What made Portal compelling was the learning. And the pacing was slow, frankly, because it was teaching you to learn a new mechanic and think in a new way. I'm not saying it has no replay value, but playing through a second time is so much easier that the jokes are most of the interest - the gameplay itself is no longer compelling. So the sequel will have to step up the pace and the difficulty, or introduce some new mechanics, or maybe both.
I hope the rumors of Chell being a fleshed-out character aren't true. I liked how, in the first game, she was more of an avatar than a character. It wasn't like I was playing a character in a game, it felt I was playing the game. The character's goals aligned perfectly with mine - just get to the end of the level. I don't want to lose that feeling in Portal 2.
Below are some new gameplay videos, which showcase a wide variety of new game mechanics. Particularly the second two show a lot of new tricks they're going to be bringing to the sequel:
Awesome vids, thanks for the links. And it looks like they're using more DigiPen student ideas again. The gels seemed to be straight out of Tag: https://www.digipen.edu/studentprojects/tag/
(Disclaimer: I'm a CE student there.)
Edit: ah, looks like someone already caught that hours ago!
Portal did have challenge maps which I for one found legitimate challenging.
In agreement: One of the things I like about sequels, especially for things like Portal, is that they are much more able to just jump into the action. Portal 1 is in some sense the tutorial level.
For a movie example, while the first Harry Potter was enjoyable, it spends almost the entire movie just setting up. The later ones I enjoyed much more because they were done setting up.
Sequelitis is bad, but I think it's an error to mistake that for sequels being bad in general, though I freely concede I understand where the temptation to simplify that concept comes from.
In an interview they said that a major goal of Portal 2 is to keep it just as accessible as the first one. I won't be just a "more difficult Portal 1". And judging from the trailer and Gameplay videos, there will be lots of new mechanics (e.g. some kind of fluid dynamics).
They also said that it would be about twice as long as the first game. I'm not sure if I'd want that. I like short games and to me, part of Portals appeal and "replay value" is that you can easily play it in one sitting.
I was wondering how they were going to improve on the first game, but the clearly up'd the ante. The longer gameplay video had some very amazing looking puzzles with the different liquids (propulsion and repulsion)
It seems to take some cues from another game, the name of which I forget, where you could shoot different colored paint on surfaces to make them behave differently.
I admit I didn’t like parts of the first game as much as I’d hoped, but after playing the commentary and enjoying the “escape sequence,” I’m looking forward to the sequel. I just hope that the developers’ lessons learned designing that last level will carry through to the new game. The last couple of test chambers sucked due to not separating complex puzzles from the timed ones.
Definitely will play that one. It seems it is hard to capture on video what made the game so great, though.
Also, am I the only one who finds sequels depressing? There rarely is a point in beating the enemy in a game anymore, because they will ALWAYS be back.
What made Portal such a great game is that it actually forces you to think. Most blockbuster games seem to follow a formula much like the formulas you might find in Hollywood blockbusters...they are still entertaining, but you really don't get that sense of "accomplishment" you get from playing something like Portal or Braid (an equally great game!!).
Since portal does a lot of mental stretching on spatial aptitude sandbox environment, this game could be a breakthrough test for school exams / exercises.
I hope the rumors of Chell being a fleshed-out character aren't true. I liked how, in the first game, she was more of an avatar than a character. It wasn't like I was playing a character in a game, it felt I was playing the game. The character's goals aligned perfectly with mine - just get to the end of the level. I don't want to lose that feeling in Portal 2.