the first game was clever short funny and minimal on story. it was a fun game.
this time they made it longer and added more story and lore and humor.
im sure lots ofstupid gamers loved this but it sorta tarnished what i liked about the original.
the fun of portal 1 was the wacky puzzles in a lonely atmosphere. it was more indifferent to having an audience.
portal 2 still has fun puzzles but the experience can be a little too much hand holding at times :/ and to make that worse the game is insufferably aware that people are playing so its always scrambling to create lore and a story and humor for you to experience when it doesnt need that stuff really.
idk maybe im not even totally against having a story and characters for a portal sequel but it just doesnt deliver it in an interesting or satisfying way. we still dont know anything about our protagonist really (why is she here still?) or much of whats going on with this setting outside of hidden easter eggs and implications. the drama with caroline is hardly explored. the mysterious character leaving writing on the walls (who has gotten obnoxiously better at art for whatever reason) never makes an appearance. like if youre gonna expand on this world at least explain that stuff more or do something with it. and the ending is too ambiguous to be acceptable to me. its all a vague pointless waste of time to include this lore nonsense when it goes nowhere. nothing is utilized for the story so its just a waste of time to have one. all we get is betrayal drama with wheatley and i dont have enough reason to care. i want to escape this facility with or without wheatley so him being evil means nothing to me. its shallow and not really worth it for how long they drag it all out. there maybe couldve been some interesting gender politics & capitalism themes to explore more related to betrayal but its not really dived into beyond vague implications or obnoxious bad humor dialogue.
theres too many filler story sequences where theres loud action music playing and things crashing around you to make you think you should be excited but youre not really solving puzzles or doing anything that interesting. nothing is actually happening its just interactive cutscenes like a theme park ride that dont actually add anything to the ’story’.
im sure all of this worked for most gamers and tricked them into thinking its deeper and better written than it is but i never felt satisfied with it and it only got worse on replay. it doesnt have enough going on for the story to matter or be so front and center like it wants it to be.
i hate that gamer bros loved portal 2’s story yet hated botw’s. like be consistent guys theyre both shallow. at least botw lets you choose to ignore its story flashback cutscenes if you want to and youre allowed to spend more time actually playing the game instead of being railroaded into walkthrough cutscenes.
this game has a beautifully haunting aesthetic so its hard for me to throw it all away.
its still a fun game experience to behold, but the attempts at humorous dialogue used in place of a real storytelling is unfulfilling for what its pretending to be.
i like comedy. i like to laugh. and i did laugh at a fair amount of this game. but god too much of the attempts at humor in this game are just cringe. its probably what tarnishes the game most for me, and upon replaying 5 years later... its aged like cheese. portal 2 is this kind of humor where it thinks its a lot more clever than it is. it feels like a fan made sequel in this aspect. the flavor of person that finds all this shit funny probably loves shows like big bang theory and community. i hate them.
the humor of the first game worked because it wasnt constantly overbearing about it. glados the robot was funny with how inhuman and cruel she was. in theory you shouldnt feel lonely with someone talking to you the whole game but this robot is so cold & indifferent to you that it adds to the lonely mood. your only ‘friend’ is an unseen character guiding you with graffiti, and a silent (ambiguously sentient) cube that youre forced to burn to ashes. its dark & hilarious its great. but portal 2 doesnt want you to feel alone at all so glados and wheatley just switch roles being your petty or cheeky companion ally constantly feeding you improvised sounding lines. theres nothing wrong with adding more characters to the series but these ones just suck so bad.
