fine, but that’s not what I wanted when I sat down to play Portal 2.
My question is, is the whole rest of the game like this? I was OK with it for an hour or so, but now it’s starting to look like it’s going to go on forever.
I stopped playing just after opening the huge circular door in the desolate landscape. Can anyone tell me how much longer I have before it goes back to physics puzzles, or is the rest of the game like this — GTA without a car or weapons?
I suppose it’s a happy coincidence, but you’re right about where the physics puzzles start up again.
In the story line, you are about to enter the classic test chambers created by Aperture before GLaDOS came online. There’s a little bit of work to do to get there, but you’re very near the first repulsion gel chamber.
Indeed. If it’s puzzles you’re craving, then you’ll be pleased by the dimensions these new chambers add to the game. Also, liberal dashes of plot exposition to pull you back in after the loneliness. Things only go uphill from here.
It is worth noting that the entirety of the game is a puzzle. Even the open areas that don’t look like puzzle rooms are puzzles.
Edit: Out of curiosity, OP, you did play Portal 1, correct? It sort of helps for knowing the context of Portal 2, and I doubt the open areas would have disrupted you so much had you played through Portal 1.
When you say “most of Portal 1” do you mean “most of the numbered test chambers” or “most of the whole game”? Because the original gives the impression at the beginning that the numbered chambers are all there is, while actually the game is longer than that. And what happens after the last numbered chamber is fairly significant, plot-wise … .
Well, it’s moot now, because I went back and finished Portal 1.
I’ve never liked games where you really have no clue what you’re supposed to do, so you have to try and “use” everything around you until some object responds, and only then do you know that it’s part of the solution. I think it’s a perfectly good puzzle to say, “Given these three objects, how do you use them to do X?” I just don’t get what it adds to say instead, “Given these 1000 objects, click on all of them until you find three that respond, and then use them to do X.”
These escape sequences in the Portal games remind me of that, except in their case you have to wander around shooting at every surface you can barely see until one of them takes a portal, and then you know you’re supposed to go there.
I guess I like solving puzzles better than trying to find them. But the test chambers are great fun, so overall I give the game a thumbs up. I think I’ll get the SDK and see what I can do about making my own physics puzzles.
From what I remember of Portal, didn’t Rat Man (and the developers) leave clues for which way to go, at which point the correct portal placement tended to be fairly obvious?
Yes, Rat Man (presumably) has drawn a lot of red arrows on the walls to help you out. Awfully damn thoughtful for a guy who’s apparently subsisting on water and beans.
You like what you like of course, and that’s fine. Personally I found Portal 2’s underground area to be an interesting diversion from the clinical “lab-based” puzzles that frame it, before and after. Portal 2 is much more story-driven than Portal 1, and the discarded ruins of the old Aperture Science Labs show you some of that story. Without that, Portal 2 would just be Portal 1 with more gadgets and chambers. (Not that that wouldn’t be welcome for its own sake.)
Besides, I will always cherish the scene when the first giant hatchway opens up, ever so slowly, sirens blaring all the while, only to reveal a perfectly ordinary sized door at the bottom. Sure, it’s an easy visual gag, but they got me with it. They got me. If I were Chell in that situation, I would have had to drop the portal gun and sit down for a moment.