Portal 2

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deject
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Portal 2

Post by deject »

Portal 2 - PC

Introduction
It's the sequel to Portal. You make portals and use them to solve puzzles.

Gameplay
You make portals and use them to solve puzzles. Fucking brilliant puzzles. There are some new elements to wrap your head around, which are used is some genuinely clever ways. I would say in general, some of the puzzles are harder to figure out than in the first game, simply because of the added elements, but I was never stuck for so long I wanted to quit playing.

Sights and Sounds
The benefit of making a game running on Source is that any decent GPU can run it maxed out. I was getting butter smooth FPS at 1600x900 with 16xQ CSAA, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, and all the options to the highest settings. Also, the textures, models, everything about the way it looks is just right. Sure it's not as "photorealistic" as say Crysis, but it's definitely the best looking Source game ever. The gels in particular look fucking gobsmackingly good.

Voice acting is top notch as usual. Glados, Wheatley, and Cave Johnson are a constant source of pleasure.

Stuff that sucks

(This space intentionally left blank)

Conclusion
Holy shit. Best game I've played all year, and I've only done the single player. Valve has delivered a masterpiece, as mindblowingly good as the first one. If you don't own it, buy it ASAP. It's better than food.

Score : :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull:
buzzmong
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Post by buzzmong »

Dunno about the performance, the new lighting is certainly upping it past previous Source games and a few of the gel sections properly gave my PC a bit of a hard time, but I think that's probably down to CPU issues rather than graphics card power.

It is a well crafted game though, it lacks some of the surprise and excitement of Portal 1 (mostly because it's a sequel) but it by far makes up for in grandiose moments.

There were numerous "holy shit, that's brilliant/amazing", quite a few due to the sheer scale of things that were shown. As Tezz mentioned in the other threads, the old Apeture Science Industries stuff was rather awesome.
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Post by spoodie »

Something I love about the game is that it made me feel clever for working out the puzzles. When I suspect a lot of effort was put into making the rooms appear complex on first sight, but then you're subtlety guided through to the solution with visual clues. Such as areas of light in the darkness or movement.
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Post by Thompy »

The production is impeccable, for sure.

It's an ok length, 8 hours for me. I don't believe I got stuck, just a few moments where it took me a while to notice something (one room I looked at for 30 mins until I noticed a portal wall in an obscure place). Plus I have co-op to do, and hopefully Valve will allow modding. I wish the puzzles where more complicated though, but I guess it's at a good level for everyone.

After playing Portal 2-3 times, the first half was pretty boring on the puzzle side, and I was worried it would remain like that. Even the new elements didn't strike as really good. Once they all came together in one room though, I really started to love thinking with portals again. I would of liked more of the game to be like that.

The story, script, characters, environments, atmosphere, other than a slight down point half way through, were 10/10.

I'd give it an 8/10 overall, but I think that's just because I'm greedy and want more because it's perfect at its best.
Last edited by Thompy on April 20th, 2011, 20:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Roman Totale »

Unfortunately I've not had a lot of time to play this yet, but so far Glados' dialogue seems even better than before. She's had me really guffawing at times
Look at you, all graceful flying through the air like an eagle.

Piloting a blimp.
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Post by Dog Pants »

I'm loving Wheatley. I've only had half an hour or so, but I'm glad they stuck with the theme they had for him as a 'placeholder'. Even if he does have the spoken mannerisms of Ricky Gervais.
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Post by Thompy »

:above:

I like Merchant, but when I watched the trailers with him in I was thinking "Eh, really?". Honestly though, he does fit, and does a great job. Not as good as Ellen McLain, but then he did have quite a lot more lines (or seemed it too me) so not all were going to hit home.

No matter how good he is though, some people will still hate his part because he's just doing the Mervais style of comedy. I like it though, so good for me, yay!
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Post by deject »

I think Cave Johnson is actually the best. His lemonade tirade was fucking amazing.
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Post by Joose »

Just finished, and the post-credits bit almost ended me. Literally. The mrs is asleep, so Im trying not to laugh too much, but
Spoiler:
IM IN SPACE. SPAAAACE
made me laugh/choke. :lol:

I was almost killed by funny.
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Post by HereComesPete »

End credits were a tad underwhelming compared to portal. But the bit before-
Spoiler:
turret choir
-was truly awesome.

As for wheatley, I thought the yokel accent would boil my piss and at the start it did. But it seems to tone down as you progress and the interaction between him and Glados is some fine voice acting. Especially when
Spoiler:
she's in potato mode
and talking back to him.

One part I did a hearty belly laugh at was the
Spoiler:
monstrously huge door covering the normal door, all the signs and warnings and in the end it's just a push bar keeping it closed.
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Post by FatherJack »

Roman Totale wrote:She's had me really guffawing at times
Look at you, all graceful flying through the air like an eagle.

Piloting a blimp.
That was my favourite line, which is why I corrected it for you.


I've never watched Gervais anything more than accidentally and was dreading Merchant's VOs by association, which his accent did nothing to initially dispel. However I grew to enjoy them in time and even stopped to listen a while on occasion.
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Post by Dog Pants »

I just googled Stephen Merchant, since I didn't know who he was (although I had my suspicions). It's quite telling that I compared Wheatley to Gervais without even knowing there was a link. I suppose it just means Merchant has a strong style.
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Post by Mr. Johnson »

I could go into length qbout how I loved the game; but I'm just going to go with "all of the above" because I'm on a work computer.
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Post by mrbobbins »

I really need to finish this before someone accidentally spoilers something!

Edit: Also, thankyou Game!, I'd not realised it was just Game shipping early.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04 ... l-2-early/
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Post by Legoshoes »

Spoiler:
How are you doing? Because i'm a potato
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Post by Grimmie »

The music. So. Good.
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