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[Tanner]

It'll just be a tweaked Hammer. And Hammer sucks.

[Alevice]

Yeah, I noticed the background span: black thing earlier, but wasn't sure if they were doing it manually or if there was some button for it.  I'm obviously hesitant to insert html code manually into a forum post.

[glow=black,2,300]My spoiler[/glow]
My spoiler

Or at times better:

[abbr=My spoiler]Hover here to show spoiler[/abbr]

Hover here to show spoiler

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Reading critical reviews of Portal 2, there's so many that say "Portal was a perfect game, Portal 2 is better" then give the game 9.5/10 for a score. Really? You say its BETTER THAN PERFECT, then dock off a half a point for god knows what?

I'm not angry or anything, its just a curious thing I noted.

[starsrift]

Obviously it loses a half point because Valve isn't selling dual portal guns, just a realistic simulation.

[iffi]

Reading critical reviews of Portal 2, there's so many that say "Portal was a perfect game, Portal 2 is better" then give the game 9.5/10 for a score. Really? You say its BETTER THAN PERFECT, then dock off a half a point for god knows what?

I'm not angry or anything, its just a curious thing I noted.

Must be because they were expecting Episode 3 to be bundled with the game.

[Cow]

So, is this game the perfect game? I probably won't play it, I just, uhh, want to know.

[Tanner]

I wouldn't say it's perfect. I'd say it's damn fine and a great time.

[Sakar]

I'd so far as to say it gets pretty damn close to the "perfect game" status. Everything was just done so well. I'm still kinda in shock from it.

[Rob Lach]

The worst feeling you get is that you can never experience a game like that ever again.

[Paul Eres]

Reading critical reviews of Portal 2, there's so many that say "Portal was a perfect game, Portal 2 is better" then give the game 9.5/10 for a score. Really? You say its BETTER THAN PERFECT, then dock off a half a point for god knows what?

I'm not angry or anything, its just a curious thing I noted.

sometimes perfection isn't what people want (not saying it's perfect, i haven't played it). i felt that way about portal 1. it felt too perfectly designed that it was boring.

it's like: do people really want perfection? do you want the "perfect" girlfriend or "perfect" job, or do you want the most interesting ones? there are games that i feel are less perfect than portal, but are more interesting or idiosyncratic, so i prefer them. it's like that quote: "there's only one way to be right, but a million ways to be wrong" -- all the various ways in which games can go wrong are what's interesting to me about games

[SplinterOfChaos]

I just have a few retrospective rants, so don't read this if you're still making your way through. (Or should i black-box the whole post?)

Of all the nifty things i can do with my gun, it doesn't have a flashlight.

That part where you fight Glados was fucking dumb. It was so heavily convenient and the dialog so obvious that i assumed Glados had set a real trap that would cause Wheatly and I to lose the fight and continue with the story. But nope. It was one of the easiest puzzles in the game and it worked. Then the game is artificially extended by Wheatly being evil. That all just didn't sit right with me or make sense in any way. Not the Wheatly/evil part, the defeat of Glados one.

Portal was disappointing because the entire game was spent making us learn new things and discover the wonders of portals. But there was never an extreme challenge where we had to culminate everything we learned until the end of the game. I consider the start of any game when the tutorial ends and with Portal, it doesn't. What i expected from Portal 2 was that moment where there was nothing left to teach and we could just do challenging puzzles. It never happens. The sequel is just an extended tutorial. By the end of the game, i had actually found that puzzles became really easy because i learned not how to use portals, but how Valve designs levels. That if i can shoot a portal onto this surface, there's probably a reason. If there's a laser or a light bridge or whatever, look for what walls can make portals and try each randomly. My hope is that Valve actually releases the level editor this time and (even better) releases some more professional, challenging puzzles that don't worry about players not finishing them. That is the beginning of Portal for me.

[boxedlunch]

I just have a few retrospective rants, so don't read this if you're still making your way through. (Or should i black-box the whole post?)

Of all the nifty things i can do with my gun, it doesn't have a flashlight.

That part where you fight Glados was fucking dumb. It was so heavily convenient and the dialog so obvious that i assumed Glados had set a real trap that would cause Wheatly and I to lose the fight and continue with the story. But nope. It was one of the easiest puzzles in the game and it worked. Then the game is artificially extended by Wheatly being evil. That all just didn't sit right with me or make sense in any way. Not the Wheatly/evil part, the defeat of Glados one.

