Portal 2

Just finished it, and it was epic. The plot was far beyond that of what I had expected at first. Not that it goes that deep, but there's quite a few nice plot twists and things to discover along the way. The few characters in the game have great personalities, and their voice acting is superb. Couldn't stop laughing at the silly remarks and clever (often sarcastic) jokes, Valve kept it's word there. Great stuff indeed,

The new mechanics in the game are fantastic as well, and allow for much more creativity in the level design compared to the original game. The trailers show some nice applications for several new cool things, such as the various gels and moving parts of walls, but that's simplistic stuff compared to what the actual game has in store for you. Combined with the no longer small and static chambers, but instead huge open areas, it really does feel like a proper new game. I honestly expected Portal 2 to be more of the same, but thankfully it's a different, and better, experience then the original.

But... there's one big issue. I've got 6 hours played total on my Steam played time counter, with a few deaths and listening to every conversation until the very end. Think I paused it an hour for dinner and all that good stuff, maybe a little less, meh... Still to short in my opinion. I mean, seriously, under 6 hours? I remember promises of at least double the time it took people to finish the first game. Maybe it's just me who has gotten used to the whole portal concept, but one would assume that Valve took that in consideration when claiming you need extra time. Hell, I find myself to suck pretty badly at these puzzles, pretty sure there are loads of people who've managed to do it much faster.... :/

This weekend I'm going to do the co-op missions with a friend of mine, hopefully we won't blast through those to fast. But really, for those who only plan to play the game alone: I'd wait until the price drops quite a bit. It's just not worth it atm. If the co=op is significantly harder

TL : DR

Epic game, living up to all promises, but even an ape can finish the single player to quickly.

 

And for those who wonder: yeah, this was originally intended to be a very short post where I'm complaining about how short it was. Then upon remembering the entire game, I just couldn't be so harsh about it anymore. It's just to epic, and I haven't even started the co-op yet.

 

You forgot challenge maps, advanced maps, and player made maps.


Haven't played it yet (screw you, sixty dollar games.)

NO SPOILERS.

 

Well, 6 hours would be double the length since I finished the first one in under 3.

 

There are no advanced maps or challenges in the game. At least not yet.

 

Coop adds another few hours

 

I was going to wait for price drop / sale anyway and if it's so short that's all the more reason to.

 

It took me 7-8 hours, and I was looking for as many secrets as I could find. I also got stuck on one puzzle for half an hour because I didn't notice a platform.

The first one takes me 1-1.5 hours.

The story was mind-blowingly more than I had expected. To be honest, my expectations were pretty low. How deep the plot was depended on how much you focused on it, listened to messages, etc.

There was a vast difference between the scale of the puzzles from the first to the second. While this is great, it feels like the difficulty and ingenuity of the puzzles suffered because of it. I wasn't really ever stumped for a significant amount of time except for the reason I explained earlier.

The new mechanics were wonderful, but the usage of them was not. Like I said, the ingenuity was lacking; I only really used each new mechanic in a couple ways.

Valve really beefed up their more subtle game design abilities. Every single environment I found myself in was a memorable one. Some of the details even caught my attention long enough for me to pause and watch them for little while.

Spoiler

I think I watched three gun robots get built before I was satisfied enough to move on.

...I could write an analysis for each character. I might save that for later.

 

@ spoiler

I stood still for at least as long in some places, and especially there. xD
Can recommend everyone to listen to each conversation until the very end as well. Really ads to the store, and there's often hilarious endings to them.

 

Seriously? Are there that many different enviroments or what?

 

Meee, based on game-time for me personally, it's about six to seven times as big.

 

as big as what :?

 

As big as the first.

 

I feel like the turrets are the cutest NPCs ever created; "I'm different!"
I believe that Portal 2 has the most epic and more importantly: Most REWARDING ending out of any and all the games that I have played in the past. Don't even get me started on the characters and voice acting...

 

whoa it's a higgs boson! GET BACK INTO THE LAND OF IMPOSSIBILITY, YOU VILE BEAST!

 

By the way, Aurora, I don't understand what are you complaining about. Portal 2 is way longer that Portal and I am that's even without counting the coop. Of course it would be awesome if it was longer, as could be said for any game that's ridicilously fun to play, but quality>quantity and this game is a shining example of this.

 

just palyed portal 2 for 4? hours straight. my head... MY STOMACH

 

I don't think that any game, no matter how awesome it is, can justify charging 50 euros for about 6 hours of gameplay, and that's being generous with the amount of time. It's not that the few hours weren't great fun, but in my opinion, the game innovates to little for this amount of money. Hell, most of the texture work, mechanics, sounds, etc are just a literal copy from the first game anyway. Where did all the production money go into, aside from a ridiculously hyped advertising campaign?)

 

The entirely beefed up engine to work with the liquids? Did you not pay attention to the credits or even read the wikipedia bit on that before you asked that question?

Also, Valve has personally stated that the length of the game depends entirely on how much you personally immerse yourself in it. I agree. My singleplayer took 8 hours and my multiplayer took 6 hours (not counting the harder versions of all the levels). It took a total of 4 sittings. The singleplayer constituted one of those sittings. And it was longer than I had ever expected it to be.

 

I don't think the Source engine was upgraded, the SDK is still the same. Juss sayin