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LTTP: Portal 2. Am I missing something here?
- Thread starter Duderz
- Start date
Conciliator
Banned
Portal 2 is like the one video game that doesn't have eye-rolling dialogue.
The
SAY HELLO TO BIG MASHY SPIKY THING
Yes, video game dialogue is generally terrible and yes maybe there are some great lines in Portal 2. But if Wheatley annoys people, he annoys people.
Either way, I've never felt like I needed to give a game another chance more than with Portal 2.
EmCeeGramr
Member
They completely distanced themselves from the memes in the first game and hid a lot of backstory subtly.
I kinda feel the same. I don't know that I would say I actively disliked it, but finishing it did feel like a chore. Playing through the game had a real "going through the motions" quality to it: formulaic dialogue segment, followed by short, streamlined puzzle, followed by formulaic dialogue segment. The dialogue was funny and clever, yes, but it was the same funny and clever joke over and over. I got fatigued very quickly.
Huh? The first Portal didn't even become interesting three puzzles in. Give it time, man. The game is phenomenal, definitely the best game I played last year.
It takes place in a lab. Albeit a destroyed lab, but a TESTING LAB. There's going to be repetition. There SHOULD be repetition.
And the Emancipation Field gets rid of unauthorized material. You do the math.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Shoulda played the real Portal 2: Quantum Conundrum.
That game is good, but no where near the quality of Portal 2. Then again, they are two different games.
Played it through twice. Have it on PC/Steam, but don't usually play online multiplayer, so haven't been able to play Co-Op. Completely agree that the puzzles are much more closed solutions this time. Said as much in my rating of the game on Steam. So the puzzle part is less satisfying taken one-by-one, but there's a lot and they cover a lot of areas, so that helps. Story is wonderful. Getting into non-core path areas to trigger new dialogue that gives a little more backstory on the whole downfall of Aperture is great. Love the Cave Johnson bits and reading all the signs, etc. The puzzles in this game sort of take a back seat to the story, in my opinion. If you can't follow and/or get into the story, then, yeah, I could see how the game may feel like it's dragging on.
Also, Valve games are great not only for their gameplay mechanics, but their stories (backstory included). If you didn't follow the story of Portal you probably won't like Portal 2 since it is very narrative heavy.
I mean people love Half Life not only for it's great gameplay, but it's fantastic storyline. I know I want HL3/EP3 because
There's a whole "Meet the" series for the TF2 characters and Meet the Pyro was super hyped.
Counter Strike is the exception I guess, since it's a multiplayer only game.
But I think you can see my point here.
I mean people love Half Life not only for it's great gameplay, but it's fantastic storyline. I know I want HL3/EP3 because
I want to see what happens with Alyx and Gordon and just some clarification on Eli's death
There's a whole "Meet the" series for the TF2 characters and Meet the Pyro was super hyped.
Counter Strike is the exception I guess, since it's a multiplayer only game.
But I think you can see my point here.
I rewrote what I said - I meant to say that I just got the second gel, and am about 3 puzzles in using it.
Because of this thread, I'm continuing on - I am about three puzzles beyond getting the third gel now.
I've only played about 2 hours of it, but so far Quantum Conundrum is just plain boring :/
Ahh gotcha. Well I don't know what it is then. I guess it's just not for you. The puzzles are what kept me going, and the charm is what made me love it.
toddhunter
Member
Agree and that is what they delivered. Portal only longer with more repetition. As such, it was still good, but overall I felt it was by the numbers and not particularly memorable.
Glad lots of people still really enjoyed it though. I can still see their point of view much more than say somebody who enjoys Halo.
Chrono Helix
Member
I'm not able to agree with this at all. Zipping and bouncing around was so much fun! And in the coop levels,
gel on hard light
Portal 2 was my GOTY by a mile, and I enjoyed Halo 1 a lot. But I can't fathom how anyone enjoys Resident Evil 4, so I can see your point of view too
Neuromancer
Member
You are not alone. I felt exactly the same way. They really lost the sarcastic and mean spirited edge of the first game and basically went full on slap stick. The ending is particularly awful. Oh well, most people ate it up with a spoon so I'm sure Portal 3 will be even wackier/zanier.
Pixel Pete
Member
This thread makes me want to ditch all my new unplayed games with massively multiplaying, and tesselated nose pores and headset simulators and just play Portal 2 again.
Hey! I actually really enjoyed Portal 2 because it didn't do that. In fact, wasn't that essentially the mission statement of the game's writer?
Valve said they were through making AAA single-player games, so I took that to mean that there basically wouldn't be a real Portal 3 coming.
Figured they'd just merge the storyline of Aperture Science into Half-Life 3, which will probably be a MMOF2P game or something based on current trends.
