Yes...it's one of those threads, don't like it, leave and stop clogging it up with your tears of outrage.
Well well well, hype sure is a funny thing isn't it? Before a game's released it's going to be the best thing ever conceived by man, and once it's out said over hyped game will either go two ways, a few people will 'love' it and then so will a lot of "like minded people", this can be your GTA4 or Dragon Age, or a few people can 'hate' it and so will also a lot of "like minded people", these will be your DA2s or Duke Nukem
Which brings me on to the title, making use of a free trial from Lovefilm I decided to give it a go, after being quite underwhelmed by the first Portal [there goes that hype machine again] I was loathe to pay to play the sequel.
Turns out it was a good call.
Here's what I noticed that was left out of most reviews, especially on here:
The first few test chambers are copy - pasted from the first one. Ok? Well you know, if I wanted to play the first one [and a slightly less brown version], maybe you know, I would? Instead of playing through it again in a different bloody game?
This takes me onto point two, it's not very different at all is it? You have the exact same gun, the exact same locale [except everything is brown now] and aside from some pretty good running around bits it just feels like an expansion pack to the first, that makes everything brown, and gives you a bumbling sidekick.
Ah yes, Wheatley, now I did like him, but somehow he managed to get on my nerves at the same time, that's quite a skill. I think his main problem was him Not. Shutting. The fuck. Up. I don't know who wrote his lines, maybe it was Stephen Merchant, but somebody should have trimmed them by at least half, he would have probably been funnier then. It's not a coincidence that he actually gets funnier when you only see him every 10-30 minutes.
That very loosely takes us to writing, which I have heard described as 'beautiful', true this is a very tricky term to nail down, and has many philosophical implications, contexts and subjectivity involved, but I have been of the persuasion that 'beauty' is something special, something intricate and extremely well worded, using phrases and terms outside the common sphere of communication, or even just genius word play and sentence structure. Although this point is not so much a criticism of the game as it is of people who think a wall of standard to humorous text can ever truly be 'beautiful'
Next point, wall of text, my right TV speaker is broken [so if I'm ever standing on the left of someone I cannot hear what they are saying] so in some of the games many set pieces I decided to turn subtitles on, which with Wheatley around turned out to be a terrible idea, that was some of the worst subtitling I have ever seen, it literally took up half the screen [and in the bit where you have to carry Wheately your vision is impaired enough as it is]
Ok so let's talk about the bits after you fall down that big pit, where Wheately actually becomes funny. Truth is I can't remember that bit too much, it was all so brown, samey and incredibly dull I just autopiloted through the whole area until something good happened, which was the life gives you lemons part, a Portal meme that actually lives up to it's supposed hilarity? Amazing.
It's only really after that part that the game becomes really good, up until then I was breezing through and just smiling at a few of the jokes, but after that point it's like the game says "haha, you thought this game was average? See what we can really do!" So yea, the game became really good, but I still had to put up with the ok beginning and the tedious middle sections.
Anyway, all these points have been following some vague structure, but here's a few more to get that rage building.
I've read that Portal 2 plays with aesthetics in a way no other game has, or something to that effect in an infuriatingly elitist article by Shamus Young about Portal 2 haters, but I don't see what he meant, it looks exactly like Portal, but instead of everything being white, now everything has brown on it. I'd go so far as to say that brown was the key colour in the game, what's that? Other games can't use brown at all but Portal can? AND be original about it? That's...interesting.
Another thing only Portal games seem to be able to get away with is length, Cod4 lasted longer than that game [and was less brown, and had nukes...]
It's probably time to wrap this up now, I'm getting hungry. I don't know how productive this thread is, or even what I'm trying to say, I enjoyed Portal 2, but not as much as it's disciples had tried luring me to believe, fortunately I was steadfast and played a good game without blindly thinking it was excellent, so I suppose moral of the story is not to trust hype?
Oh yea, you'll want some discussion value, have fun flaming me for "not getting the game" [either physically or intellectually] or because "I'm just trollin'" or because "this post is too long" or even because this thread has no discussion value. All I is that you read through and ask yourself "did I notice some of these things too? But didn't let it get in the way of a supposedly perfect game?"
