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[I allude to the ending of the single player in this post]
Portal 2 is a great game, as I’m sure many others have said. But there is something that really bothered me while playing it: how the game deals with player control. Valve is, at least in my mind, known for constantly giving the player control in a first person game and never breaking away from that. But this time, they occasionally break away.
Portal 2 does it in the way that many games take away control: controlling the movement of the player character without the player doing anything. In a game with a first person perspective, this mainly means the player character looking and moving around without player input.
[caption width="206" align="alignright" caption="I also found by cutting away from the view to a traditional loading screen (unlike Portal 1/Half-Life 2, where the game just pauses to load) I became more aware of the segments. This made the setting feel more like individual levels than a seamless place, even though it’s technically designed in a seamless manner."]
This isn’t always completely bad of course; I don’t expect to retain control when the character themself has no control. Things like when GLaDOS picks you up shortly after being reactivated at the beginning of the game—it kind of makes sense. I have no control over my view, seemingly because of how she grabs, but I am also suspended in the air, so there is no movement control. Though in the proceeding long, long fall from being dropped, I still have no view control when I certainly should.
This also occurs at the end of the single player, mainly in the form of a pre-rendered video, and it really made me feel more disappointed in how it ends. It seems to have been done for technical reasons (there most likely would've had to been a break for loading otherwise) but it made me feel as if I was no longer actually a part of this very key moment in the game, because that part of the character that I am—the movement control, the brain essentially—is taken away without any logic from the game itself.
In thinking of what makes games unique, what makes them worthwhile, I frequently come back to this point: feeling involved in something. I find the feeling of involvement is directly related to feeling in control and when a game takes control away inexplicably, it breaks the feeling—it becomes unsatisfying. This isn’t to say Portal 2 is bad by any means, but the final moments of the game feel so disappointing because of this.
Comments
12 years, 12 months ago
i feel that they could have done more for the loading screens
like when you ggo into the elevators between tests the could have made that the loading screen at just let you move around in the lift while the voice over person just talks
12 years, 12 months ago
I certainly understand the specific moments that you are talking about in Portal 2. However, as disappointing as they are, the moments where you still ARE in control of 'set piece' moments, (be it through movement/looking around) definitely outnumber the moments in which you aren't. So, while I wish some of those moments that you mentioned could have been handled a little differently, they definitely weren't prevalent enough throughout the experience for me to consider them offensive.
12 years, 12 months ago
I'm... not quite sure what you're complaint is about. Do you mean when you're on the elevator going up to leave the lab? Yeah, you don't have control but why do you really need it? What are you going to do? If you're talking about being able to actually walk out of the lab yourself at the end of the elevator, I guess that would have been nice, but I hardly thought it was a big enough thing to be disappointed with the ending because of it. I thought the ending of Portal 2 was perfect.
12 years, 12 months ago
I don't personally mind the control getting taken way since it was entertaining enough to the point where I didn't mind.
12 years, 12 months ago
What he's talking about is that it feels out of place compared to similar moments in Half Life and Half Life 2, and even the ending of Portal(remember that the original ending -didn't- show Chell being dragged off, it ended as you were lifted towards the ceiling). Having control of the player during key cinematic moments used to be one of Valve's hallmarks.
12 years, 12 months ago
I guess for me, that pre-rendered sequence was already part of the ending credits. It didn't even occur to me that I should have some control, even though it is a Valve game, because you so very rarely get control of a character during end credits.
I can see why it could feel a bit restricted but at the end of the day, you're in an elevator with one direction to look at and the elevator is going up at one speed as it is. Aside from being able to run around, I don't think it would have added much to the game and I don't feel that removing player control in that sequence took away from that either.
The moment Valve doesn't give me control of a character in scenes like the Trainstation opening in Half-Life 2, THEN i'll begin to feel like they've gone astray.
12 years, 12 months ago
It would have been cool to have control in the ending (like, where you’re picking up the portal gun and stuff) and you do actually have control when you shoot up, but it doesn’t make the ending disappointing in the LEAST. The boss fight was pretty cool. I like how it contrasted the boss fight in Portal: You’re putting ON cores instead of taking them OFF.
12 years, 12 months ago
I wish their were no loading screens at all. My computer is perfectly capable of loading sections of a map without a loading screen (see: GTAIV, Just Cause 2).
12 years, 12 months ago
loading screens cant kill a game as long as its good, and portal 2 is good
12 years, 11 months ago
I was actually quite surprised when control was taken away from me at the end of Portal 2, for however brief a time. It was interesting only because of Valve's reputation for *not* doing such a thing. And although it might not have seemed like much, it did affect me by breaking me out of Chell's control.
I do agree with you, School, that it made the ending feel a bit unsatisfying, and I did feel like it was a bit jarring for Valve to break immersion.
On the issue of loading screens, I wholeheartedly think that sticking to the old Half-Life 2 style loading would have been a better option or maybe even attempting to hide the loading while you're in a previous room.
12 years, 11 months ago
meh, think I'll just rent this one