Your not alone OP. I really didn't like the game at all. I absolutely loved Portal 1 and finished it in essentially two sittings, but I've pretty much had the game since release and still haven't finished it. and have no desire to really get back to it.
To preface - I was going through a rough time in my personal life when I was playing it, so that may have affected my enjoyment of the title. I should really give it a another chance someday in that case.
and have no desire to really get back to it.To preface - I was going through a rough time in my personal life when I was playing it, so that may have affected my enjoyment of the title. I should really give it a another chance someday in that case.
DJSharpeCheddar must not have played Portal 2 lol
Neuromancer
Member
Portal 2 is Valve's Caddyshack- by Michael Thomsen
Great piece if you haven't read it already, OP and like minded individuals (be careful of spoilers though, he talks about the end of the game.) Obviously if you loved the game you're not going to agree with it but it really resonated with me.
Some excerpts:
With Portal 2, Eric Wolpaw said the aim was to amplify the comedy--to avoid aiming for a masterpiece and instead shoot for Caddyshack. It's hard to see how aiming for Caddyshack would improve on the original or meaningfully expand on its themes, but having played through Portal 2 three times now I can say that Wolpaw, along with Chet Faliszek and humorist Jay Pinkerton, accomplished what they set out to.
...
Yet their cuts against Chell don't survive even the most superficial scrutiny. They're insult comic jokes, GLaDOS impersonating Don Rickles. I would love to play a game with a fat protagonist where the character's weight became a recurring subject in both control and dialogue. Chell is obviously not fat. From the first test room you can see she is a slender woman. Making fun of a character for having a quality she clearly doesn't have creates a sloppy dissonance. It sacrifices thematic coherence for the sake of a zinger surprising the player with how lowbrow the super intellect is willing to go.
...
Here again the humor is trapped in shallowness. It might actually have been interesting to make the grand invention of the second game brain damage. Maybe after all those years in stasis Chell's brain function has degraded and the challenge will now come from experiencing the mundane actions and objects as inscrutably foreign. Instead, the gag is designed to make you look stupid to another character, himself designed to be stupid. This is the comic equivalent of a monster closet, a lousy trick and as vapid as the fat jokes.
...
Portal was a kind of Dr. Strangelove, a dark and absurd evocation of an anxiety of the time: technology creep imprinting vast dehumanizing networks over the organic clutter of civilization. For the sequel Valve made Caddyshack.
Obviously the writer still liked the game, having played it three times, just has some (valid) complaints about it.
Great piece if you haven't read it already, OP and like minded individuals (be careful of spoilers though, he talks about the end of the game.) Obviously if you loved the game you're not going to agree with it but it really resonated with me.
Some excerpts:
With Portal 2, Eric Wolpaw said the aim was to amplify the comedy--to avoid aiming for a masterpiece and instead shoot for Caddyshack. It's hard to see how aiming for Caddyshack would improve on the original or meaningfully expand on its themes, but having played through Portal 2 three times now I can say that Wolpaw, along with Chet Faliszek and humorist Jay Pinkerton, accomplished what they set out to.
...
Yet their cuts against Chell don't survive even the most superficial scrutiny. They're insult comic jokes, GLaDOS impersonating Don Rickles. I would love to play a game with a fat protagonist where the character's weight became a recurring subject in both control and dialogue. Chell is obviously not fat. From the first test room you can see she is a slender woman. Making fun of a character for having a quality she clearly doesn't have creates a sloppy dissonance. It sacrifices thematic coherence for the sake of a zinger surprising the player with how lowbrow the super intellect is willing to go.
...
Here again the humor is trapped in shallowness. It might actually have been interesting to make the grand invention of the second game brain damage. Maybe after all those years in stasis Chell's brain function has degraded and the challenge will now come from experiencing the mundane actions and objects as inscrutably foreign. Instead, the gag is designed to make you look stupid to another character, himself designed to be stupid. This is the comic equivalent of a monster closet, a lousy trick and as vapid as the fat jokes.
...
Portal was a kind of Dr. Strangelove, a dark and absurd evocation of an anxiety of the time: technology creep imprinting vast dehumanizing networks over the organic clutter of civilization. For the sequel Valve made Caddyshack.
Obviously the writer still liked the game, having played it three times, just has some (valid) complaints about it.
nephilimdj
Member
but thats kim swifts game, never have a proper Narbacular Drop team designed portal 2 like no1
PsychoSoldier
Banned
I actually liked the writing fine but I didn't feel like the game had a good flow once you got to the underground. I just stopped enjoying it at a certain point.
JasonUresti
Member
Apparently written by a guy who has never seen said action flicks. Those 80's action star films weren't filled with pointless swearing and vulgar dialog. Bulletstorm is just terrible writing.
