It is true. In both Portal 2 and Crysis 2 things were taken out, graphical effects pushed back, along with physics to be able to run on consoles. Where the PC version has nothing extra added to it as they claim they want to to be level across the board. Proof of this is in dev commentary on Portal 2 and even looking at Portal and seeing twitch based air movements taken out. Also in interview with Crytek and looking at Crysis and seeing how much was toned down and how better Crysis is over Crysis 2. We have a right to moan because the PC is getting shafted time and time again thanx to the consoles casual player base and their 6 year old hardware.
You actually miss those? The times when you had to fire portals accurately while floating and auto-rotating in the air were the only blemishes in an otherwise nearly perfect game. I have no doubt those wouldn't have been in even if there was no console version. Also, I seriously don't know what kind of amazing graphical wizardry you think they're holding back from the PC. They're developing on a 10 year old engine. It's not going to look much better than it looks right now.
Yeah the Source engine is so old it's growing hair. I don't know what the PC elitists were expecting, but Portal 2 looks awesome even on PS3. The art direction calls for quite a lot of simplicity in it's design so other than killing the game and setting the whole thing in a dinosaur-infested jungle or something I don't see many improvements that could be made in terms of visual complexity. What I'm seeing here is more a case of (some) PC gamers proving themselves once again to be nothing more than a bunch of whiney graphic whores. They can't even legitimately fault the gameplay, they're moaning about DLC and graphics but the most important aspect of the entire thing is great and they're just ignoring that? They're becoming so removed from reality it's laughable. I revel in their disappointment and hope it continues because people like that don't deserve happiness
Regardless of my issues with DLC, you can't argue the game is short. Great? Yes. But it was over way to quickly..
That's a sign of a good game. Would you rather have got bored of the game at the end? It's always better to end on a good note.
In that case it could have ended as soon as the chamber you start in smashed apart, because that was a high note At the very least, I'm glad it was longer than the first game. My criticism isn't so much that it's over quickly, but that there's less reason to go back to the start than in other games. Almost off-topic: Anyone know where the impossible geometry is? They mentioned it in the commentary.
That depends though.. I really don't have anyone that is interested in playing co-op. Most of the games today are only single player so I applaud Portal 2 for adding that. I do wish it was a little longer though. It all depends on how a player gets through it-- I see some people having a difficult time playing maybe 8+ hours on single player (and if the player is that horrible, 12+ hours ) It can get difficult. And I don't mind DLC level packs. If it is a side story like Dead Space Severed then I'm fine. But it would be nice to include the levels in the game as free.
Actually there were quite a few in there when showing the game off from 2010 - 2011. My guess is they were taken out because the analog sticks cannot move fast enough, as when showing it off on the PC, they were easy to hit the mark. I think that shows all over the game, there's a lack of twitch based movement like an FPS on the PC should have. Instead it's all about working out the puzzle instead of performing it. Also about the graphics there is a great example in the games commentary of them having to tone down the blob graphics so the consoles could cope. They say as they wanted it to look the same on all platforms, they changed the look of the PC version too. Portal 2 even has the auto aim on the PC version. It's so restrictive and annoying that you have to put portals where they ask, you cannot think of new ways like the original. If you need any more proof. Crysis 2 is worse than Crysis, Gamespot did a video on it and it's all over Youtube too. There are so many games released today that are held back by the consoles from the design of the multiplayer, because consoles cannot cope with mass amount of players, the PC version suffers and has limited size too. Look at once great franchises over the years making the jump from PC to console and then they get ruined. Deus Ex, Rainbow Six, Battlefield, Crysis, Call of Duty, Fallout etc etc. Even Bioware used to make great games, yet now since consoles their games are so limited in scope, have cliche scripts and are very linear. If I see one more UE3 game that doesn't have AA I'll scream! I'm sick of consoles because even if we get new ones this year with hardware that's years in advance to what the average PC guy has. It'll still be held back being designed for casual players who find everything too hard. It'll have no SDK on the PC most likely as it's a crap port and we wont even see mods to make it better. It'll have limited MP and the menus will all suck, so the PC guys have to put up with lobbies. Every PC multiplayer game with lobbies has died so fast, the PC needs dedicated servers and a server browser. Minecraft, GTA SA MP and MTA and Mount and Blade are just a few examples of just having a good interface can do. If it's giving all the freedom over to the player like Minecraft or having a browser with tons of options like SAMP or copying the tried and tested Valve UI like MTA.
They could honestly charge me $100 for Portal Games and I'd still buy them cause they're just that awesome.
