I'm quite surprised no one has really talked about the excellent Portal games on here. Anyone played the second one yet? It's absolutely amazing, I've reviewed it for my site here if anyone is interested :) Johnny Mercyside: Game Review: Portal 2 (http://johnnymercyside.blogspot.com/2011/08/game-review-portal-2.html)

The game has a superb script and great characters. But I still don't find it that fun a game to actually play.

Don't misunderstand, I can get along with the gameplay just fine. But I actually like the fact that its much easier than the first game, simply because I find the actual gameplay to be by far the least appealing aspect of the game. I can play it in fits and spurts, but I think 'enjoyment' is going a bit far for how I ever felt about the puzzle elements.

I'd basically be roaring with laughter at what the characters were saying, then get into the lift and think 'Oh... damn, I've got to do another test chamber before the story goes on again...'

Once I'd get started in each chamber (and again, the game is *really* easy), I'd be fine, but at the end of every chamber I'd be reminded anew how much I was playing this for the story and dialogue and how little joy I had at the prospect of more test chambers getting in the way of my enjoyment of that.

I also thought that the second third of the game in Cave Johnson's labs, was pretty poor. Johnson is a hysterically funny character, but I found that whole section to be overlong and sorely missing the ambience of the Aperture labs, and the main characters, enemies etc.

Its a really, really good game. I'm just reluctant to name any game as 'Game of the Year', when I really wasn't that fussed with the gameplay. Again, the only real problem I had with the tests was that I didn't want to do them! (I put off getting the game for ages, but people kept insisting I'd love the story, which I did).

I think its just a case of the story and characters (usually of no consequence at all in puzzle games) being so much infinitely better and fresher than the actual gameplay, that it completely puts it in the shade (even though it is a perfectly acceptable game). This is to a lesser extent how i feel about the Professor Layton games too.

And like many people I've spoken to about this, when I got near the end, I really was at the stage where I was just gritting my teeth through the gameplay, getting through it because I wanted to see the end of the story. I was completely done with the gameplay by this point, and just didn't want to play any more of it.

So that is a testament to how strong the story and characters are, because any other game, I'd have just said 'I'm done, I've had enough'.

It's a good game, I enjoyed it from start to finish.

The game has a superb script and great characters. But I still don't find it that fun a game to actually play.

Don't misunderstand, I can get along with the gameplay just fine. But I actually like the fact that its much easier than the first game, simply because I find the actual gameplay to be by far the least appealing aspect of the game. I can play it in fits and spurts, but I think 'enjoyment' is going a bit far for how I ever felt about the puzzle elements.

I'd basically be roaring with laughter at what the characters were saying, then get into the lift and think 'Oh... damn, I've got to do another test chamber before the story goes on again...'

Once I'd get started in each chamber (and again, the game is *really* easy), I'd be fine, but at the end of every chamber I'd be reminded anew how much I was playing this for the story and dialogue and how little joy I had at the prospect of more test chambers getting in the way of my enjoyment of that.

I also thought that the second third of the game in Cave Johnson's labs, was pretty poor. Johnson is a hysterically funny character, but I found that whole section to be overlong and sorely missing the ambience of the Aperture labs, and the main characters, enemies etc.

Its a really, really good game. I'm just reluctant to name any game as 'Game of the Year', when I really wasn't that fussed with the gameplay. Again, the only real problem I had with the tests was that I didn't want to do them! (I put off getting the game for ages, but people kept insisting I'd love the story, which I did).

I think its just a case of the story and characters (usually of no consequence at all in puzzle games) being so much infinitely better and fresher than the actual gameplay, that it completely puts it in the shade (even though it is a perfectly acceptable game). This is to a lesser extent how i feel about the Professor Layton games too.

And like many people I've spoken to about this, when I got near the end, I really was at the stage where I was just gritting my teeth through the gameplay, getting through it because I wanted to see the end of the story. I was completely done with the gameplay by this point, and just didn't want to play any more of it.

So that is a testament to how strong the story and characters are, because any other game, I'd have just said 'I'm done, I've had enough'.

Naturally I disagree but I completely understand where you're coming from, I love the puzzles and the story but I do think the story carries the gameplay rather than the other way round, like you said. :)

I love the puzzle gameplay. Some of the mods for the original are amazing. I only rented the PS3 version of Portal 2 for the single-player but when I actually buy the game for PC, I can't wait to dig in to whatever the mod community has done since release.

