Thread: The 57th Parallel: Portal 2

Well I plan to make one every week or so to keep things anticipatingly fresh but I felt like 2 or 3 would be nice to start out with and go from there and I plan to make more during fall break but I will be delayed after for a special one over a huge game coming out very,very soon.



A long time ago when I had an Xbox 360, I bought a used copy of the Orange Box which sparked my love for Valve. I mean who can’t love Half-Life 2 and the quirkiness of Team Fortress 2? Wait there’s another game? Portal? What’s this thing? Holy crap! It’s a puzzle game that’s fun and has a story with satirical humor that seems to make my palls chafe for what’s going to happen in the next test chamber. It was, until this game was announced, that I couldn’t find a fault in Portal. It has the most annoying fan base. You can’t even go two minutes discussing the game without the mention of the Companion cube or constantly hearing, “The Cake is a lie!”

So you are back in the place as good old Chell who hasn’t aged these past few millennia. The place has become worse because you are greeted and are forced to assist an AI core that sounds like David Copperfield and why he doesn’t talk in his acts. Wait a minute, the AI queen lady I killed in the first game came back to life? Screw you David Copperfield. I thought I was just fine in the little hotel thing I was in. Ohh great, David has power now AND he has no idea what he’s doing AND we are going to die if I don’t help the AI queen? Eventually you find yourself stuck in the underbelly of Aperture directed by the witty and actually funny Cave Johnson. Even in this game, they manage to put in a joke about Black Mesa. Dear God, he’s the new Cake joke with lemons this time. That just killed my opinion about him.

The story isn’t confusing but it feels off from the original. In the original Portal, it was puzzles with the occasional loading screen to the next test chamber. Here, it’s seeing the environment looking for the next white patch of portalable wall to find the next section of test chambers. Valve, don’t get out of hand here. You are not Square Enix. You are known for gameplay, not environment. Eventually I found myself to a boss fight with good ol’ David Copperfield with him power crazy. Instead of removing and destroying cores, I put more on. Humorous as they were, it’s not the most original way of taking this fight into thought. I mean he’s supposedly stupid but you can do something more about that! How about using the bombs to sever wires so he fal……I get to go to the moon? Forget what I said.

Well I did manage to find the puzzles only area of the game, it just so happened to be in co-op. Double the portals made for some interesting ways of doing stuff but the co-op ended so fast that I never actually had the experience I missed in the first game. Even worse is that it has no replay value. If you try to play with someone who hasn’t done so before, it’s really boring and they scream at you for not letting them solve the puzzle before you did.

In the final verdict, is Portal 2 a good game? Yes! Is it better than the original? No! Don’t take this review as a signal of “it’s not worth my time” because if it were in any other position, it would have accumulated enough of my saliva to have free plumbing for several weeks. The game, though, was forced to compare itself to the original and to do so is hard because they are different in the way that they did the game. They can’t have the same kind of impact. There’s more in Portal 2 but that just makes it flabbier and the humor isn’t even the same. At least I managed to play both all the way through so the die-hard Valve fans won’t kill me with a staple gun and various types of homemade napalm.

You are right, Portal does have an annoying fanbase. Still it is fun and Portal 2 is a blast.

Funny read though, I cracked up the entire time.

Originally Posted by MayanPeeps

You are right, Portal does have an annoying fanbase. Still it is fun and Portal 2 is a blast.

Funny read though, I cracked up the entire time.

I am glad you guys live my reviews. It definitely makes me feel good and that I will most likely make more if you guys like it enough!

I always like the first games better than the second. This holds true for me with Portal and Portal 2 just as you claim. I also hate it when they bring a dead character back to life in the new release. They did this in Gears of War 3 with the Queen too (after blowing up the entire network of Locust tunnels).

I think that in most cases the originals are always better than any remakes. Not in all circumstances but I do not think I can think of any games that were better when they were brought out a second time.

I would not much care for the game if someone I had killed in the first game came back to life. But many games are like that I guess.

I have only played Portal once but I do not think Portal 2 would be a favorite of mine. It does not sound that great to me. The review was great and much appreciated but I feel that I am not just interested in the game to have to play a second one.