the robots are made to be too human and emotional which was not the appeal of the robot in the first game. glados wasnt a perfectly robotic AI in the original but this one just quadruples down on the worst human-like aspects of it. like it was hilarious at the end of portal 1 when she says ‘youre adopted’ because she never insulted you like that before and its such petty a slap in the face. it was funny because when you start to escape and start removing her cores she was desperate and trying to do what she thought could distract and stop this hairless evolved monkey thats trying to kill her. in portal 2 its constantly doing that kind of humor and it doesnt work because it becomes too over saturated. it was funny in the first game because it was something that happened halfway through, not the whole game. i guess she's supposed to be retconned to be a human womans consciousness but if thats an explanation for her personality here i hate it. she didnt need an origin story or anything like that it really doesnt need to be that deep.
wheatleys stuttering personality gets tiresome really fast. he's unlikable to me even before he turns evil (why did he become comically evil? couldnt tell ya!)
luckily the game is always switching to different voiceover characters to keep things artificially fresh but unfortunately it gets worse every time.
the cave johnson voiceovers shouldve been cut entirely or had the lore information used in audio diary collectables like bioshock had. but the constant voiceovers of him were insufferable and the ridiculous posters on the walls trying to satirize corporate exploitation didnt look real at all. it just feels too fake and cartoonish. same goes for the the aperture science voiceover dudes dialogue at the beginning. its all just too unrealistic and unbelievable to ever be funny. the point of cave johnson is to have a human parallel to glados but he should’ve been like casually indifferent without it being so obvious he knows the harm he’s doing to people. he’s too much like trump. it doesnt make sense as a voiceover like it is within the context of the setting. ceo’s and corporations will be nice to your face and then fuck you over behind your back. the game doesnt understand how to replicate that properly to create dark humor out of it so its never funny. its always surface level.
the turret opera scene is aggressively annoying. it makes no sense why its happening in the game (why does the elevator stop and slow down? how did the turrets all get there?) but thats not the point its just a lame joke "it aint over till the fat lady sings". it doesnt work because its a joke that wasnt even set up to my knowledge so its just baffling and pointlessly annoying everytime. it just takes me out of it in a bad way.
‘exile vilify’ by the national shouldve been what played on the elevator ride out of the facility or as the end credits song. (the room where its actually included is just too clunky in trying to create a somber moment with the writing on the walls its just tacky and too forced) the energy and tone of the first game just felt so much more sophisticated and cool compared to this lame corny shit. the first games soundtrack was more synthy IDM ambience. now its more generic techno/orchestra video game music. its not terrible but its just one more thing that tarnishes the potential it had. it implies grander cinematic importance than the story actually provides. the first games soundtrack matched the mood and depth of itself.
i mostly had fun with the puzzles luckily. they added some fun new game mechanics but i wish they wouldnt have wasted so much time attempting to have comedy moments and filler cutscenes that halt everything and added some more puzzles at the end that utilized all the new mechanics some more. its sorta hard to judge the gameplay because its always so segmented off between story moments; so i end up talking more about that than the gameplay :/ wasnt this supposed to be a game? lol
i didnt play co-op mode so i cant comment on that.
i wish i had a dialogue-less version of this game that isnt dumbed down. at times the levels were so basic with options of walls youre able to shoot the portals at that it didnt feel like puzzles to solve making them kinda pointless. the final boss is basically a repeat of the first game but made easier by resetting the game over countdown making its inclusion just another artificial threat to make you anxious even tho theres no actual danger that i was aware of? since it was beatable in one try for me.
then the last thing you do is shoot a portal to the moon to teleport wheatley out of the room into spacenevermind how it makes no sense how you can somehow see the moon in this facility when youre supposed to be hundreds of feet below the surface??? also the size of this facility is sorta preposterous its just unbelievable how enormous it is compared to the original? fucking whatever anyways the game doesnt let you discover this idea or figure it out on your own, it points the camera directly at the moon and it doesnt let you move the camera away so literally the only thing you can do is be forced to shoot a portal. its just a glorified cutscene and since its the last thing you do in the game it really left a bad taste in my mouth when it couldve been a cool moment as a last thing to figure out. but no it has to dumb itself down as much as possible and show you the moon landing site. it just feels so condescending. the game just wants to make you feel smart rather than rewarding you when you actually are. like if youre too stupid not to figure this basic stuff out you shouldnt be playing this game. and thats okay! not everything needs to be designed to be sold to everyone. not everything needs to be accessible for stupid fucking [redacted]'s. i hate capitalism.
this game just tastes so plastic and slimy and unreal. its not totally worthless i had lots of fun at times with the puzzles but its not everything it couldve been storywise so its just a disappointing bummer the more i think about the potential it had.