And if you read all the way to the bottom, thanks.
Well well well, hype sure is a funny thing isn't it? Before a game's released it's going to be the best thing ever conceived by man, and once it's out said over hyped game will either go two ways, a few people will 'love' it and then so will a lot of "like minded people", this can be your GTA4 or Dragon Age, or a few people can 'hate' it and so will also a lot of "like minded people", these will be your DA2s or Duke Nukem
Which brings me on to the title, making use of a free trial from Lovefilm I decided to give it a go, after being quite underwhelmed by the first Portal [there goes that hype machine again] I was loathe to pay to play the sequel.
Turns out it was a good call.
Here's what I noticed that was left out of most reviews, especially on here:
The first few test chambers are copy - pasted from the first one. Ok? Well you know, if I wanted to play the first one [and a slightly less brown version], maybe you know, I would? Instead of playing through it again in a different bloody game?
This takes me onto point two, it's not very different at all is it? You have the exact same gun, the exact same locale [except everything is brown now] and aside from some pretty good running around bits it just feels like an expansion pack to the first, that makes everything brown, and gives you a bumbling sidekick.
Ah yes, Wheatley, now I did like him, but somehow he managed to get on my nerves at the same time, that's quite a skill. I think his main problem was him Not. Shutting. The fuck. Up. I don't know who wrote his lines, maybe it was Stephen Merchant, but somebody should have trimmed them by at least half, he would have probably been funnier then. It's not a coincidence that he actually gets funnier when you only see him every 10-30 minutes.
That very loosely takes us to writing, which I have heard described as 'beautiful', true this is a very tricky term to nail down, and has many philosophical implications, contexts and subjectivity involved, but I have been of the persuasion that 'beauty' is something special, something intricate and extremely well worded, using phrases and terms outside the common sphere of communication, or even just genius word play and sentence structure. Although this point is not so much a criticism of the game as it is of people who think a wall of standard to humorous text can ever truly be 'beautiful'
Next point, wall of text, my right TV speaker is broken [so if I'm ever standing on the left of someone I cannot hear what they are saying] so in some of the games many set pieces I decided to turn subtitles on, which with Wheatley around turned out to be a terrible idea, that was some of the worst subtitling I have ever seen, it literally took up half the screen [and in the bit where you have to carry Wheately your vision is impaired enough as it is]
Ok so let's talk about the bits after you fall down that big pit, where Wheately actually becomes funny. Truth is I can't remember that bit too much, it was all so brown, samey and incredibly dull I just autopiloted through the whole area until something good happened, which was the life gives you lemons part, a Portal meme that actually lives up to it's supposed hilarity? Amazing.
It's only really after that part that the game becomes really good, up until then I was breezing through and just smiling at a few of the jokes, but after that point it's like the game says "haha, you thought this game was average? See what we can really do!" So yea, the game became really good, but I still had to put up with the ok beginning and the tedious middle sections.
Anyway, all these points have been following some vague structure, but here's a few more to get that rage building.
I've read that Portal 2 plays with aesthetics in a way no other game has, or something to that effect in an infuriatingly elitist article by Shamus Young about Portal 2 haters, but I don't see what he meant, it looks exactly like Portal, but instead of everything being white, now everything has brown on it. I'd go so far as to say that brown was the key colour in the game, what's that? Other games can't use brown at all but Portal can? AND be original about it? That's...interesting.
Another thing only Portal games seem to be able to get away with is length, Cod4 lasted longer than that game [and was less brown, and had nukes...]
It's probably time to wrap this up now, I'm getting hungry. I don't know how productive this thread is, or even what I'm trying to say, I enjoyed Portal 2, but not as much as it's disciples had tried luring me to believe, fortunately I was steadfast and played a good game without blindly thinking it was excellent, so I suppose moral of the story is not to trust hype?
Oh yea, you'll want some discussion value, have fun flaming me for "not getting the game" [either physically or intellectually] or because "I'm just trollin'" or because "this post is too long" or even because this thread has no discussion value. All I is that you read through and ask yourself "did I notice some of these things too? But didn't let it get in the way of a supposedly perfect game?"
And if you read all the way to the bottom, thanks.