Portal was disappointing because the entire game was spent making us learn new things and discover the wonders of portals. But there was never an extreme challenge where we had to culminate everything we learned until the end of the game. I consider the start of any game when the tutorial ends and with Portal, it doesn't. What i expected from Portal 2 was that moment where there was nothing left to teach and we could just do challenging puzzles. It never happens. The sequel is just an extended tutorial. By the end of the game, i had actually found that puzzles became really easy because i learned not how to use portals, but how Valve designs levels. That if i can shoot a portal onto this surface, there's probably a reason. If there's a laser or a light bridge or whatever, look for what walls can make portals and try each randomly. My hope is that Valve actually releases the level editor this time and (even better) releases some more professional, challenging puzzles that don't worry about players not finishing them. That is the beginning of Portal for me.

thanks for the spoilers.

[Sakar]

-Big quote-

thanks for the spoilers.

He did say "don't read this if you're still making your way through"

Though black boxing the entire thing probably would've been smart

[Josiah Tobin]

I have slightly mixed feelings about the game as well (I just beat it so this is pretty immediate). Roughly the first half of the game totally had me, just everything I wanted and beyond, loved every minute of it. As soon as I realized the underground segment was just more test chambers, though, I got this weird twinge of disappointment... That second part was my favorite bit atmospherically, just brilliant stuff to me, but the fact that it was mostly a re-skinned test chamber formula didn't quite work for me. Also Wheatley becoming the villain really rubbed me the wrong way. They build him up as this bumbling but supremely lovable characters and then just pull the rug out from under you (in a bad way, that is).

The majority of the third act lost a lot of my attention. More test chamber structure in... the old, familiar test chambers. Hmm. The last bit I liked, though. The bit with the moon was absurd and awesome and I did not see it coming at all... brilliant foreshadowing/setup for that, via Cave Johnson earlier in the game. Though there's a few things I didn't get...

Why did Chell grab Wheatley so she'd get pulled through the portal into space with him? Was she trying to save him? Kill herself?

Why did GLaDOS delete Carolyne right after gushing about how good it felt to save Chell?

What was with the singing turrets, and what was that larger one among them (not the "animal king" one)? That whole sequence was cute, but really out of place in my opinion. Just weird.

Also, the fact that it ended with a pre-rendered FMV -- that is, Chell getting tossed out of the shack -- did not sit well with me at all after Valve's constant mantra of "interactivity at all costs." Felt a bit like a cop-out, even though there wouldn't be too much difference rendering it in real time and probably would have caused a lot of slowdown with all that grass... just felt very weird for a Valve game.

The song was great, but not on the level of Still Alive... reason for Still Alive being so perfect was that it was unexpected. I dunno.

I immensely enjoyed this game, and I think the journey through it affected me more than I may realize right now, but it seemed like after the halfway point the quality waned slightly... not very much, but enough for me to feel a bit of disappointment vs. Valve's usual output (and I do, personally, love just about all of it). Hard to say. Gonna have to give it some time, I think. Probably the best way that I could put it is, during the ending of the first game I had a huge grin, just absolutely loving what I'd just been through, like every part of the game felt incredibly 'right' to me and the ending capped it all off perfectly, and with taste. With Portal 2, during the equivalents to those moments, I found myself unsure of what to think. With a smile, mind you, because that's just what the writing in these games does, but still unsure.

The atmosphere is still sticking to me like glue, though. The feeling of excitement as I entered the second act (Chernobyl-esque sealed off underground area + abandoned lab complex from the 1950s -- even in summation it makes me want to play it) was just immense. Didn't want to be doing anything else but playing that game, right at that moment. Shame that feeling couldn't have persisted through the rest of the game after that point, though.

~Josiah

[Ashking]

Why did Chell grab Wheatley so she'd get pulled through the portal into space with him? Was she trying to save him? Kill herself?

Why did GLaDOS delete Carolyne right after gushing about how good it felt to save Chell?

What was with the singing turrets, and what was that larger one among them (not the "animal king" one)? That whole sequence was cute, but really out of place in my opinion. Just weird.

Chell grabbed Wheatley because she was being sucked towards the portal anyway, but Wheatley was still attached to the main computer, meaning that he was the only thing she could hold on to (Although I'm wondering if she could just grab the edges of the portal).

The 'good feeling' was Carolyne talking. Same with most of GLaDOS' redeeming qualities. I think she deleted it because she was afraid of it- afraid there was something wrong with her. It was the easiest way for her to deal with it.

I have absolutely no idea. But at that point it was after the whole game, it was sort of non-canon, so I guess Valve wanted to have a little fun and just be silly.