2 stars at worst. 3 stars at best.
✌🏻
this time they made it longer and added more story and lore and humor.
im sure lots of
the fun of portal 1 was the wacky puzzles in a lonely atmosphere. it was more indifferent to having an audience.
portal 2 still has fun puzzles but the experience can be a little too much hand holding at times :/ and to make that worse the game is insufferably aware that people are playing so its always scrambling to create lore and a story and humor for you to experience when it doesnt need that stuff really.
idk maybe im not even totally against having a story and characters for a portal sequel but it just doesnt deliver it in an interesting or satisfying way. we still dont know anything about our protagonist really (why is she here still?) or much of whats going on with this setting outside of hidden easter eggs and implications. the drama with caroline is hardly explored. the mysterious character leaving writing on the walls (who has gotten obnoxiously better at art for whatever reason) never makes an appearance. like if youre gonna expand on this world at least explain that stuff more or do something with it. and the ending is too ambiguous to be acceptable to me. its all a vague pointless waste of time to include this lore nonsense when it goes nowhere. nothing is utilized for the story so its just a waste of time to have one. all we get is betrayal drama with wheatley and i dont have enough reason to care. i want to escape this facility with or without wheatley so him being evil means nothing to me. its shallow and not really worth it for how long they drag it all out. there maybe couldve been some interesting gender politics & capitalism themes to explore more related to betrayal but its not really dived into beyond vague implications or obnoxious bad humor dialogue.
theres too many filler story sequences where theres loud action music playing and things crashing around you to make you think you should be excited but youre not really solving puzzles or doing anything that interesting. nothing is actually happening its just interactive cutscenes like a theme park ride that dont actually add anything to the ’story’.
im sure all of this worked for most gamers and tricked them into thinking its deeper and better written than it is but i never felt satisfied with it and it only got worse on replay. it doesnt have enough going on for the story to matter or be so front and center like it wants it to be.
i hate that gamer bros loved portal 2’s story yet hated botw’s. like be consistent guys theyre both shallow. at least botw lets you choose to ignore its story flashback cutscenes if you want to and youre allowed to spend more time actually playing the game instead of being railroaded into walkthrough cutscenes.
this game has a beautifully haunting aesthetic so its hard for me to throw it all away.
its still a fun game experience to behold, but the attempts at humorous dialogue used in place of a real storytelling is unfulfilling for what its pretending to be.
i like comedy. i like to laugh. and i did laugh at a fair amount of this game. but god too much of the attempts at humor in this game are just cringe. its probably what tarnishes the game most for me, and upon replaying 5 years later... its aged like cheese. portal 2 is this kind of humor where it thinks its a lot more clever than it is. it feels like a fan made sequel in this aspect. the flavor of person that finds all this shit funny probably loves shows like big bang theory and community. i hate them.
the humor of the first game worked because it wasnt constantly overbearing about it. glados the robot was funny with how inhuman and cruel she was. in theory you shouldnt feel lonely with someone talking to you the whole game but this robot is so cold & indifferent to you that it adds to the lonely mood. your only ‘friend’ is an unseen character guiding you with graffiti, and a silent (ambiguously sentient) cube that youre forced to burn to ashes. its dark & hilarious its great. but portal 2 doesnt want you to feel alone at all so glados and wheatley just switch roles being your petty or cheeky companion ally constantly feeding you improvised sounding lines. theres nothing wrong with adding more characters to the series but these ones just suck so bad.
