Volitions Advocate on 22/10/2007 at 04:52

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alright I might as well throw my opinion out there.

Personally I think that Valve wasn't intent on making this game very story driven, They mention that they wanted to appeal to a more casual gaming crowd.

Personally I preloaded the game and was ready to play it at 2am when It decrypted, So I was all alone with my headphones in the dark. and I found it very immersing with the ambient music. Maybe I'm a little more receptive to music than some people because I'm a musician, but right off the bat the music made me feel like something is amiss. Its just my opinion. I loved portal. But honestly it needed to be a little longer. and more challenging.. I didn't realize the half life story and portal come together the way they do and honestly I was looking for some crazy impossible puzzles that would occupy me for hours the way Myst used to or 7th Guest.

I went in looking for nothing but a puzzle game, and I was mildly surprised by the little story they did throw in there. and i was laughing hysterically when GLaDOS was talking about how I had no friends and how i was a loser and how it was on paper and official.

I think its important to note that almost nobody who worked on HL:EP2 worked on portal. The dev team for portal was no more than 10 people for the majority of the game. Just the guys Newell hired from DigiPen.

catbarf on 22/10/2007 at 10:09

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I think the biggest weakness of Portal is that it ends right when it really gets going. The first 2/3 of the levels are simple training missions, it's only the last few that are really engaging.

ZylonBane on 23/10/2007 at 02:22

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"Freudian slip" doesn't mean what you think it means.

Firefreak on 23/10/2007 at 07:31

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To add my opinion as well, the people at Valve are my new heroes :)

The part with not-met expectations might be true; I did not now anything about Portal until short before I got the Orange Box as I saw two videos, only showing the puzzle element. So to say, I was not spoiled and open for anything.

And this open-ness helps in my total immersion I approach when playing a 'coloured' game -- I try to avoid the disputed term 'storyline'. If you strip the AI totally, give the hints in dry text on posters at the beginning of a level and have it end with level 19, it is just a puzzle game. (Still, 'just' does not match -- thinking in portals is revolutionary - to me at least)

Now add the AI with her quirks. This adds colour for me and I relate to my character. At first I take it funny and have a laugh at the sarcasm of the AI.

Then add the first backdoor room with the writings on the wall. That makes me puzzled and suspicious - more colour.
I have to note that when playing, I don't think about outside of the game - there is no Shodan, no game developer, no 'game' at all - I try to live the scene (as, for example, I do with movies). I take the AI serious (yet still in a sarcastic way) as I progress through the test levels -- regardless of how it would (or could) compare to any other.

And then I saw the 'cake' chamber at the end of 19. That made it for me and I kept play-- .. no, living, surviving, escaping that world until I did so half past midnight yesterday. Finally a showdown that counts :p

In sum, the same awesomness I had with HL2 that I also completed yesterday (before) - thus my first sentence above. Can't wait to continue with (the already started) EP1 today... ...and the bonus Portal maps...

Kolya on 23/10/2007 at 14:39

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Yeah some of the sceneries actually made me think of Blame!, the protagonists couple not so much. There's not much mystery around G.Freeman, his silence is more game media related for me, like Goggles is a silent protagonist too, his quest is different, and his female sidekick is really just a very nice and competent girl all the time.
I'm probably not the only one who fell in love with Alyx a bit while playing. First she's just a girl-next-door-type, attractive but not sexyfied. Which is a very unusual occurrence in a computer game by itself. Then she really comes alive as an actor, you get to know her and she actually has a background. She's cool and competent in what she does, but passionate about her father, the project, and about distrusting that other female scientist and later about caring for Freeman. Heh, guess I could write a whole lot more about Alyx Vance. Anyway, she's always a lovely girl.

Cibo on the other hand continously changes her form throughout the series and her motivations aren't much clearer than Killy's most of the time. She even becomes scary and menacing at some points. Right at the beginning she's a rotten shell who makes a deal with Killy...later she's somehow exchanged for a safeguard...I don't remember that part so well. Just all in all she's even more of an independent character than Alyx, and exhibits even less female traits such as being friendly, caring and sexually desirable. Alyx for example lauds you quite often for succeeding in overcoming a problem. I don't think Cibo ever did that for Killy.

At the end of HL2 Episode1 it's clearly hinted at that Alyx falls in love with Freeman. In Blame! neither Cibo nor Killy ever develop anything else than a functional relationship. The rest is intentionally left up to the reader I guess.

A few days ago I saw "Metropolis" and I noticed a lot of the things I only knew as influences, like the babylonian theme of endless manmade structures, symbolising man's alienation in a technological world, in scifi movies ever since. That's not to say Valve haven't read their Blame!, the structures were extremely similar, especially the citadel. Just the theme roots deeper, way down to the bible.