Portal 2

I have to admit, I wasn’t the greatest at the first Portal, it took me a little longer than some people, not like 5 hours longer or anything but it was a different story regarding Portal 2. I finished Portal 2 a couple of days ago and have been meaning to write about it. I finished it over 2 days. The first day I was so excited I played it for like 8 hours straight. The next day I polished it off in 2 hours. Gameplay wise it was approximately 10 hours or so and what a 10 hours it was!

It’s amazing how much content you can squeeze out of the Source engine and it still looks up to date with current games. It doesn’t look as amazing as games like Crysis 2 or anything but no one plays Portal 2 for the graphics, you play it for the gameplay and I think this is a perfect game to explain how I am trying to look at games currently and in the future. A lot of review sites review games based on gameplay, graphics, sound and longevity but I want to add another factor that people don’t seem to take into account when rating a game, how fun it is. All the other factors are still hugely important but I think the fun factor trumps them all and that’ll play an important part in this review and others to come.

Portal 2 takes place years after the first Portal. Aperture Laboratories are overgrown with nature and you have just come out of stasis. GLaDOS is dead. As you progress through the game the laboratories are slowly rebuilt. Portal 2 is even more funny than the last one in my opinion. With the addition of Wheatley, voiced by Stephen Merchant and Cave Johnson, (every line he has is hilarious) voiced by J. K. Simmons there are more hilarious quotes than the last. And of course GLaDOS, voiced by Ellen McLain, comes back in the sequel who is equally funny if not more.

Now into the meat of the game, the puzzles. In the first one there wasn’t too many puzzles. I believe there were 19 test chambers and more puzzles when you escaped. In Portal 2 I think there are 41 test chambers, that sounds way too much but I think there are 22 in the first section then 19 later on and that isn’t including puzzles when you escape… I think. Don’t hold me to those numbers. Basically there is a crap load more puzzles to solve in Portal 2. I don’t know what it was, maybe because I had played the first one and knew what I was getting into or Portal 2 was easier but I zoomed through the singleplayer. I got stuck on 2 or 3 puzzles but I solved them in the end. Most importantly I didn’t use a walkthrough! In Portal, if you get stuck all you got to do is keep on moving around the test chamber until you see the puzzle in a different way. I did that (and stayed calm and didn’t throw my controller across the room) and I ended up solving puzzles I got stuck on and it feels pretty good when you’re stuck on a puzzle for 45 minutes then suddenly you get a brainwave and you solve it!

I know I can’t complain because Portal 2 is a lot longer than the first and it could be because I played it a lot on the first day but I really wish there were more puzzles to solve! I hope Portal 2 is supported with a crap load of DLC. And I haven’t had a chance to play coop yet, hopefully that will take up a lot of my time.

There isn’t much else to Portal other than voice and gameplay. It’s a really fun game. The puzzles aren’t too difficult that you get frustrated and you never feel as if it’s the games fault. I was really pleased with the ending of it too but I won’t ruin anything. If you haven’t played it, go play it. It’s a different game to others and it’s a lot of fun even if you aren’t shooting at people.

Battlefield over Call of Duty

I haven’t posted anything in a while so I thought I’d talk about something that is kind of important in games right now and will be later on this year. Lately I’ve been a lot more interested in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I bought the game when it first came out and I immediately fell in love, I played a lot of COD near the end of MW2 and pretty much played COD over Battlefield most of the time, only going back for a game or two. Now I’m back in and really excited for Battlefield 3 and not so excited for MW3.

For me it’s the gameplay, I do enjoy arena games like Halo and COD but I love the open battlefields and realistic gameplay that is showcased in Battlefield. I understand that games like COD may take more gun skill to drop opponents and complete objectives but in Battlefield you have to work together, I mean it’s like real war! You have to revive to keep ticket numbers up, give ammo, spot people etc. There are a lot of games that I want for example, L.A. Noire, Portal 2 and games that haven’t come out yet like Skyrim but I haven’t been feeling the same way about MW3. The engine has hardly been upgraded since COD4 and I’m not a graphics whore! But seriously, the Frostbite engine has was upgraded from Bad Company 1 to Bad Company 2 and now they are upgrading it again! That shows that DICE aren’t looking for a game to crap out every year whether it’s ready or not, they want to take their sweet time making a quality game. Who knows, with Sledgehammer helping Infinity Ward on the campaign and Raven Software takes care of the multiplayer, we could see a great experience in online gaming, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

I know it sounds like I’m crapping on the Call of Duty franchise which I am and not very subtly but I do love Call of Duty no matter how much it angers me sometimes. In fact I am getting into it a little more thanks to Machinima Respawn posting competitive gamebattle matches and the Call of Community which just passed really got my hyped up to play Call of Duty.

I’m not sure if I’ll get MW3 but I’m not going to say no straight away. I know if something sells why stop selling it but I hope Activision one day see that enough is enough and do something about the franchise.

The cake is a lie…

After I heard that Portal 2 would be released I realised that I needed to get off my ass and start playing, or get on my ass and start playing, who plays standing up? Anyway, I downloaded it for PC and got playing. I had two of my friends yapping in my ear over Xbox Live whilst I played it. Near the end of the game I realised that, that was a bad idea. At one point I got so frustrated I kicked them from the party, literally two seconds later I worked out the puzzle. The first time you play this game, I would recommend that you play it in a peaceful environment, you gotta concentrate.

I know this is an old game but I thought I’d review it, everyone still loves the game, especially because the sequel has been released. You are immediately dropped into the Aperture Science  testing facility, no cut scenes or anything, straight to the point. You first start off with a gun that can only shoot blue portals. I like how they ease you into the game yet drop you into it. The puzzles at the beginning aren’t immediately easy. Compared to the stuff you have to do at the end of the game, it’s easy but you still have to think about it. During the game I grew to hate the energy balls, things that bounce around the room and, like everything else can travel through portals. I would always end up placing a portal in the path of the energy ball and placing another one at another part of the room, every time the ball would travel through the portal and hit me. The game consists of 19 puzzles but it didn’t feel like it. I’m just remembering what I saw on the wall before I started each puzzle.

Portal is a really fun game but it would be empty without GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). Even though she is a horrible robot who promises me cake after every puzzle but actually wants to kill me, GLaDOS is still really funny, laugh out loud funny at some points. Portal is really short, if I wasn’t being distracted by food and my friends I probably would have completed the game in an hour. I thought the game was perfect length, probably because I suck at puzzle games, I’m more for shooting people in the face.

At some points I felt kinda lonely, running around the Aperture Science testing facilities with a portal gun, only hearing GLaDOS’ voice every so often. I’m really happy to hear that they’ve added a little sidekick, Wheatley. This will, without a doubt add to the game, not to mention that Wheatley is voiced by Stephen Merchant.

After playing the first Portal I have definitely become a fan and so far I haven’t come across a person who has played Portal and doesn’t like it. Hopefully I’ll stumble across Portal 2 and maybe, just maybe I’ll post a review of it.