Reviewed on Xbox 360
Hmmm, Portal 2, where could I possibly begin? Well I suppose the beginning would be as good a place as any. Yeah that would make sense.
Portal 2 takes place a long, long time after the events of the original game and is again set in the Aperture science laboratory. Time has not been kind to the old place and the entire facility has fallen into complete disrepair without GLADOS at the helm. The whole place is filled with broken glass, busted panels & overgrown plants (vegetables too).
The depiction of Aperture in Portal 2 is nothing short of stunning, from the beat up hallways to the massive underground levels that house some of apertures earliest experiments and testing rooms. The games environment has been beautifully polished.
Now before I turn into an interior design critic, I’ll get back to the subject at hand. The plot. In summary, you play Chell (you know that one from the first game) who wakes up in the Aperture test centre sleeping quarters only to be greeted by the room falling apart around her and a weird little rail mounted robot who goes by the name Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant). Wheatley has dreams of escaping Aperture and he needs your help or more accurately he needs the portal gun which he quickly directs you into finding. And of course in true FPS style, the portal gun can only firer one type of portal, I assume this is so the player can get to grips with the mind numbingly complex idea behind the portal gun, in a sort of 'ease them gently into it' sort of way, but I just found it a little patronizing. But enough about that. Basically, Wheatley leads you around Aperture for a couple of minutes until eventually sending you into some sort of fuse box control room which yes you guessed it, ends up waking GLADOS up from her century long cat nap. Now don’t get me wrong but I thought we’d killed GLADOS in the first game, and yes it was nice to see her up and about again, in truth I even made a weird girlish squeak when the bombshell was revealed. But it did leave me wondering about what sort of dictionary Valve used when they were researching terms? Because it would appear that the term death in Portal doesn’t exactly mean death and it actually means OFF, because if this scene is anything to go by GLADOS was not dead, she was OFF. And what happened to all the bloody damage we did in the first one, she should be in pieces “chill Mike it’s just a game”, sorry about that. Anyway that’s basically it. You wake up, GLADOS wakes up, and shit hits the fan. A lot more happens after this of course but you’ll just have to play it to find out the rest.
That’s the formalities out of way now on with the review.
Portal 2 is the sequel to Portal 1, as you might have already guessed, and that being the case it is clear to see that Portal 2 has some pretty big boots to fill. Seeing as though Portal is a widely successful and popular game that frequently appears in the top tens of reviewers, critics and everyday Joes. Despite its handy cap of only being an add on game (or space filler) in the orange box. The series has come along from those humble days of subtle triumph and it now has a sequel, with it own box and everything (and it’s not orange). But this is what troubled me in the lead up to the games launch day, because one of Portals best features was that it was a game that didn’t overstay its welcome. By that I mean, it was perfect in length. It wasn’t to long so that it included portions of game that could have been considered as pointless “here’s looking at you Final Fantasy XIII”. And it wasn’t to short that it felt like I’d only played a demo of a game yet to be released “pointing finger accusingly at Home Front”. It was just right, would be my opinion, others of course might say something like “I felt like I was ripped off, it was that short” despite the fact it was freebie. But we don’t listen to these people as it is usually these that dilute the praise and respect a game should get with complete and total dickery. But I digress and find my self beating around the bush in hopes that I can avoid critiquing this game out of respect for the franchise. But despite the love I feel for this game, I am a critic and a critic’s job is to criticise. And even though Portal 2 is a very highly polished and entertaining game there are a few things about it that need to be said. Now before we go any further I must stress as stated before that I am a critic and not a reviewer, even though I have referred to this article as a review at least at one point in this review (there I did it again) and therefore I must criticise. Of course I will be praising Portal 2 in the places that it deserves praise, and there are a hell of a lot of places it deserves praise, but there are also some parts that don’t. So unlike every other person who has reviewed this game I will not be getting down on the ground to suck the proverbial dong of Portal 2 and I will be mean, just to let you know.
Now if Portal 1 was Jesus Christ as per what I have heard many people described it as, then Portal 2 is most certainly Jebus Christ, Jesus’s fatter brother. They both have the same god like super powers but Jebus is not as cool as Jesus, and some may consider him a bit of a bore. The kind of person that tells the same old joke over and over again at a party. Now don’t get me wrong I’m certainly not saying that Portal 2 was boring, not in so many words at least. I’m just saying that there was something about it that wasn’t quite right, like eating a delicious meal and then realizing a while later that the fish you used may have been a little off. I have however worked out what that feeling of unease is. Its GLADOS, she just seems to have lost her edge. Gone are the days when GLADOS could insult you while at the same time send a chill into your bones with a simple one liner. Gone are the days when you’d look forward to what she had to say next. Gone are the days when you’d mutter under you breath “what a bitch” after a snipe about Chell being fat. There are some quotes from her in this second instalment that are hilarious while at the same time come off as a little chilling but its as if she lost the passion she had in the first game. Now this may have been intentional by the developers, but from a players perspective it just comes off as a step in the wrong direction compared to Portal 1 in which you couldn’t turn a corner without GLADOS making a perfectly timed and appropriate comment. In fluff terms (fluff being the world of the story) she could have been focusing her attention on rebuilding Aperture and not paying much attention to Chell and the test. This is an argument a friend gave me, it makes sense to some degree until (SPOILER ALERT), she’s turned into a potato. And you’ve got to carry her around on the end of the portal gun for most of the second half of the game. In which time I might add she barely says a word despite being right there with you (to argue my friends argument), and the only time she does speak is to complain and scream about the birds. The same friend from before also had an answer for this too (smart ass) “but she’s got to reserve her power, she cant speak much, she is being run by a potato after all” to which I replied “FUCK YOU, this game is based on the premise of being in a massive secret underground laboratory where you use a gun that can morph the very fabric of reality itself, and you telling me that it’s a step to far to have a potato that could by chance give off a little more juice than you kitchen standard, so that the AI computer attached to it could at least carry her side (or all the side, given Chell a mute) of a bloody conversation”. I may be paraphrasing myself of course but that’s basically the argument that took place.
