LogFAQs > #950551082

ctesjbuvf posted...

Ha, the Portal chapter was the best part of Lego Dimensions

I've never actually played Lego Dimensions myself, I just saw some Youtube videos covering the Sonic and Portal levels. I didn't actually know about that line from Gandalf, but that is pretty funny. It does seem like a concept with a lot of potential, so it's too bad if there are some big execution issues.

BetrayedTangy posted...

I was totally thinking about that too! Once you start getting the shortcuts, the map gets a really nice flow to it. I also got some serious Super Metroid vibes after returning the Lordvessel.

I've been doing a tankier build, but I use Havel's Ring so I can still roll.

If you've already taken down Seath and the Bed of Chaos and you still like the game that's probably a good sign, since their areas tend to be two of the more frustrating parts. Nito's Tomb of the Giants is rough too, but if you pick up the Sunlight Maggot back in the tunnel between Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith it can help a lot.

I used Havel's Ring and armor when I first played the game too. I think it is a very strong combo that can serve to make the game a lot easier, since you get a ton of poise in addition to damage reduction so you can shrug off some attacks and just strike through them. I remember I started as a thief and built lots of dex, then specked into intelligence late-game and ended the game with an enchanted Falchion. Even with Havel's Armor I'd die really fast, but it was a fun first run.

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Final Analysis: Portal 2
What I thought of Portal 2: An Excellent game, but perhaps not as special as the first for me
Would I play Portal 2 again? Yes, and I want to try the co-op too.
Did it deserve to lose round 4? It would've been a worthy division winner.

There's an edgy film reviewer who I like on Youtube named E;R. He's overly pedantic and the humor he uses is usually kind of offensive, so it's easy to see a lot of people turned off by that, and he's definitely an example of a person whose work you have to separate from his real-life personality and beliefs to enjoy, but he makes me laugh and it was through him that Iearned what might be one of the most important pieces of writing advice I've ever come across: "Don't show, don't tell, quit while you're ahead." It's a mistake to completely exhaust your story on its own. You need to leave some things open for the audience to wonder about when it's over. That way your story will survive much longer in their heads.

Portal 2 is great at this trick. The first game was so minimalist that it left a great deal of ground for its sequel to expand into, and 2 does that successfully while leaving enough interesting facets unexplored - which may be why people seem to really want a third game, even though Portal 2 definitively ends Chell's story. The best approach is to give people hints they can extrapolate from without answering their questions fully. For example, GLaDOS says that the Caroline part of her brain feels a surge of emotion when she rescues Chell, which implies that there's a relationship between these two, and led a lot of fans to assume Caroline was Chell's mother, but that, among the answers to many other questions about Chell's identity, is never revealed for sure. A silent protagonist can be a tough thing to manage, but I felt for Chell in certain quiet moments, like when she wandered into the Aperture Science adoption center or when she came across a blocked-off elevator reading "lift to the surface."

More than anything else, Portal 2 is an immaculately well-written game - maybe one of the best-written video games there is, although it's more debatable as to whether it's one of the best video game stories even so. It's hilariously funny, deeply creative, and endlessly quotable. There was a great deal of effort put into even the smallest parts of the game: a great example comes from the three corrupt personality cores that you stick on Wheatley during the final battle against him. They're only on-screen for a few seconds at a time, and in fact you're penalized for sticking around to listen to them, but they each have several minutes worth of dialog that's equally as original and cleverly written as the rest of the game and are worth looking up somewhere like Youtube and experiencing on their own. All of its characters, even comparatively minor ones like Cave Johnson, have multifaceted personalities and complete arcs. GLaDOS is still the series' standout and goes through the most change, turning from a psychotic machine with no understanding of human feelings to a more sympathetic character in the early stages of developing a conscience and an emotional attachment to someone else.

It's also one of those rare games where both the story and the gameplay are fantastic. The first game's mechanics were already unfailingly fun, but Portal 2 is its own well-designed puzzle game that introduces a lot of new ideas. You can still drop through one portal and come flying out another without losing momentum, but now you can also slide at high speeds across orange gel and use that to launch yourself. It's still inherently amusing to drop blocks on turrets or drop directly behind them like a master assassin, but now you can also redirect the blue gel onto them and watch them bounce up and down until they fall into the abyss below.

I can easily understand someone preferring either Portal, but I think on the whole I like Portal 1. The second game is longer with interesting new characters and more mechanics, but it's not quite as elegant as the first was. Some of the sections where you're running around back alleys obeying orders from a support character aren't as much fun and there are some frustrating moments where you're squinting over a huge skybox to find the one patch of portal-worthy wall you need to use to progress. The fact that I can list those things as definite, albeit minor, flaws in Portal 2 proves that it doesn't quite reach the level of perfection that I thought that game managed. But that would be a Hell of a lot to ask for.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 17/129
Currently Playing: God of War III