This is a review of the solo campaign exclusively
Portal 2 is a very good game, which made the very... audacious choice to make a whole game out of the worst part of its predecessor, and to expand into more than "just" a puzzle game.
The game starts off really well: you get the double-portal gun really quickly, the puzzles are really smart very early on... The first game took ages to get interesting, with the first hour and a half being carried by GladOS, but this one kicks right off with an amazing one-two punch of gameplay and writing, with Wheatley is an absolute treat. Throughout, the game is funny, and the puzzles are never bad.
However, once the game reaches its second part, it decides to repeat the worst part of Portal 1: trading the test rooms for a realistic decor. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't nearly as bad as in the first game, as the puzzles are still great, but it is still so inferior to the rest of the game. Firstly, gameplay-wise, it too often ends being a game of "find the white surface hiding in these boring ass-green walls." Even though some tremendous progress has been made by introducing the blue and orange gels, which really carry these sections, these levels are too large to feel as perfectly crafted as the test-rooms. Simply, the test rooms feel like they are all perfect bangers, that don't have any downtime between them. In these realistic decors, you have to travel from one puzzle to the next, and it's just so boring. Secondly, from a story perspective, the game suddenly takes itself so seriously, with the lore of Aperture Science being revealed. And sure, the story isn't bad, but at the same time, I really don't care. Yeah Cave Johnson is pretty funny, and so is Caroline, but they can't compare to GladOS or Wheatley. Also, I'm not playing portal for the story, so the story being used to justify leaving better areas gameplay-wise does leave a bitter taste in my mouth, especially since half the game takes place in this realistic environment.
Even when you get back to test-rooms, the game, because of story reasons I won't dive into, has to make you go through 4 or 5 purposefully bad rooms, and like... yeah the story dictates it, but maybe you should've written the story around the gameplay and not the other way round ? This is symptomatic of my main problem with the game: Valve clearly wanted to tell a story first and foremost (which is understandable given the amazing character that is GladOS), and make a puzzle game after. Problem is, a game's priority should always be gameplay, especially a puzzle game. If your story hinders gameplay, change your story to work around it.
I know it may sound weird, because all Valve did was try to make this series into a bigger game, and expand. Portal wasn't going to last forever if it just repeated "white backgrounds" forever, while only introducing new gimmicks. But the thing is, the original portal felt like it was underdeveloped, like more could've been done with it, like it didn't fully exploit its amazing potential. Portal 2 could've been all white rooms and still been amazing, because it could've been the delivery on the promise that Portal showed. Instead of realising a series potential, Portal 2 moves on to try to reinvent a series that hadn't gotten tired yet, and really misses out the chance it had to be the best puzzle game of all-time.
Portal 2 is a very good game, which made the very... audacious choice to make a whole game out of the worst part of its predecessor, and to expand into more than "just" a puzzle game.
The game starts off really well: you get the double-portal gun really quickly, the puzzles are really smart very early on... The first game took ages to get interesting, with the first hour and a half being carried by GladOS, but this one kicks right off with an amazing one-two punch of gameplay and writing, with Wheatley is an absolute treat. Throughout, the game is funny, and the puzzles are never bad.
However, once the game reaches its second part, it decides to repeat the worst part of Portal 1: trading the test rooms for a realistic decor. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't nearly as bad as in the first game, as the puzzles are still great, but it is still so inferior to the rest of the game. Firstly, gameplay-wise, it too often ends being a game of "find the white surface hiding in these boring ass-green walls." Even though some tremendous progress has been made by introducing the blue and orange gels, which really carry these sections, these levels are too large to feel as perfectly crafted as the test-rooms. Simply, the test rooms feel like they are all perfect bangers, that don't have any downtime between them. In these realistic decors, you have to travel from one puzzle to the next, and it's just so boring. Secondly, from a story perspective, the game suddenly takes itself so seriously, with the lore of Aperture Science being revealed. And sure, the story isn't bad, but at the same time, I really don't care. Yeah Cave Johnson is pretty funny, and so is Caroline, but they can't compare to GladOS or Wheatley. Also, I'm not playing portal for the story, so the story being used to justify leaving better areas gameplay-wise does leave a bitter taste in my mouth, especially since half the game takes place in this realistic environment.
Even when you get back to test-rooms, the game, because of story reasons I won't dive into, has to make you go through 4 or 5 purposefully bad rooms, and like... yeah the story dictates it, but maybe you should've written the story around the gameplay and not the other way round ? This is symptomatic of my main problem with the game: Valve clearly wanted to tell a story first and foremost (which is understandable given the amazing character that is GladOS), and make a puzzle game after. Problem is, a game's priority should always be gameplay, especially a puzzle game. If your story hinders gameplay, change your story to work around it.
I know it may sound weird, because all Valve did was try to make this series into a bigger game, and expand. Portal wasn't going to last forever if it just repeated "white backgrounds" forever, while only introducing new gimmicks. But the thing is, the original portal felt like it was underdeveloped, like more could've been done with it, like it didn't fully exploit its amazing potential. Portal 2 could've been all white rooms and still been amazing, because it could've been the delivery on the promise that Portal showed. Instead of realising a series potential, Portal 2 moves on to try to reinvent a series that hadn't gotten tired yet, and really misses out the chance it had to be the best puzzle game of all-time.