3rd
This review (warning: link has spoilers) nails many of the exact critiques I had been thinking about while playing Portal 2, while still giving it credit where credit is due. It is very refreshing given the one-sided praise in nearly all other reviews I’ve read.
Foremost on my mind: “With the original Portal, I could solve some of the puzzles in my own way. In fact, [challenge levels] explicitly required you to devise new solutions. The puzzle chambers allowed experimentation … But with the richer capabilities of the new game, I never had that same sense … The puzzles required careful use of the tools provided, and as a result, I felt that the game was on rails. The puzzles could be solved the right way, the way that the developers had intended, or not at all. The experimental, exploratory nature of the first game was missing … We were given all these great toys, and yet the game never actually gave us a good chance to play with them. Each tool was to be used for its own narrow purpose within each puzzle, and that was that. The whole approach of solving problems was different … With physics as mind-bending as Portal has, [experimentation] is a great scheme.”
