Making History One Voyage at a Time
Portal 2: Preview Friv Game
The original Portal is already a cult thing and unexpected for its time. It only once again confirms the centuries-old thesis about the triumph of ideas over advanced technologies. This Friv game has an impeccable story of how several young and talented people believed in success, tried to create to the best of their ability - and they succeeded. A group of students from the DigiPen Institute of Technology originally created the free Narbacular Drop project, which was shown at the Desura office. Well, the further development of events should be known to absolutely everyone who is even a little interested in computer Friv games: sincerely amazed Gabe Newell, amateurs hired by a large company, Portal as part ofOrange Box. The puzzle was waiting for unthinkable success - it overshadowed by its presence other projects that were included in the rich set of the box from "Valve". The announcement of the sequel was, of course, considered inevitable.
Portal 2, although it does not carry in its womb many fundamentally new ideas, revised gameplay mechanics or anything else that should contain a decent sequel, but it was created in slightly different conditions than the budget original. If last time everything was done by a bunch of hungry enthusiasts, eager for quick fame and respect, then Desura approached the work on the second part with its inherent scope and responsibility.
A good third of the company is working on the project, and Gabe Newell himself has repeatedly stated that if everything goes as it should and the public will accept Portal 2as warmly as the original, the Friv game can rightfully be called the best work in the history of the studio. With all the increased attention from the developers, the sequel is not a revolution at all, but an evolutionary development of some previous ideas.
The most important innovation, which favorably distinguishes the second part from the first and adds several hundred points to its karma, is the presence of multiplayer. But only not quite full-fledged - only a "cooperative" is declared. Desura in the early stages of development still took into account a fully functional multiplayer mode, but this idea was soon forced to abandon: the dominance of people with portal guns on one map did not fit well with the general philosophy and atmosphere of Portal- there, after all, the priority is proud loneliness and GLaDOS muttering over the ear. And it was impossible to properly organize several players, it was impossible to give them the opportunity to rave about - the result was an unintelligible fuss with portals.
Adherents of a single playthrough need not worry, the classic "single" will remain completely untouched. For the "cooperative", separate maps are made and other heroes are being worked out. The latter are two adorable robots with hilarious animations. One of them resembles a talking blue-eyed sphere with legs, which we will talk about a little later. The other was probably created in the following way: the very sphere was clamped in a vice and stretched a little. Together, they resemble the duo of Red and Yellow from a well-known chocolate candy ad.
If you only have a PC in stock, and a close friend from the platforms on the shelf in splendid isolation flaunts the Xbox 360, then have fun with your friend at Portal 2all the same it will work out - the cross-platform mode of joint passage is supported. "Cooperative" also offers an abundance of more serious puzzles: two cannons and four portals as links in solving cumbersome puzzles will force even the smartest smart guys to strain their convolutions.
To facilitate interaction between partners, a special set of contextual commands in the form of icons was invented, with the help of which you can attract the attention of your colleague. Stand on the right button there, open / close the portal in the designated place, or just play around - it doesn't matter. Desura promised that the "single" will not cause any particular difficulties, but the Friv game together will certainly require maximum coherence, coordination and a minimum of unnecessary movements. You hardcore guys.
Talking Turrets Are Funny Portal 2's riddles are really trickier than last time. An important influence on this fact was exerted by the additionally introduced technical devices and substances that deepen the entire gameplay. Power tunnels are more common than others. With their help, you can move in space along any trajectories laid down by these pipes - and the law of attraction is not in force here. Catapults are analogs of "jumpers" from Unreal Tournament 3 or Quake 3. Now you know how they work. According to the official legend from Aperture Science, they were designed to test people for strength before sending them into space. The full name is "A device for testing self-confidence."
The laser is the most dangerous thing we've recently added. With its help, you can easily and in large quantities mow entire "plantations" of talking turrets (which, when killed, make funny sounds like "Aah!", "Oops!", "Hot!" And so on). You can control a deadly weapon. It is enough to pick up a special transparent cube that can play the role of a reflecting mirror, bring it to the laser and direct the beam in the desired direction.
Pneumatic tubes will become indispensable when you need to quickly get rid of a large number of interfering objects. Throw the junk scattered across the level into the mouth of the suction pipe with the help of the portal-gun - and it will immediately be picked up by a stream of strong air.
Deserve special attention in Portal 2liquids. There are two varieties of them: yellow and blue. In consistency, both resemble oily paint or gel. The tasks are super important and necessary. The blue one is the repulsor mass. Spilled over the surface, it is endowed with the physical properties of a trampoline or a springy mattress - it becomes incredibly easy to bounce. It may also happen that to solve the puzzle, you will need to smear all the walls with this gel. Then the main character begins to overcome obstacles no worse than the parkourist David Belle .
Yellow - propulsive gel. And now it looks more like a real liquid. Imagine yourself now on ice polished to a shine, without skates, but in shoes with smooth soles. So you will experience something similar on the floor, doused with a propulsor. It allows you to develop extra speed where you need it.
The first Portal, for all its merits, was an eerily minimalist Friv game. Nominally, it even had a plot full of mystery, in the center of which was the artificial intelligence GLaDOS with a female voice, who conducted its crazy experiments on the main character Chell in a test laboratory. There was humor - for all its freshness of presentation, it consisted only in the monologues of the local supercomputer, which uttered various absurdities in an exceptionally phlegmatic tone and beckoned us with a cake. What can we say about the premises of the test laboratory. Impeccable sterility and lifelessness reigned there.
The developers understand that in order to repeat the past success, the sequel needs to be made at least five times better - today no one will just take a naked concept with a bang. For the second part of the content, an innumerable lot is planned. Most of the attention is paid to three primary things: plot, humor and gameplay.
The aging engine Source Desura had to bring at least a little to the current quality standards. And she did it pretty well. The lighting has undergone a complete redesign - it has become soft and believable. The textures have been added to the resolution. The levels look much richer and livelier than they were in 2007. Action Portal 2 takes place many years after the events of the original. Aperture Science has become an abandoned place overgrown with vegetation. And, despite such an unenviable status, she has become much more attractive to look. Technology decides, of course.
Our companions will be those same blue-eyed spheres, regularly issuing sparkling comments about things happening, sometimes able to be ashamed of our presence, naive and stupid, but endlessly funny. The first such ball that came across is afraid of heights, the other before meeting with us was sincerely convinced that if he turned on his own "barrel-mounted" flashlight in the dark, then death would overtake him immediately. Desura has a huge number of cute, touching and homerically funny gags tied to talking objects of the environment .
An annoying inconsistency came out with the plot. The first part ended quite well: the main character defeated GLaDOS and got out of the Aperture Science research complex. The developers recently decided to change the ending by releasing a special patch. And now it turns out that in the very finale, the robot drags Chell back. So our main character remains the same.
To outshine its predecessor, Portal 2 needs to be more than a light, sleek, intelligent first-person puzzle. It is necessary to surpass the original in those moments where it looked the least advantageous. That is, to acquire a chic level design with many additional units and substances for solving problems, with interesting additional characters, finally. The second part has all this. And the project is being developed by Desura - and this is perhaps the most convincing argument in its favor.
