WeView Verdict: Portal 2

This week we asked for you opinions on an obscure little game called Portal 2. Hopefully next time I’ll manage to pick a game with a slightly less obvious outcome. That’s right, as expected Portal 2 was pretty widely loved by you guys, something that pretty much anyone could have predicted; you didn’t have to be as smart (or insane) as GLaDOS to work it out.

In fact two of you loved it so much that you said the same thing, that you said you’d started to dream about portals. That, to be honest, is actually slightly worrying. Sure the game may be good, but it is a little scary when you’re playing it so much that it invades your subconscious. Nevertheless lets hear from bully1990 on his dreams.

On the back of the Portal 2 box it says ‘start thinking with portals’. I did. All the time. Then I started dreaming about them. One morning I woke up and my first thoughts were not about the day ahead but rather how cool it would be if I had a portal gun and could make it down for breakfast without using the stairs. Portal 2 is an all consuming game and I absolutely love it.

I don’t think the first Portal ever quite made me dream of puzzle solving and portal placement, but then again it had a few flaws and irritations that always got on my nerves. In fact DRCD1 pointed out something that had always annoyed me about the original title.

The gameplay is perfect. It couldn’t be better. The orbs from the first Portal are replaced with lasers, therefore removing the need for timing. Orb based puzzles were what I less liked in Portal. The coop, though, does require timing, but it’s much better managed than in the first game, and it manages to more fun than the single-player.

Of course, the defining aspect of Portal is the writing and no look at the game would be complete without a comment on it. Whilst there were points in the original game where the writing was almost incidental, that isn’t the case in the sequel, as aranalas commented on.

The voice acting is unrivaled. I would often find myself standing on a spot simply waiting for Wheatley to make his next remark. Wheatley somehow, from the moment you see him, feels comfortable like a good friend. Then when Wheatley and GLaDOS are combined, their remarks make for some of the most funny ever in any kind of entertainment medium. They manage to completely surprise you with some of their remarks due to the sheer randomness of it, yet it never feels forced. Experiencing them alone is worth buying this game for.

Now no game is going to receive completely universal acclaim, I’m sure there’s even someone out there that doesn’t like Tetris. However it seems that even when you don’t get on with Portal you can still appreciate it, or at least that’s the case for iamtdogg.

I should really have probably picked up the Orange Box first to try Portal before jumping it the deep end with 4000 of my hard earned pennies but thankfully the trade in value was still pretty decent.

I can understand why others like it but it’s such a slow paced game with repetitive and uninspried puzzles that it drove me mad.

Finally lets get to my favourite review this week. It was short, sweet and made me laugh when I read it. It comes from the legendary Michael who had this to say about Valve’s puzzler.

It’s ace, funny, smart…oh forget it, I’m going to jump through this portal in my office and arrive in front of my PS3 so I can play the game instead of writing about it.

Now to the community’s verdict. As you can probably tell the game was pretty well received and although it did receive one rating of Rent It, the overall verdict, with an overwhelming ten out of eleven reviews agreeing, is Buy It. Well this is all getting a bit predictable isn’t it? Hopefully I can come up with something a bit more controversial tomorrow.