EPT![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v485/thereisnosaurus/makeagamelogo.jpg)
Make a game of that returns with a double issue, first up an article to counter all the insane hype of portal 2 and look at the game in a more critical light. It must of course be stressed that this article contains spoilers, though not super ultra mega ones. Enjoy!
Once in a long while, a videogame comes along that is fresh, clever and deep all at the same time. Portal was such a game, with a new take on the first person genre, crisp minimalist design, depth of play and of course one of the more memorable aesthetics in modern gaming. Portal 2 has arrived, pushed out on a wave of almost overwhelming hype and advertising. It can't be argued that Valve has done anything but excel themselves in making our mouths water and our fingers twitch, yet a week later, waking in the sweaty aftermath of many hours of vigorous exertion, can we truly say the game was something to be remembered?
The answer on the surface is yes. It cannot be understated just how much polish and elbow grease Valve rubbed into the portal experience. Memorable lines come almost faster than you can listen to them, set pieces and easter eggs bounce around the screen like superballs and the whole thing reeks of so many hours of playtesting you start to wonder if valve has some kind of secret lab where they keep people chained to monitors, endlessly trying to break their puzzles. I mean, they had to get the feel of Aperture from somewhere, right?
Yet veterans of Portal have noted that in Portal 2, the game is not so much about figuring out which panel to put your portals on, but what to do with the few available panels you have. Even there, Valve's impeccable testing ensures that you are never too long in doubt which portal goes where.
![[image loading]](http://nerfnow.com/comic/image/502)
Valve to an extent pioneered the art of designing what might be called perceptual guiderails for videogames, subtle or not so subtle tricks and hints to get you to look at a certain place, feel a certain way, come to a certain conclusion. For strongly narrative experiences like Half-Life and Portal 2, this provides a way the designer can ensure (or at least improve the probability that) the player experiences their design in the way they intended it to be experienced. To show just how good at this Valve are, I encourage you to play through the game again. Instead of marvelling at the intricate details and animations of the focal point of each area, be they flickering panels, gyrating robot eyeballs or production lines of turrets, take your time. Look around each area fully, drag your eyes away from the lights at the end of the assorted tunnels. Compared to a game like Modern Warfare or Halo: Reach, Portal 2 is remarkably sparse, great areas of simply textured, angular geometry peppered with a scattering of gorgeously rendered details. The genius is that you are so captivated by these little details that you don't notice the rest of the game is pretty bare. That's no accident. Portal 2 is Valve's piece-de-resistance in holding your eyes and mind to the narrow track they want it on. Even easter eggs and secrets are cunningly designed to be findable, not the opposite.
This same skill, fortunately for Valve, keeps our eyes away from Portal 2's dirty little secret. It's a tutorial. The whole bleeping thing. This may strike you as strange at first, but consider what a tutorial is- it's a carefully constructed area which fosters the understanding of a single skill, small set of skills, or applying a novel combination of previously learned skills. Sounds pretty much like Portal 2, eh? Each chamber or chamber-esque area is designed specifically to teach you a property of your latest toy. It can block bullets! Amazing! You can shoot portals onto it! Incredible! Despite being made of coherent light you can still apparently coat it in goo! ...Unexpected?
The purpose of a tutorial is to prepare you in shelter with skills for the wild world of whatever those skills is required for. Yet in Portal 2, there is no wild world. At no point does the carefully crafted, deliberately structured, obviously intently designed feel give way to one where you have only your wits, two toothpicks, a ceramic block and a quantum-loaded matter translocation enablement device against whatever evils the world decides to throw at you today. I feel this is terribly sad. It's almost like going to school for six years, then to uni for another six, finally coming to the end, taking a deep breath and preparing to face your great adventure only to have some guy with a clipboard wander over and say 'Ok, point your finger at the moon. Good. Now, hit this button. Right, we're done here, the incinerator is over that way.'
Frankly? That's not good enough.
I can't fault Valve for their craftsmanship, it is impeccable as always, perhaps even more so than usual, but at the core of Portal 2 is a craven game. It is cowardly, it takes no risks, there is little to no true creativity (excepting only the scriptwriters). The story is impeccably told but essentially more of the same, except for the bit where it's as trite as a Disney fairy tale. The new tricks you acquire are either just things like moving platforms and extendible key rods turned into floaty tunnels and laser beams, or stuff that has already been done by another team for another project (namely the Tag: the Power of Paint team, who Valve hired into the project). The game's only saving grace is the co-op campaign. While the puzzles and learning curve suffer the same faults as the single player, the constant riffing on the theme of cooperation (or decided lack thereof) is a deliciously meta-constructed game in and of itself. I can't imagine Valve didn't plan for this and it's the one thing I can commend them for creatively. It's superbly done.
I detect a subtle hint of robo-supremacy in that first bit there...
Ultimately, however, Portal 2 is a game of illusions, of glitter and glamour, a masterful performance of sleight of hand and showmanship. It lacks the true magic of the original and it is that magic that makes a game great. The magic which leaves you feeling not just smart, but godlike, the rush of mental exertion paying off in grand style, in the firm knowledge that you and you alone fought and won, with your own two hands and mind. At the end of it I put aside my mouse and sat back, the only thought in my head “that was beautiful, but it could have been so much more”
How do you judge such a game? If this had been a new company, a new IP, a new designer, I would have been all praise, astounded, in fact, at the deftness and polish. But this is Valve, a titan of innovation and refinement. This is Valve with a huge team and close to a 4 year development cycle. Valve throwing more money and talent at the thing than exists in some small countries. Excellence is a baseline. Being blown away is about what you should expect on average.
Valve has no public shareholders to pander to, it has a reputation second to none save perhaps Blizzard amongst the PC gaming fraternity. Thanks to Steam, it makes more profit per head than Apple or Google, or so our lord Newell attests. In the dog eat dog world of videogame development, Valve is in an almost unique position to be able to take creative risks and push the field forward. In Portal 2, they have squandered that privileged position.
There is still hope, however. It's clear Valve intends to support Portal 2 actively, though to what extent remains unknown. I can imagine a future in which the campaign truly was meant as a tutorial, a strong, easy to use level editor is released and community generated puzzles and content flood in, enriched by a universal knowledge of the multitude of subtle uses to which the tools we have been provided can be put. I can also imagine a future in which we play the same co-op levels over and over again wearing various types of silly hats. This second is not a happy future though it will, fortunately, have awesome hats.
I write this out of frustration that acclaim has been so universal. As I have discussed above, it's hard not to be captivated and to come out at the end singing praise to Valve almighty. Not that that is a bad thing, but the starry eyed fanboyism that has penetrated deep into the games media prevents us from ensuring that Portal 3 is not just as good, but twice, three times or perhaps even ten times as good. If you're still high off Portal 2, can you even imagine just how sweet that would feel?
It's time we plunged into the pit, we took off the glasses of rose-tinted perspective and tested as if we were built to test. A game like this only comes once in a long while, and it is our duty to ensure it does not go to waste.
For Science, of course.
