Portal 2 Co-Op Impressions

[alexan1250]

A pair of cute robots star in Valve's team-focused twist on the Portal formula.
Portal 2 Co-Op Impressions - PC News at GameSpot1

The single-player campaign's only twice as long? Jesus, that's crap. I realise that it's difficult to weave a cogent plot without repeating puzzle-types across a greater length of time, but I figured on it being three times as long at least.

I finished the first game on first play-through in about four hours. So, I'm gonna be able to finish this new game in eight or nine hours, am I? It'll last me two days, then.

If this is a £50/$60 release, that's not good enough. I'm gonna need another reason to buy it. By which I mean another reason *IN ADDITION TO* the co-op, mode. I won't always have a second person to play with, which means it doesn't count as core content in my book.

Coronithofcork

[razorrozar7]

We had a Portal thread.

That's just Valve's estimate. Right before Birth by Sleep came out, I saw one estimate that suggested it was a 24-hour playthrough, and one that said 45. So... yeah.

[VeloZer0]

We don't know that it will cost $60. It would be nice if the industry could get away from the every game costs the same amount model.

[Jessweeee♪]

There are two ways to look at this:

1. Single player is so short that it's only twice as long as co-op
2. Co-op is so long that it's half the length of single player.

Everything beyond what the first Portal was I like to think of as an added bonus.

[Slothy]

Portal was one of the greatest games ever made and it was only 4-5 hours long. I can't see how anyone could think the sequel being more than twice that length is a bad thing.

I also wouldn't assume it will be $60. At least not unless you're planning on buying it for a console, but even then it depends on who's publishing it. As for a PC release though, we're talking about Valve here. The company that pretty much gives more value for what you pay than any company making games right now.

[Loony BoB]

There are two ways to look at this:

1. Single player is so short that it's only twice as long as co-op
2. Co-op is so long that it's half the length of single player.

Bwah?

[razorrozar7]

I'm guessing co-op is generally much shorter than sp.

[Jessweeee♪]

There are two ways to look at this:

1. Single player is so short that it's only twice as long as co-op
2. Co-op is so long that it's half the length of single player.

Bwah?

I was addressing the OP with that part!

The single-player campaign's only twice as long? Jesus, that's crap.

Like, y'know, the glass can be either half full or half empty, depending on how you think. I've already decided that I'm buying this when I can afford it. I loved the first Portal to death and I definitely want to see what comes of a sequel. They can't possibly mess it up so bad that I'm going to regret the purchase, at least not without being very very aware of how crappy it is. So I'm going to think positive!

[DMKA]

It's taking them this long to finish an eight hour game?

I guess that means HL2: Episode 3 is really gonna be epic right?

[VeloZer0]

I'm so tired of the time it takes to do a playthrough as a metric of game value. A 8 hour game that I will play over and over for years to come is by far a better game than a game dragged out to 30 hours that I will only ever play once.

Adding time to a game is easy as pie, keeping it a concise quality experience is what takes time.

[DMKA]

I'm so tired of the time it takes to do a playthrough as a metric of game value. A 8 hour game that I will play over and over for years to come is by far a better game than a game dragged out to 30 hours that I will only ever play once.

And how do you know you'll play this game "over and over for years to come"? Is this how you feel about the original Portal? Because doing the same exact sequence of puzzles with zero possibility of variation over and over again sounds...terrible. But different strokes I guess!

I'm sorry, but I won't dish out $60 for an 8 hour game no matter how many times I'll potentially replay it. You can never play a game for the first time again.

Now if they create some Men In Black style memory-of-gameplay eraser, then I'll rethink my position.

[VeloZer0]

I'm not saying that Portal 2 will be all that and a bag of chips, I wasn't a hugely overboard fan of the first one. What I am saying the time it takes to complete your first playthrough is a poor metric of game value. It is just an easy one to measure, hence why it is so popular.

And I do know people who love to load up Portal to dick around doing fun stuff with the portals.

[Slothy]

And how do you know you'll play this game "over and over for years to come"? Is this how you feel about the original Portal? Because doing the same exact sequence of puzzles with zero possibility of variation over and over again sounds...terrible. But different strokes I guess!

You might be right if there were actually no variation in the puzzles on latter playthroughs. But the reality of the portal mechanic was that it had tremendous depth and potential that could never be fully explored on a single playthrough. Not to mention that the challenge maps offered even greater variety to the levels, and often forced one to look for new ways to play levels or do a challenge. And if that weren't enough, those portal's were just so damn fun to play with that I could happily just screw around with them for hours just to see what I could pull off.

Since I have no reason to expect anything different from the second game, I have no reason to believe that I won't end up dumping as much time into it as I did the original at the very least. And I got more play time out of the original than I have most 40 hour long RPG's. But then, I'll usually take a game that's not only fun but has tremendous depth to play around in over one that doesn't and explore it to it's fullest. For anyone who remembers the MGS2 demo packaged with Zone of the Enders, I was able to beat that thing in about five minutes, but I gladly spent more than 20 hours playing around with the mechanics of that game, just happily exploring the various things you could do.

[Bolivar]

I'm inclined to believe that the content package will be substantial, since this is being shipped as a standalone game (unless we get Counter-Strike 2 or something... *x'ed fingers*). Like Vivi22 said, this is Valve, I can't see them shipping a game, even the console package, without it being worth a purchase.

I'm also with VeloZer0 with games in general. Maybe it's just me, but even games with little to no deviation, like God of War, are jewels I love coming back to year after year.