EzraPound said:
Uhhh. . . you mean finding where to put the other other other portal?
Portal 2 actually expanded considerably upon the gameplay of the original, at least in the co-op--which is, after all, the bulk of the game. In that mode, the puzzles were intelligently constructed, the gameplay was considerably more complex than in the original (owing to the necessity of employing four portals rather than two), and the catty subliminals leveled at you by GLaDOS typically evoked responses ranging from a slender grin to bouts of laughter that threatened to undermine your progress. Worth mentioning, too, is that Portal 2 was much longer in duration than its predecessor--Portal's length belied its status as an Orange Box gratuity--and that the addition of "paints", which affected the acrobatical potential of the robots in question, contributed a whole, hitherto unexplored dimension to the game.
You know exactly what I mean. In SP, there isn't one actually complex puzzle. All the 'challenge' comes from missing where to put a portal at first glance. In co-op, sure, they're a little more complex, but nothing that couldn't be done by 8-year-olds. Which is apparently who they made the game for.
Co-op is the bulk of the game? Mind explaining, considering it's something like 2 hours long in comparison to the single player's 6? I said the game's cute, you're not going to make me buy the game's humor by explaining it. The problem I had with that part is that I've had just enough of it with the first Portal, and Portal 2 tries to do the same thing, only much more of it, dragging the whole tone of the game down along with it.
No shit it's longer than Portal - Portal was a small experiment of a game. And the replay value of them is practically the same, except one of them, again, is a small game, as opposed to a AAA title.
Deus Ex: HR, by contrast, contributed very little to the DX formula other than infusing it with a few (admittedly well-implemented) clichés of the post-Halo schmup era--regenerating health, a cover system, etc.--a necessary graphical overhaul, and adding boss fights so incongruous with the series' previous design goals that they did more to sully the experience than to enhance it. Byinlarge, it was competent yet deeply uncreative game; one that dispensed with much of the moral complexity and flexible gameplay of the original (remember when you had to choose your augmentations? or when moral decision-making was more elusive than deciding whether to chuck someone off a rooftop or whether to have them arrested?) and replaced it with vacuous faux-moral conundrums à la BioWare whilst adding a few refinements to the gameplay features that were already staples of the DX series.
And despite all this, Deus Ex: HR is the biggest breath of fresh air in the industry for a while. The original is extremely dated, too, so bringing that game into the modern era can not be anything but a good thing if it's done competently.
