Alright, so what's this game with a tryhard title so much on about? Ah yes, it's a Portal 2 community-mod, free to download, and enjoy. Is it any good though? Well, if you have to judge the contents of free stuff, I guess that's why we're here. Because Valve couldn't make it.
Honestly, there's never enough mods to play made by the community using a modified version of Source engine. The passion alone is a great place to start with, at least that's what I got to see from Portal: Revolution. A big number of upticks, a few downturns but who's to complain? Maybe I am a detractor of sorts since I played a HL2 mod called Entropy Zero 2 and sequel to Talos Principle.
After Portal 2, plenty of puzzle games have found ways to fill its shoes, but none of them carries the same spirit and ingenuity it does. So maybe keeping it alive is what the community is around for. To that I say, all the power to it. I think this one is also a particularly good example of one.
When I first started up, it was as if I was back. The room, albeit not perfectly calibrated to capture the same room Chell has always been in, seems like a foreshadowing for where I would be taken. As well as the annoying squeaky voice that accompanies me.
The rough parts of the game engine was showing, nonetheless was tolerable. I followed the instructions, going through offices, and test room doors, only to spot broken see-through windows, unrefined and unfinished pieces of the rooms, and pretty much in an expositional way, the bot kept explaining everything without much hint of subtlety. Unfortunately, he's also worse than Wheatley.
And of course, him being a bit unlikeable has some to do with his writing, line delivery, and fact that he is being pitted against a standard of fast paced, witty, charming characters like Wheatley and GLaDOS. I mean, he tries, with what the modders have, they did better than usually expected.
And playing through the levels, passing through the enrichment center, coming to him face to face, before seeing everything falling apart, does provide motivations to find out why I was awaken. In a fan-made prequel to Portal 2, my new job was to wake the facility up.
It didn't take long even, started taking shortcuts and finishing up the easy puzzles with only a single portal gun, I wouldn't exactly say the puzzles are super varied and something innovative, but compared to the base game, the ball got rolling after the first 2 hours. Especially while going through the manufacturing and maintenance, far behind the simple test rooms.
And this whole place has this grungy, industrialized look within an Aperture facility. There's no moody soundtrack that really draws me into the atmosphere I just realized, not for the absence for a BGM, but another thing the mod that's great, also is missing something as well.
The puzzles are really engaging here, mechanically there are small variations that adds something new or enhances the experience. The laser boxes are an interesting design, where with my single portal gun, I just had to shift the laser direction, in order to open my exit door.
Conceptually familiar, but the redesign and how it fits into the new levels provides a lively experience in the dilapidated state of each rooms. And solving each puzzle this way, also has this environmental storytelling going on. If we're talking about Portal lingo here specifically. A nice way to read more into what's going rather than the nauseating banter of a sleep inducing drone.
Ok, I know I am being too pouty about this, but even if his design was to be obnoxious, someone like Wheatley did that better already. I was more distracted from him when the levels started to get creatively challenging, because so many of the interesting concepts implemented as I progress.
The modder did a great job, like various rooms of the Aperture science facility, both inside the facility and somewhere in the maintenance hatches, getting around the places involved looking into various nooks and crannies. Not to mention how guarded they are by sentry bots.
As for the storytelling, I wouldn't say it goes beyond what the original game did. Like Entropy Zero 2 had an amazing character who was a comical relief, in some way complemented Half Life 2's fanmade lore. This game just provides an interesting backstory, that also exists for the sake of doing the puzzles. But credit mostly goes to the environments and way they're detailed.
You know, the other thing I've noticed about my overall experience after going through the ruins of the facility, is just how somber it is. It's not that I feel sorry for a science facility that is probably decades old, and was at a time experimenting on human test subjects.
Like I've mentioned environmental storytelling, maybe it has to do with the available assets the base game provides or even the new ones, even without a good BGM to be heard from, the noises coming each of the level really sets the mood.
Later on, things get funky because of the gel. If you don't know, blue basically bounces everything off, and orange just makes things slippery. But I kind of want to use the other part of my portal gun, so it's bothersome for me that it's taking this long. 3hrs, in and long ways off. There was one other level that stood out, where it was dropping bombs, and I had to open portal holes for it.
Blowing up the fragile glass windows, opening entrances in order for me to teleport out of there. Genius in all of it comes from how hidden the viable walls are, that I have to even blow the see-through glasses that are broken up to shoot a portal there.
It doesn't have frantic, sporadic energy, a nicely tuned soundtrack to keep momentum up, and a charming goofy character from P2 to keep the game flow going, but the puzzles, sandbox design, and way it tells the story is where it's really at. For a mod game, that's something.
And man, soon as I got the upgraded gun, the gameplay has changed. Because now I have to use most of my brain to figure how to create portals and get out from the densely huge levels. It's a 7-8hr tour, after going through 4hrs of it, I felt like it was only the beginning for the real fun to begin. That, and also ugh, the other guy opening his yap over and over.
I also found out there's more mods being made out there, and dozens of hours of fun to be had as well. Including a release over 2 years ago, that has co-op. I am usually the sort of guy that downloads mods for big, open-world games, finished Portal 2 over a decade ago and stopped since.
Plenty of puzzle games out there have done so many different things, kind of glad to see Talos Principle come back, and a new Trine game as well. What a surprising era for puzzle solvers.
