I haven't played an especially large amount of video games, but the ones I do play are almost always among the best. There's one though, that stands far above all the others. I've played games where the fates of entire worlds are placed in my hands, but my favorite game features absolutely none of those incredibly high stakes. Sure, there's a story, and an exciting conclusion, but nowhere near the level of some of my other favorites. At the end of the day, it's basically just a puzzle game.
Portal 2 is my favorite video game. There's no violence, no killing, there's a gun, but it fires portals (shocking), and it solves puzzles. I just recently starting playing the game again because I have a computer that can actually handle the graphics. It's been a few years, so my recollection of the puzzles is hazy at best. It's almost like I'm playing the game for the first time again. I get to laugh at the absolutely hilarious dialogue once more, no small feat for a video game to pull off. Humor's a difficult thing to pull off, but Portal does it almost perfectly. The gameplay is smooth and the game looks good too. I've never been one for hyper-realism in my video games, it's why I'm so partial to Team Fortress 2, and why I've been going pretty hard at Borderlands 2 the past couple months (I'm sure I'll have something to say about that game, just not now). There's no cartoony aspects to Portal, but the scale of everything in the game is just so vast, it can't possibly be real.
I don't think many people would deny that Portal 2 is a great game, but I don't imagine many would call it their favorite. What does it for me? Simple. When I first played the game, I played with a couple friends watching, and that experience made everything so much better. The game is great, but the interactive aspect of that first playthrough made a great game so much better. I've heard the same thing from other people who've played the game, playing it with other people around made it better. The game might not look all that interesting on the surface, but trust me, it's probably the most fun I've ever had playing a video game.
I haven't been playing much TF2 in the past few months, because there really hasn't been much new stuff to do. Mann vs. Machine is stale, and there haven't been any new weapons added to the game since 2012. Sure, there were new maps added, but they really weren't. They were just made official, they've existed for years beforehand. All the big updates of the past 18 months have only added hats. Hats are nice, but they don't make the game more compelling to play. So, since my computer is old and slow and there's nothing really new for me to accomplish, my play time has definitely decreased as of late.
But finally, after many months, new weapons have been added to the game. The Love and War Update added 5 new weapons, and it also brought with it a dozen new equipable taunts. There's also a whole new 15 minute long video, which is pretty good. Not great, not my favorite TF2 related video, but it's solid.
There were a lot of things in this update, but the biggest were the taunts and the new weapons. I'm not sure how I stand on the taunts. I like some of the new ones, but I don't really agree with the fact that you can now do partner and group taunts with the other team. Which is funny considering how often I just stopped playing the game because some Heavy was sitting in a corner high-fiving. But before, those moments where you and the enemy would just stop were spontaneous, and the game wasn't built around doing that, so it felt fun. Now, with this stuff built into the game now, I feel like if I see people conga-ing along, I can't do anything about it, because killing a defenseless person just isn't any fun for me. If they're not fighting back, it just feels wrong. So, I don't know about the taunts
As I said, there are five new weapons, and I'll start with the two I care about least. The Back Scatter is for Scout, it has only four shots loaded and is a bit less accurate, but if you're close and behind an enemy, it does minicrits. It's okay, but I don't play much Scout. The Classic is a new Sniper rifle, it lets you charge a shot independent of scoping it, so you can headshot while maintaining full view, but it has to be fully charged to headshot at all, and it does less damage on bodyshots. It's not really very good, and I really dislike playing Sniper, so I won't be making much use of it.
The B.A.S.E Jumper is for Soldier and Demoman, and it's basically a parachute. When you're airborne, you deploy it, and you fall less quickly. You can open and close it as often as you want in the air, which lessens the fact that you're kind of a sitting duck up there. I haven't actually used it in an actual server, but it seems like a nifty thing, and kind of fun, especially with the next item.
The Air Strike is for Soldier, and it's the item I've used the most. You start off with three rockets loaded, one less than stock, and those rockets have less splash and less damage that normal. But, when you get a kill, you can hold one more rocket in your clip, up to a maximum of eight. And when you're airborne, the rate of fire is significantly increased. It's so satisfying getting up in the air and launching seven rockets at the enemy, even if those rockets aren't particularly good. That's the thing with the Air Strike. It's a ton of fun to play around with, but it's not as good as it sounds.
The Tide Turner is for Demoman, and it's probably the best weapon added. It gives 25% resistance to explosives and fire, worse than the Chargin' Targe, but it does give you complete control of your charge, and if you get a kill with the charge in any manner, you can charge again instantly. It's just as fun as the Air Strike, with the added benefit of being somewhat effective. It's a little less good now that stickies have been reverted, but that's a whole mess that I don't want to get into since the change was reversed.
So, the Love and War Update: good video, not sure about the taunts, decent weapons that aren't incredibly annoying to play against. Not a bad update.
Well, that's it then. I've played all the main Half-Life games, and now I, just like millions of other
people, get to wait for a game that may never even come. I really hope that we do get a Half-Life 3, just to complete the story, because there's nothing worse than an unresolved plot, and Episode 2 concludes with a big plot twist.
I enjoyed the Episodes, but I did not like them as much as the full game. I wanted to consider Episode 1 and 2 as a full, standalone game, but I couldn't do that. That's too bad, because it would have helped the immersion factor immensely. You progress through Episode 1 so fast it never has a chance to really suck you into the world. I got through it in less than four hours, which is about the same amount of time I took to play the original Portal game. That still managed to be immersive though, because it was very minimalistic, where as Episode 1 is not. Just as you start to get invested in the game, it's over.
Episode 2 is a bit better, because it's longer. At just under 6 hours, it is more of a very condensed
game than the first episode. It has a definite beginning, middle, and end. Unfortunately, the ending of Episode 2 is basically, "Insert sequel here," as a major character dies and the situation goes from bad to "Oh crap." Episode 2 was released in 2007. It is no 2014, and as far as we know, we are no closer to that sequel now then we were seven years ago. I feel sorry for the people who played Episode 2 back when it was released and have been waiting all this time. It wouldn't be so bad if the Half-Life games weren't some of the most critically acclaimed video games ever. But they are, and now, I have to wait for Half-Life 3, just like everyone else.
I don't think many people would deny that Portal 2 is a great game, but I don't imagine many would call it their favorite. What does it for me? Simple. When I first played the game, I played with a couple friends watching, and that experience made everything so much better. The game is great, but the interactive aspect of that first playthrough made a great game so much better. I've heard the same thing from other people who've played the game, playing it with other people around made it better. The game might not look all that interesting on the surface, but trust me, it's probably the most fun I've ever had playing a video game.