The first Portal was identical on all platforms too, so saying that the sequel couldn't include the same tricks as the first just doesn't make sense. They weren't even any more difficult with a controler than with a mouse, I had the pleasure of playing the game through 100% on PC, 360 and PS3 and the difference was non-existent. As for the auto-aim being on PC, I'm pretty sure that would have been in regardless of the games existence on consoles. As you already said, the game is about figuring out the puzzle, not performing it. That could be the case for one very simple reason... they want it to be. They want the game to be accessible to a large crowd, so why give them the hassle of struggling with a room when they already know how to do it? If they've figured out where the portal is supposed to go they should be able to finish the room. It's got very little to do with mouse vs controller and a lot to do with simply making the game not stupidly annoying for players because your portal is off by 5 pixels. That's good developing. Portal has never been and will never be about accuracy. You're thinking of a different game. Sorry, but this just made me laugh. These franchises are getting more and more popular both critically and commercially. They're earning more money for the devs, they're getting more exposure... the gaming world loves them. To say they've been ruined is the true call of a PC elitist. Perhaps you just look at games from entirely the wrong point of view, because there are a few million people out there who'd agrue with this statement.
Technically there hasn't ever really been a real battlefield on console. Bad company is not Battlefield. 1943 is badcompany on a BF map. Really the closest thing to a real battlefield game on console would be the xbox version of modern combat, and that game is over 10 years old almost... BF3 will change that..
Dear PC Gamers: Porn is an exclusive title that can't be found or changed because consoles can't cope with it. They ignore it completely so you can have the satisfaction of enjoying it by yourself. Perhaps this will suit you more than Portal?
Mmkay. Now, would you like to let me borrow your alternate reality device so I can see this other world where consoles don't exist, and games are this manna you so beautifully described? I can't help but suspect that things would not be so incredibly different from the current situation as you might think if consoles didn't "hold back" gaming.
I'm not gonna bitch about Portal 2. I love this game. No complaints about it. But I am gonna bitch. Well no...but there is multitasking, so I can watch it on my Steam overlay while playing Portal! There you have it...another advantage of PC Gaming. More popular commercially? HAH! Why do you think Crysis 2 is such a flop on PC? Because we don't like buying half-assed console ports. (I'm sure sales will come back once they add the DX 11 patch, but right now...~300,000 copies on PC. Pathetic. Only 2,400 people played it on Steam today at PEAK.). And Crytek was expecting 6 million sales overall by making it multiplatform? Crysis 2 sales have reached 1.3 million and completely leveled off right there according to VGChartz. Sales barely rose even last week. And let's say Crysis 2 sales do reach more than the 5+ million copies of Crysis and Warhead...over a year or two. Would they have made the same amount of money? I doubt it. Considering that over 70% of PC sales these days are through digital distribution, profit margins on one Steam copy of a game are over 2.5X higher than a boxed console copy for the developer. I wanna see Crytek reach 3.5 million total sales of Crysis 2 in the same one year time period that Crysis did. I hope the learned their lesson and don't give their community the finger in Crysis 3. And that's not even half the problem...the problem is that Crysis 2 is an inferior game. Physics engine is much worse (Or not necessarily worse, but many objects are unaffected by it/ features are disabled) Fewer objects are destructible. Open environments aren't as big. It's not exactly linear, but there are these "bubbles" of open areas instead of a full open one. Bullet physics have been removed. Now it uses hitscans instead of a travel-time + gravity combination for bullet hit location like Battlefield does. Not as much environment interactivity. You can still grab and throw objects and shoot down trees, but the number of objects and trees that can do this are much smaller. And only about half of the foliage actually "bends" as you walk through it. Field of View is much smaller. Now this option can be manually adjusted, but the FoV is much smaller by default and can only be changed through editing .cfg files Limited graphics options. Now there are just 3 Presets for Visual Quality "High, Very High, and Extreme". With that you can adjust VSync and resolution. Unlike in the original in which you could change things like quality of AA, Textures, Water, Physics, Post-Processing, Effects, Lighting, Shaders, etc all individually. There is a 3rd party tool that lets you do this in Crysis 2 but nothing official. Graphics are not better. Some parts look better while other look worse compared to the original. With that only a DirectX 9 render-path is available, while the original supported DirectX 10. Crytek just recently announced that an update containing DirectX 11 support is in the works. No 64-bit exe. Sure you may think...what the hell does physics have to do with gameplay...this kid is a moron! But if you've ever played throough Crysis or Warhead and had fun blowing stuff up, throwing stuff, tearing down buildings, shooting down trees, you would know how integral it was to the gameplay. It was one of the things that made Crysis...Crysis. But now they got rid of half of its defining features to "make more money". But you see...Crysis 2 in its current state is still superior to most shooters of this year and the year before. Which goes to show...exeactly how epic Crysis was. Another example of a ruined game: Battlefield. I'm not even going to go into the details on why Bad Company is inferior to BF2 and BF 1942...1337Brain can do that for me. And yes to the other guy...consoles ARE holding back gaming. Well graphically speaking...and gameplay..if you count a completely interactive and open world as part of gameplay.
