Okay, actual review time.
If you've been following the excellent saga that is 'random Irish guy writes shitty one-liners about video games' the beloved spinoff to 'random Irish guy writes shitty webnovels inspired mostly by video game plots as well as whatever was in the Spotify playlist that day' you'll know I wrote an actual review of Portal , and thought it was just okay. A decent demo of new tech with a fun enough plot even if the momentum based puzzles were a bit jank in areas. But everyone said Portal 2 was the great one and god damn they were right.
Right from the beginning when Wheatley wakes you up and the world starts crumbling around you as Glados notices your presence, in psychics showcases that to this day are extremely impressive looking, with dialogue that's genuinely funny as you talk to two parties who absolutely hate each other, going through more fun puzzles that feel more tightly designed than in one.
Then the big halfway twist happens.
I'm not gonna go too in detail on how you end up in the abandoned part of aperture, because I knew what the twist was and was still shocked at it. But the second half leads to the game's greatest strength.
atmosphere.
Every part of this game oozes atmosphere thanks to the more varied settings, getting to traverse with portals outside of the first games testing environments for longer periods of time. The prerecorded messages as funny as they are deeply unsettling. I do have a personal phobia of both abandoned places and the whole 'upload your brain into a machine' concept so maybe this whole thing spoke to me on a deeper level, but god damn if I wasn't creeped out the whole time. This has scared me more than basically any horror movie I've ever watched, and the plot and premise probably wouldn't be that hard to rewrite into a dreamworks film, which adds to the game's artistic qualities.
So in general, it's a masterpiece. You didn't need me to say that. Only flaw is some of the later puzzles last a tad too long, and the orange gel kept sliding me just besides my portal instead of into them (or maybe that's just me getting filtered by first person gaming again)
If you've been following the excellent saga that is 'random Irish guy writes shitty one-liners about video games' the beloved spinoff to 'random Irish guy writes shitty webnovels inspired mostly by video game plots as well as whatever was in the Spotify playlist that day' you'll know I wrote an actual review of Portal , and thought it was just okay. A decent demo of new tech with a fun enough plot even if the momentum based puzzles were a bit jank in areas. But everyone said Portal 2 was the great one and god damn they were right.
Right from the beginning when Wheatley wakes you up and the world starts crumbling around you as Glados notices your presence, in psychics showcases that to this day are extremely impressive looking, with dialogue that's genuinely funny as you talk to two parties who absolutely hate each other, going through more fun puzzles that feel more tightly designed than in one.
Then the big halfway twist happens.
I'm not gonna go too in detail on how you end up in the abandoned part of aperture, because I knew what the twist was and was still shocked at it. But the second half leads to the game's greatest strength.
atmosphere.
Every part of this game oozes atmosphere thanks to the more varied settings, getting to traverse with portals outside of the first games testing environments for longer periods of time. The prerecorded messages as funny as they are deeply unsettling. I do have a personal phobia of both abandoned places and the whole 'upload your brain into a machine' concept so maybe this whole thing spoke to me on a deeper level, but god damn if I wasn't creeped out the whole time. This has scared me more than basically any horror movie I've ever watched, and the plot and premise probably wouldn't be that hard to rewrite into a dreamworks film, which adds to the game's artistic qualities.
So in general, it's a masterpiece. You didn't need me to say that. Only flaw is some of the later puzzles last a tad too long, and the orange gel kept sliding me just besides my portal instead of into them (or maybe that's just me getting filtered by first person gaming again)