despite being a valve fan, it wasn't until last year that i sat down with an entry from the portal series. almost every single one of my friends swore up and down that portal 2 was a masterpiece, so i chose that one. and honestly? it was very disappointing. i won't say i outright hate it - the urban exploration is AMAZING - but the writing failed to keep me engaged (cave johnson aside) and the last few hours are a total slog. the overall pacing felt especially shit coming off of half life 2. i was just about ready to write off the series, but i heard portal 1 was short and thought i'd give it a shot. i probably wouldn't hate it, even if i wasn't gonna love it, right?
ok so take the beginning of portal 2 with the silly robot and then take the woah wowzers momentum tests from portal 2 and then skip to the ending part where you have to use the portal gun to do the cool laboratory escape that makes you feel epic and badass by jove i love women. oh, that's all the good parts of portal 2 in a two hour game? damn. the only aspects i prefer in 2 are the overall plot (because there is barely any here) and those lush, sprawling environments. the art direction in that game is unrivaled. also jk simmons but this game has mike patton so i'd say it balances out.
the original ending is like a peek into a universe where portal was but an ominous extension of half life 2, an opportunity to explore this mysterious facility hoping for one glimpse of the world outside... instead of the prequel to the game where reddit robots fight each other. i think the moment when the game finally drops the testing pretense and lets you "break" it and escape would have blown my mind if the sequel hadn't used nearly the exact same sequence (to a lesser effect, in my opinion). the atmosphere is so dense that when it gets freaky and expectations get subverted i am caught off guard. compare that to 2 where i do not feel immersed at all whatsoever. remember what's happening here: a robot has slaughtered an entire laboratory after being existentially tortured. it should feel haunted. you are not the main character, you are not a scientist, you are not even a full-time employee. you are only a survivor.
i love this game! it's awesome! why the hell was its sequel so middling lmao