xiven.com stating the blatantly obvious since 2002

Well here we are again

It's always such a pleasure.

Portal 2 was released on Steam on Tuesday morning, a convenient 24 hours or so before my planned trip to the UK. So naturally I decided that I would have to complete the single-player game before heading on vacation.

The entire game was highly enjoyable, both the puzzle-solving elements and the storyline with its superb voice acting and impressive visuals.

So, to go briefly over each of those points:

Puzzles

Much as in the original Portal, the puzzles to be solved with only your hand-held portal device, your wits, and the surrounding environment make up the bulk of the gameplay. Various new elements have been added, such as hard-light bridges and excursion funnels that can go through portals, along with propulsion and repulsion gels that allow you to run very fast and bounce very high respectively. These allow for all kinds of new and interesting puzzles to solve. The only possible complaint (and one that some others have made) is that in some points of the game the difficulty is not in how to solve the puzzle, but in working out where on earth you're actually trying to get to - the objective just isn't always clear. Sometimes you're not actually trying to solve any puzzle, but are just searching for the next suitable portal surface that you're expected to find. That said though, the game is still awesome fun to play.

Story

After defeating GLaDOS in the original Portal, you (playing the part of Chell, test subject for Aperture Science Laboratories) find yourself in a suspended animation sleeping chamber which you awake from many years in the future. The story of how you came to be there in the first place is briefly touched upon in the “Lab Rat” comic. Without wanting to spoil too much, the storyline of Portal 2 again has you pitted against the somewhat insane artificial intelligence GLaDOS, and also gives you some insight into the past of Aperture Laboratories as you explore abandoned test chambers from the 1940s onwards. The plot twists are largely predictable and yet still enjoyable, and the ending is very satisfying. The final portal you make… let's just say I wasn't expecting that to happen!

Voice acting

Ellen McLain reprises her role as GLaDOS superbly and is joined by Stephen Merchant as Wheatley (an AI core who helps you to escape from suspended animation), and J.K. Simmons as Cave Johnson, founder of Aperture Science Laboratories. Those expecting a follow-up to Jonathan Coulton and Ellen McLain's “Still Alive” should also not be disappointed.

Visuals

Although the graphics engine hasn't really changed hugely, a number of nice effects have been added (the excursion funnels, the gels and the combination of the two together are quite impressive); but that's not what makes Portal 2 look fantastic. The sheer size and scope of the Aperture Laboratories facilities as they are revealed to you is what really stands out. I mean this place is not just big, it is unbelievably enormous in scope. Also impressive is the dynamic aspect of the layout as at certain parts of the story the facility is changing all around you as you explore and more complex challenges are created for you.

All in all, this is a fantastic game and is highly recommended - though I haven't even tried the co-operative play mode yet; I look forward to trying that out when I get back home. The single player game is longer than Portal, but still reasonably short. Priced at £29.99, you might consider it to be a rather short experience for your money - though what there is is quite awesome.

Overall, definitely one of my favourite games of the past few years.

Posted: 2011-04-23 13:57:27 UTC by Xiven | Cross-references (0) | Comments (0)

Are you native yet?

I was going to mock this post by the IE Development Team Microsoft Marketing Department, but really, just quoting the thing is enough (emphasis mine):

Web sites and HTML5 run best when they run natively, on a browser optimized for the operating system on your device.

We built IE9 from the ground up for HTML5 and for Windows to deliver the most native HTML5 experience and the best Web experience on Windows. IE10 continues on IE9’s path, directly using what Windows provides and avoiding abstractions, layers, and libraries that slow down your site and your experience:

The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9. IE9’s approach to taking advantage of what the operating system offers – from the native graphics stack to jump lists in the shell – maximizes performance, usability, and reliability. We released a fast, clean, trusted, and interoperable IE9 globally for consumers and businesses four weeks ago with the goal of delivering the best experience of HTML5. The best HTML5 is native to the operating system, so Web sites have the fewest translation layers to pass through. The best HTML5 enables sites to use the same markup – the same HTML, CSS, and script – across browsers. The best HTML5 respects developers’ time and enables same markup by treating site-ready HTML5 differently from unstable technologies.

Mozilla's bug on this issue makes for entertaining reading. Be sure to check out http://arewenativeyet.com/ for important updates on this.

Posted: 2011-04-13 12:42:22 UTC by Xiven | Cross-references (0) | Comments (0)