Yes, but this isn't the original. The first game was significantly more difficult - this game is just 'the human cannonball' trick dozens and dozens of times, interlaced with the occasional (and it is only occasional) use of props like laser beams and light bridges. Although to be fair, by the end, the constant samey uses of the (blue in particular) gel was giving the cannonball a run for its money.

The game was purposefully designed to remove all the most difficult aspects, and together with the larger number of levels, means that the same tricks get repeated dozens and dozens of times. The easiest way to get stuck in this game is to imagine it is asking you to do something quite complicated. Because it never, ever is - the solution is always very simple.

But for me, that's the lesser of 2 evils. Because either these kinds of games are repetitive and overly easy, or they are obscure and ferociously difficult. And Valve were going down that route, before gamer feedback issued a clear warning 'We don't want it to be too hard' (Sawyer talks quite a bit about that in the commentary).

So I think they made the right choice, but the lesser of 2 problems is still a problem, nonetheless. But hey, if people like it, then that's great. I certainly feel like it was money well spent - this isn't a question of whether the game is great or not, but of how great it is.

I'm quite surprised no one has really talked about the excellent Portal games on here. Anyone played the second one yet? It's absolutely amazing, I've reviewed it for my site here if anyone is interested :) Johnny Mercyside: Game Review: Portal 2 (http://johnnymercyside.blogspot.com/2011/08/game-review-portal-2.html)

Yeah i have played this games but little bit.
It's a cool game I like it.
I love Its. graphics & sound.



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I loved the game. I thought the plot was good and the voice acting by Stephen Merchant is perhaps the best I've EVER heard. I do have a couple gripes about it, though.

I felt the game was a little too tedious with the constant test-rooms. It just felt like I was going through room after room of human-designed experiment rooms. And really, why would anyone devote so much space and technology to testing a human's agility, coordination, and ability to problem-solve? But my real beef about that is the fact that one of the things that I liked so much in Portal 1 was that a good deal of the game (maybe 1/3) was you trying to escape and dealing with actual obstacles (not test rooms) to go ahead. There was very little of this, I thought, in Portal 2, that was just tacked on at the end (maybe a little at the beginning, but not enough). It just seemed monotonous and boring to keep on going through test-room after test-room. And the only reason I kept on doing it was to advance the plot for the hope that the game would "open up," as it were, out of the experiment chambers. The plot was good enough, although there's no way anyone would have survived that fall... but there was another gripe that I had about it.

I didn't like old Aperture (sorry, I forgot its name). Not. At. All. I didn't like the look, the feel, the tests, or the asshole with the pre-recorded messages. It was WAY too much the same vibe as Bioshock. As I was playing, I was like, "Hey, it looks like they were thinking "Hmm, people like Bioshock, right? Let's make a whole thing based on that!"" And it's not that I didn't like Bioshock, but it just seemed like a cheap knock-off. On top of that, Valve really laid the insanity of the pre-recorded messages guy on thick, way too thick. I was thinking, "Jesus, you'd think they'd be a little more subtle about this guy's insanity!" It's kind of the same dry, dark, tongue-in-cheek humor that pervaded GlaDos's dialogue in Portal 1, only times a hundered. I was like, "Okay, we've figured out this guy's completely out of his mind and an insanely right Republican of the 50's, etc. etc." Again, rip-off of Bioshock. Sigh. Rant over.

Overall, I loved the game, but something prevents me from playing it again. I think it's the shortage of plot in comparison to the experiment rooms. It's like, once you've figured out all the tests, and you know the plot, the only thing for me that makes it worth playing for is the voice-acting, which I admit is just glorious. But as Vrykolas said, it's too redundant, and I think it's just time-consuming activity to hear Stephen Merchant's amazing voice-acting. It wasn't as easy for me as it was for Vrykolas, but I think they should have made a 'hard mode,' a set of more challenging levels, to be unlocked after beating the game one time. Or at least give the actual game a difficulty setting. The fact that they didn't give one attests to its easiness. But I digress.

I didn't think it was that easy lol. Thought it was harder than the first *shrug*

Loved the story and characters and found it really enjoyable to play.

I didn't think it was that easy lol. Thought it was harder than the first *shrug*

Loved the story and characters and found it really enjoyable to play.

I found it a bit easier than the first, purely because I knew what to do this time round, where as a lot of the time in Portal 1 it was new, and innovative, you just simply never thought "oh yeah, I can do this with the portal gun!", where it was the norm by the time Portal 2 came around. And that was a very long sentence. :D

Well, I am certainly no genius at this kind of thing - I'm usually pretty awful at them actually (I had terrible trouble with the portal stuff in Prey, for example).

