Your Excellency wrote:So I've recently completed Portal 2 on the PS3, and it goes without saying that it's a complete masterpiece, and pretty much one of the greatest works of man since Bernini's The Rape of Proserpina. Now I've been playing ICO (in HD), which I've never played before..
And let me say this: having bathed in the glory of Portal 2, Ico's flaws are major:
1. Why do all these intricate dungeon puzzles even exist?
What Portal 2 did is explain why all the clever puzzles exist in their universe. It's because they were test chambers, designed to allow humans to test out these new scientific advances to do things they couldn't before. We don't know EVERYTHING about the intentions behind the makers, but we know enough for it to make sense. The rest of the mystery is open enough to allow us to find out little details about it as we go along.
In Ico, we're to presume that SOMEBODY spent loads of money and time pointlessly building this fortress full of puzzles. The game always feels completely and utterly artificial as a result.
2. There is no genuine 'puzzle solving' in Ico.
This is how you solve a puzzle in Ico: look for an object that you can do something with: i.e. a block. Then put that block in the nearby floor-button. It helps because there is only one floor button to put it in, so essentially you can't get it wrong. One block, one floor button. It's about as linear as puzzle solving gets, and so much of the game is like this.
If you see a rope, you climb up it, which takes you to a platform. At this point, there's no lateral thinking involved to get to the next platform, it's simply a case of pulling a lever/climbing a foothold. There's never a choice between a lever and a foothold, as the game is so simplistic and linear that it's practically on rails, and it pretty much directs you where to go itself.
In comparison, with Portal 2 you have to use your HEAD to think about how to solve the puzzle. It's not a case of 'I need to push this floor-button, oh obviously I do it with the block that is sitting 2 feet away', it's a case of 'HOW do I keep these two buttons pushed down when there is only one block, and even that block disintegrates every time I try to bring it across the barrier, and to make it worse I have to do it whilst avoiding the gun turrets. But I have at my disposal a portal gun and some paint which allows me to turn regular walls into portal-walls'. Essentially, you can't just sleepwalk through Portal 2. You have to solve the puzzle. Not sleepwalk through the puzzle.
When you get stuck in Portal 2, it's your own stupid fault. When you get stuck in ICO, it's the game's fault.
Here's an example: there is a bit halfway through Ico where you have gotten to a high platform in a dungeon. You need to get across to another platform on the opposite side of the room to progress. There's no way across. You spend half an hour looking over every inch of that room for the the handholds/block/lever that you forgot to use. You don't find anything, so you then you try using your sword to slice everything in the room. Doesn't work. THEN you finally figure out the retarded solution: you were supposed to stand on the edge of the platform with Yorda, and then she magically creates a platform in between the two stages. Now let me begin by saying this is the dumbest most retarded shit I have ever seen in my life. If Yorda can fucking magically create platforms at will, then why the fuck doesn't she just create one leading me straight out of the entire fortress? Also, where in the game was I supposed to find out that she could do this? This isn't lateral thinking, it's complete making-it-up-as-we-go-along. It's literally as if the level designers couldn't be bothered to think of a solution, so they pulled a deus ex machina on the problem. There's a few other examples of this in the game too.
4. All the other little things.
With Portal 2, it seems like they thought about EVERYTHING, to make it a perfect game. What no one ever mentions about Portal 2 is those amazing bits where you try and solve and puzzle but do it wrong, and Glados or Wheatley laugh at you for your stupidity. It feels incredibly organic and genuine, and really brings you into the game. It literally feels like they're watching you the whole time. Like when Wheatley says 'come this way', and you go the opposite way. In a normal game, Wheatly would wait until you came in his direction. In Portal, he makes an annoyed comment about how you're ignoring him. The dialogue/AI in this game is just on a whole other level to other computer games. Ico is so utterly bland in comparison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtcBQCW_zk
Conclusion: Portal 2 is so good that it makes other puzzle games seem really rather terrible.
Question: Will there be another puzzle game in ten years time which makes Portal 2 seem really rather terrible?
Answer: No.
Not endorsing the above in any way; it's just the most interesting thing I've read on the internet on Ico, and it therefore seems appropriate to start this thread with it.
P.S. Insomnia is linked several times around page 14. Took them long enough.