All I’m saying is it would have been nice to have GLADOS speak up a little more because, given the lack of atmospheric background music in Portal 2, there were parts of the games that weren’t exactly audibly stimulating (for gods sake I kept checking my T.V to make sure it wasn’t on mute). GLADOS does get better towards the end of the game when you are reunited with Wheatley but it was a little bit too late for my liking and therefore I feel it hurt the overall experience.
Other parts of the game did this too, for example there were a few situations were I was battling a puzzle in the underbelly of Aperture laboratories or Wheatley laboratories (as its called at the time) where I thought “this feels a little bit tacked on”. Not all of it felt this way, the majority of the game in the lower levels felt great and they certainly added scope and mystery to the sheer size of Aperture (also I hear there's a ship down there somewhere, couldn’t find it though). But there was a minority that felt as if it was a stepping stone over a puddle not even a millimetre deep. I am perfectly aware that these portions of the game had a vital role to play in the Grande scheme of things by introducing the player to a few new mechanics included in Portal 2.
One of these new addition in the Repulsion Gel, which is a weird blue gel substance that when spread on the floor like butter on toast acts as a sort of trampoline off which the player can bounce themselves in order to reach higher levels. There’s also Propulsion Gel, another weird gel like substance (this time it's red) that acts as a boost plate on which the players movement speed in dramatically increased all the time your on it. This can be used to throw yourself off of ramps or can be combined with the Repulsion Gel to increase the distance you can bounce. And last but not least there’s the white paint, this may have a proper name but I don’t know it. Which can be used to make new surface for you to portal onto, sounds great huh, there are however a few gripes I have about this white paint which I will talk about later, mainly about the very existence of it, given the ending to the game, but that’s for later. There is another new addition which comes in the form of a gel, and that is the paint thinner which actually wipes off the white paint used to create portals on, but seeing as though this mechanic only appears in about 2 puzzles I’m going to ignore its very existence and chalk it up to a disappointing waste of a good excuse for some interesting puzzles.
Now all of these new additions to the game are very welcome and I had a lot of fun playing about with them especially the part where I could bounce between walls using the Repulsion Gel. But after a few hours of going though the puzzles in the lower levels of Aperture I began to have flash backs to the overly used see-saw physics of that of the Half-Life series, and eventually I found myself hoping that this puzzle would be the last time I see these new game mechanics, but alas every time I was wrong. Eventually though you do get out of the lower levels and back to where Wheatley is, which is hilarious by the way, I don’t want to give away to much in case a few of you haven’t played the game yet, but what I will say is “weren’t the turret boxes great” I spent about 20 minutes watching them through the glass the first time you see them, oddly cute too. From here on out the game kicks it into second gear and had me hooked all the way up until the finale, so I have nothing to complain about there. Apart form the lack of options that we had to dispatch enemy turrets but that’s neither here nor there, and it can be forgiven, but what can not be forgiven is an aspect of the finale that contradicts pretty much everything we know about Portal and the way the Aperture world works. If you’ve played it you’ll know what I’m talking about. I mean seriously guys all the way through the game we are led to believe that we can only place portals on particular walls, which makes sense to a degree. Because at one point we are told that the paint used to for us to portal on to is made of moon rocks, okay that's all fine and dandy, but there are occasions when that paint is on a few surfaces throughout the game that we cannot portal onto, and I always put this down to the surfaces being to rounded or not flat enough for the portals to work on. BUT THE FUCKING MOON, seriously. It was cool yes, I was smiling the entire time, but it does lead to some question to why we couldn’t portal onto those previously mentioned surfaces or are we supposed to believe that the moon is perfectly flat “yes, we are, oh I guess that makes sense”. I’m not saying that the ending should have been different, by gods no! It was a fantastic ending and the guys at valve should be proud of the way they ended such a fantastic game, but it did raise questions, that’s all I’m saying. Admittedly these question only arose in my mind once I’d put the pad down, walked away from the game, got a cup of tea, watched a bit of television and dealt with some private business. But the question came up, that’s all I’m saying.
Now if you want to whine and complain to me about “how it’s just a game, and it shouldn’t be taken seriously”, then there’s a comment box on the site under this article and I would welcome a conversation/debate/full blown argument on the subject.
In conclusion Portal 2 is a fantastic game and it’s defiantly worth the money you’d pay for it where ever you are in the world. And you shouldn’t let any of the things I’ve said about it stop you from buying it. In fact forget everything I’ve just said and go buy the damn game, you will not be disappointed. The co-op may let you down a little bit but as long as you’re not a grumpy cynic (finger pointed at myself) then you will defiantly enjoy this latest masterpiece from Valve. Oh and while were on the subject of Valve, I just have on more thing to say.
“WHERE THE BLOODY HELL IS HALF LIFE: EPISODE 3”.
Thanks for reading guys. Much love.
Sincerely
Mike Harris
http://gamegrill.blogspot.com/
Keywords: Portal 2, Portal, XBOX 360, Video Game, Valve, GLADOS, Chell, Wheatley, Still Alive, Cake
Keywords: Portal 2, Portal, XBOX 360, Video Game, Valve, GLADOS, Chell, Wheatley, Still Alive, Cake
No comments:
Post a Comment