But I realised early on, that 9 times out of 10, I was getting stuck because I was over thinking a problem, when the solution was likely to be very simple. And once I did that, decided that the game probably wasn't asking me to do the kind of intricate things I was imagining, the answer usually clicked straight in and was almost always staring me in the face.

And as I think I said earlier, if in doubt, do the human cannonball trick. Practically all the areas I got stuck on, it was some variant of the cannoball that I just hadn't picked up. The Red Gel for example is almost exclusively used for the cannonball, so if you see it, you know what to do.

There certainly wasn't anything as tough as those bouncing light ball things that you had to direct through various portals to hit switches etc that the first game had. And a good thing too, or I'd still be there now, trying to do it!

I think this was a fine game, but I worry about it being named 'Game of the Year'. If this does eventually turn out to be named GOTY (and its pretty much the only contender right now), then I will consider the other potential candidates in the second half of the year to have seriously underperformed.

Because this is a great game, one that I would have no problem naming as A game of the year, just not THE game of the year. I just don't think the gameplay is interesting or satisfying enough to warrant such a title. It has a definate charm, but it feels like a real stretch to carry a game of even this modest length.

======================SPOILERS GALORE BELOW==========================

I can't even begin to express how marvelous Portal 2 was for me, being as I managed to play through the entire game in only two days (I was hooked!). The unexpected plot twists left me craving more, such as the unforeseen 'betrayal' which was just plain tear-inducing; damn you, Wheatley ; ; But regardless, I was still enthralled and found this game to be quite a bit better than the original. GLaDOS feels real to me, not just an AI. They gave such depth to all of the charming robotic characters, any live humans included in the game would've felt entirely out of place and insignificant. Also having the protagonist Chell kept entirely silent seemed to prove a wise decision, as the primary interaction we all enjoy is between the game's three other major characters; Cave Johnson, GLaDOS, and Wheatley, all of whom are voiced brilliantly. Even though Cave Johnson's eccentric days are long over, his spirit clearly lives on in the aging old Aperture labs (which were charming in their own right :))

The thing I really enjoyed about this game was the use of brand new obstacles and puzzle-solving implements, such as the gel (anybody else wonder what the hell that white one was for at first?) and the light beams. Using particle portal tunnels (my own choice of name for it ;)) to venture across test chambers was also rather intriguing, and the possibilities were endless for the amount of new content they managed to fit into this huge game. In fact, it leads one to ponder if they even did enough with it all, considering just how much there is. I think it's also safe to say this game wouldn't be anywhere near as good if not for the superb voice acting and the unforgettable characters. Wheatley's fast-talking, friendly persona resounded quite well with me and I laughed non-stop at all the impeccable humor placed just right throughout the story XD Crap turrets FTW ^^

Another thing a lot of people seem to overlook is the incredible end credits song, sung by Ellen Mclain. It easily tops Still Alive by a longshot ^^ The ending was surprising and fun, not to mention the brief visit to the moon :D THAT was a delightful shock that I never would've seen coming! Though I've only been through the game once, and just beat it at that, I can easily see myself picking it right back up again and giving it a second go. The characterization is superb, and not something to be missed. This game was an absolute treat and a real breath of fresh air amongst some recent mediocre titles I've seen. Even the test chambers, which I see some saying grew tedious, were, in all honesty, a blast IMO. I enjoyed the increased challenge over the first game, and the fact that it gets all the more intense with every new room you stumble into. Seeing the now-dilapidated structure of Aperture Science really felt authentic, and causes you to ponder just what's been going on outside its walls. As this takes place alongside Half-Life's timeline, could it be that the Portal story somehow connects to the portal storm that ushered in the Combine empire? Could be a far-fetched theory, but it's one that isn't worth tossing aside just yet. After all, such volatile technology could easily have devastating effects if misused or lost.

Overall, Portal 2 was easily the best game I've played this year :) I tried the co-op with a friend and we just thought it was amazing. Having four portals is insane XD And beyond the story, the characters, the puzzles and the intriguing atmosphere, you just can't beat falling through an endless portal loop :) Valve really reinvented gaming with this masterpiece. It has also gotten me psyched to see Valve's future Half-Life or Portal installments, as I have a strong notion this is just the beginning. :D Only time will tell~

I give Portal a 10/10 without a doubt :D


http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/10/this-portal-2-wheatley-puppet-is-the-best-thing-youll-see-today/