the robots are made to be too human and emotional which was not the appeal of the robot in the first game. glados wasnt a perfectly robotic AI in the original but this one just quadruples down on the worst human-like aspects of it. like it was hilarious at the end of portal 1 when she says ‘youre adopted’ because she never insulted you like that before and its such petty a slap in the face. it was funny because when you start to escape and start removing her cores she was desperate and trying to do what she thought could distract and stop this hairless evolved monkey thats trying to kill her. in portal 2 its constantly doing that kind of humor and it doesnt work because it becomes too over saturated. it was funny in the first game because it was something that happened halfway through, not the whole game. i guess she's supposed to be retconned to be a human womans consciousness but if thats an explanation for her personality here i hate it. she didnt need an origin story or anything like that it really doesnt need to be that deep.
wheatleys stuttering personality gets tiresome really fast. he's unlikable to me even before he turns evil (why did he become comically evil? couldnt tell ya!)
luckily the game is always switching to different voiceover characters to keep things artificially fresh but unfortunately it gets worse every time.
the cave johnson voiceovers shouldve been cut entirely or had the lore information used in audio diary collectables like bioshock had. but the constant voiceovers of him were insufferable and the ridiculous posters on the walls trying to satirize corporate exploitation didnt look real at all. it just feels too fake and cartoonish. same goes for the the aperture science voiceover dudes dialogue at the beginning. its all just too unrealistic and unbelievable to ever be funny. the point of cave johnson is to have a human parallel to glados but he should’ve been like casually indifferent without it being so obvious he knows the harm he’s doing to people. he’s too much like trump. it doesnt make sense as a voiceover like it is within the context of the setting. ceo’s and corporations will be nice to your face and then fuck you over behind your back. the game doesnt understand how to replicate that properly to create dark humor out of it so its never funny. its always surface level.
the turret opera scene is aggressively annoying. it makes no sense why its happening in the game (why does the elevator stop and slow down? how did the turrets all get there?) but thats not the point its just a lame joke "it aint over till the fat lady sings". it doesnt work because its a joke that wasnt even set up to my knowledge so its just baffling and pointlessly annoying everytime. it just takes me out of it in a bad way.
‘exile vilify’ by the national shouldve been what played on the elevator ride out of the facility or as the end credits song. (the room where its actually included is just too clunky in trying to create a somber moment with the writing on the walls its just tacky and too forced) the energy and tone of the first game just felt so much more sophisticated and cool compared to this lame corny shit. the first games soundtrack was more synthy IDM ambience. now its more generic techno/orchestra video game music. its not terrible but its just one more thing that tarnishes the potential it had. it implies grander cinematic importance than the story actually provides. the first games soundtrack matched the mood and depth of itself.
i mostly had fun with the puzzles luckily. they added some fun new game mechanics but i wish they wouldnt have wasted so much time attempting to have comedy moments and filler cutscenes that halt everything and added some more puzzles at the end that utilized all the new mechanics some more. its sorta hard to judge the gameplay because its always so segmented off between story moments; so i end up talking more about that than the gameplay :/ wasnt this supposed to be a game? lol
i didnt play co-op mode so i cant comment on that.
i wish i had a dialogue-less version of this game that isnt dumbed down. at times the levels were so basic with options of walls youre able to shoot the portals at that it didnt feel like puzzles to solve making them kinda pointless. the final boss is basically a repeat of the first game but made easier by resetting the game over countdown making its inclusion just another artificial threat to make you anxious even tho theres no actual danger that i was aware of? since it was beatable in one try for me.
then the last thing you do is shoot a portal to the moon to teleport wheatley out of the room into space
this game just tastes so plastic and slimy and unreal. its not totally worthless i had lots of fun at times with the puzzles but its not everything it couldve been storywise so its just a disappointing bummer the more i think about the potential it had.
2 stars at worst. 3 stars at best.
✌🏻