Portal 2 (PC)

This one I admit is not very retro, but it's my blog and I can break my rules if I want!

Valve always have cool title screens. This is going to have screenshots of areas and puzzles from Portal 2 and may reveal some Portal 1 story, so proceed with caution. It should be pretty safe of serious Portal 2 spoilers though. Mostly.

Click the pics to view full size.

It's been a long time since I played Portal, so I was worried this might drop me in the deep end. But no, it seems to be starting off pretty damn shallow.

I pass the basic looking up test AND the looking down test with flying colours, then I go admire the art for a bit to show off my advanced looking skills.

I'm sure that painting was of a daytime scene a minute ago... weird.

After a while stuck in this mysterious room, this personality sphere called Wheatly shows up to put me through a couple of more advanced tests. Satisfied with my responses, he informs me of the situation. Basically, bad things are about to happen, but that's okay because we're getting out of here. First though we'll need a portal gun.

I think I like this guy, he's got some good lines, and the voice actor nails them. Plus he's pretty damn expressive for a little robot eyeball.

After a short tour of the Aperture Science facility that reminded me of the intro to Half Life (except way more... dynamic.) I'm finally free to wander off and get stuck in a portal puzzle. It's nice to actually see some real sunlight (I assume) in this place.

I feel like I've been here before somehow. At least I can be sure I'm still playing as Chell from the first game.

Damn, the Enrichment Center has really gone to shit between games. It used to have a ceiling for one thing.

I walk from button to button being confused for a while, making portals switch between rooms with no apparent way in, until it occurs to me to check if there is perhaps a portal on the wall behind me.

That just looks cool. I'm a little bit apprehensive about wading through this water, seeing as falling in water meant certain death in the first game, but I seem to be alright so far.

Even though our character knows all about GLaDOS this time around, Valve have still found a way to add in the stupid announcements. Probably best to have subtitles off though if you can help it, to save reading the punchline before you've heard the joke.

I'm certain I've done this puzzle before. Though I guess the developers had to repeat some of the basic tutorials again for the new players, so making it nostalgic for the Portal 1 players was a smart idea.

Portal (PC)

Whoa, when you compare the two games directly, it's clear how much better the sequel looks. And how wrecked the place is.

HA, although it was entirely pointless because there's no achievement for camera destruction in Portal 2, I totally just wrecked that camera with my portal!

Hey, it fell into a pit, drawing my attention to a weighted storage cube lying at the bottom. I wonder if that was an intentional bit of clever manipulation by Valve... or perhaps I'm just an idiot who should have noticed the giant obvious pit from the start.

Hmm, I'm not really sure I really want to climb into a lift with plants growing out of it, surrounded by wreckage.

Actually now that I think about it, this game has kind of a Bioshock vibe to it at times. I'm walking through the decaying remnants of a dead community, finding clues about the events that caused their eventual downfall.


LATER.

Hey, these things are new. The lasers are 'thermal discouragement beams' and the mirror blocks are 'discouragement redirection cubes'. I definitely like them better than those damn 'high energy pellets' (bouncy energy balls) from the first game. For one thing they don't bounce everywhere, I can see exactly where they're aimed.

I'm pretty sure that water's going to kill me if I go near it. Another innovative addition to the series (nicked from Quake III Arena), are these 'aerial faith plates' (jump pads). These are also somehow not annoying me, so overall I think Portal 2 has the edge on the first game so far.

The levels are much more alive in this one, reconfiguring themselves as you walk between tests, on millions of little robot arms and rails. The entire facility changes shape as you move around.

GLaDOS is still as much of a bitch as ever though. Probably more so actually. She seems to have a bit of a grudge against Chell for some reason after the ending of the first game, but she's happier tormenting her than killing her for the moment. So I'm still working on that escape plan.


MUCH LATER.

Apparently they built the original labs miles underground on the floor of this cavern. Then over the years they added new sections of the facility on top, shutting down and sealing up the old rooms as they went. The deeper down I go into this place, the older things get.

Damn, the game is really starting to make me search for the next part of the path. There's no big sign marked 'EXIT' here, I have to search every wall for an patch of white where I can drop a portal.

Fuck. I think I preferred it when the levels were tiny and claustrophobic. It's going to take me forever to find the right way to go. Then I have to figure out how to get there!

Actually screw finding the next exit. I'm putting my feet up and taking a five minute break.

Uh, actually on second thoughts I'd better not. The announcements in this place are giving me the impression that touching anything down here may possibly lead to deliberate 'side-effects'. For the sake of science.


LATER.

Awesome, a sign with an arrow! Next test chamber this way? Finally, I find some directions! It's so easy to get lost here, all these damn walkways look the same. I'm finding it harder to find the next puzzle than to solve them.

An old school 70's test chamber! Hmm, there are two trails of bouncy blue repulsion gel on either side of the room, and one on the floor. I wonder how I get across to that box...

I found that using the three different kinds of gel in puzzles was surprisingly straightforward, and the liquid effects look cool when you start splashing the level with them. So, uh, no complaints there either really. In fact the game seems to continually switch to new sets of puzzle pieces for you to learn how to solve problems with, rather than giving you all the tools at once and making things ridiculously complex.


I'd better stop now before I end up ruining any of the plot. That is I mean to say that I'm going to stop talking about the game, not stop playing it. I get the feeling I'm going to be stuck playing this one for a while. Because it's awesome.