Please, go watch Predator or Terminator, and then play Bulletstorm, and come say that again with a straight face.
From "I don't care who you are back in the world, you give our position one more time and I'll bleed you, real quiet, and leave you here. Got it?"
to
"LOL fucking dicktits I'mma shove my hand down your fucking throat and poop in your face, dicktit master!"
Bulletstorm took a swing and miss, which is even more sad as they weren't even aiming at the right thing.
EmCeeGramr
Member
I- I'm not sure this gentleman understands what jokes are.
EmCeeGramr
Member
GLaDOS and Wheatley giving you nasty but untrue insults every so often was funny because they could keep doing it. You're a mute, and can't refute their words even though you want to. GLaDOS did it because she knew it would push your buttons, because she knows you best, and because she absolutely hates you for killing and humiliating her so she goes straight for the jugular. Wheatley did it because he's an incompetent who can only ape what far smarter people do.
Neuromancer
Member
Eh I thought there was one funny line in the whole game. The rest was just nonsense.
Bulletstorm is NOT parodying 80s action flicks. Not sure why anyone would say that.
It's parodying games like CoD, Gears, etc. Shooters that think they're far smarter than they actually are. The hyper-vulgarity and hyper-violence of those games is endlessly mocked in Bulletstorm. It shows just how destructive that glorification of ridiculous masculinity actually is.
I refuse to believe the fact that the main enemy is a psychopathic man child, who sounds like a 12-year-old CoD player, leading a bunch of faceless space marines wasn't intentional.
Hell the entire skillshot system, which is an obvious parody of games like CoD rewarding you for doing anything 'cool', was in fact created by that very enemy.
It's parodying games like CoD, Gears, etc. Shooters that think they're far smarter than they actually are. The hyper-vulgarity and hyper-violence of those games is endlessly mocked in Bulletstorm. It shows just how destructive that glorification of ridiculous masculinity actually is.
I refuse to believe the fact that the main enemy is a psychopathic man child, who sounds like a 12-year-old CoD player, leading a bunch of faceless space marines wasn't intentional.
Hell the entire skillshot system, which is an obvious parody of games like CoD rewarding you for doing anything 'cool', was in fact created by that very enemy.
No, it's not. One of the developers posted something on Gamasutra saying that it was not purposefully stupid or any sort of parody, just that they thought it was hilarious and aren't native english speakers.
99% of the time when you think a game is over-top-stupid on purpose you're wrong.
Neuromancer
Member
The 1% being Saints Row the Third I suppose.
Neuromancer
Member
Just because the writer thought a joke was funny doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be funny to everyone, right? Surely you two can concede that point.
Thomsen understood those particular jokes, he just didn't think they worked. There's a big difference. And I agree with him, in both cases I wasn't particularly amused either.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Are you being sarcastic, or are you seriously implying that Valve not basing the entire game on a one-off joke is a valid complaint?Neuromancer said:
Neuromancer
Member
I'm sorry but I don't understand the question.
Why would insults that are obviously not grounded in reality be nasty or motivational? Why would you want to or need to refute them?
If GLaDOS knows you so well why doesn't she insult you with something relevant?
Also it's really a pet-peeve of mine when people take a game that is dumb and say "it's so dumb it clearly must be a parody!" That's giving most games way too much credit. (Talking about Bulletstorm here again) Most games just really are that dumb, without a hint of self-awareness.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Because it's funny.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Fimbulvetr
Member
I assume you included this excerpt because it's one of the parts that it "really resonated" with you, yes?
That has nothing to do with what you claimed.
What you wrote before frankly doesn't make sense. Humor is subjective, sure, and maybe you found it funny, but surely someone who knows you well and is going for the jugular would make jokes personally relevant right? Would you be terribly insulted if I made a joke about how your pet squid totally smells bad? I'm guessing no.
Of course, so what?
My point is he did NOT understand that specific joke. He's saying the writers shoehorned in a generic fat joke because they like fat jokes, ignoring the fact that Chell is not actually fat. How could they do that?
It obviously flew right over his head. The joke is actually funnier because she isn't fat. Maybe his explanations for why some other bits of writing didn't work, but he missed the point completely in this particular example. When you're trying so hard to sound knowledgeable an oversight like that is embarrassing.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Not necessarily. To someone like Chell or the player, it would really get under your skin to have a joke like that made when it doesn't make a lot of sense and they keep saying it. Then you laugh because the all powerful computer is now so petty and upset with you that they'd keep putting all this effort into these inappropriate insulting jokes to make you mad. It's a hilarious farce. You laugh at the jokes themselves and the bizarre funny scenario that spawned them.