Ride to Hell: Retribution - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

About the Game

It's time for revenge! Jake Conway has just returned home from Vietnam when his younger brother is brutally murdered by a rival biker gang called “The Devil’s Hand”. Set in the outlaw era of America's Sixties, Jake takes on anyone or anything standing in the 
way of his bloody revenge fest - on bike, on foot and on fire. Join the Retribution!

Key Features

• High-speed combat - Whether on foot or on bike, you'll be using melee and firearms to enact your revenge! 
• Customize your ride - Choose from a variety of decals, paint jobs, and body parts, and hit the road with your very own unique hog. 
• Rock and roll experience - Explore the roaring sixties, a time of anarchy and free love as a man with no rules.

Previous Play Time

0 hours

Prior Experience

This is another game I'd never heard of, but I was repeatedly warned that it's terrible. I also watched a review that ripped the shit out of it. I probably should have gone in "fresh," but I had a morbid curiosity about it's incredible 16 metascore.

Expectations

Honestly, I expect to hate it. I've yet to see a single defender of this game, and some of the things I've heard make me more than a bit uncomfortable. It's weird, because 60s biker gangs are not something that has been done in the open-world crime genre of games, so there's a part of me that thinks the game's premise sounds kind of interesting, and I'm generally an optimist who likes to keep things positive, but the consensus surrounding this game is so unanimous that I don't have a lot of hope.

Portal and Portal 2 - 20/20 hours

I finally have a serious complaint about the Portal games - commentary mode is kind of a pain in the ass. There are basically two problems with it. 1)The game doesn't give you accurate information about how many commentary boxes are left to find (they are numbered, but the numbering scheme is per area, not per chapter, and not every area has them - something I did not figure out until doing the last chapter of Portal's commentary). 2)You cannot save in commentary mode, which means that you have to do an entire chapter in one go.

Nonetheless, I learned some interesting things from the commentary. Like the fact that when you place portals opposite each other, there are a maximum of 9 reflections, or that Wheatley was originally slated to be six different spheres.

But I suppose the biggest thing I learned was a theme that kept getting repeated - that the reason the games so often feel like a psychological experiment is that it is the result of a process of psychologically experimenting on the playtesters. Frequently, puzzles were made easier or more difficult by subtly changing the layout or set-dressing of a chamber. It's really interesting to see how my perception of reality is influenced by factors I'm not even consciously aware of.

The other interesting thing I learned was that the portals played havoc with basic physics simulation. This surprised me, mostly because I hadn't thought about it, but if I had thought about it, I would've thought that transporting something through a portal would have simply been a matter of deleting it in one location and loading it in another, but apparently, the physics have to work through the portals and it required some clever programming to make it happen.

That seems strange to me, that creating a simulated teleportation device can cause the simulated laws of physics to break down, much the same as a real portal device would break the real laws of physics. Then again, I could be misunderstanding the basic nature of the problem.

Glimpsing behind the scenes of Portal just deepened my respect for the games, and despite basically just repeating them a second time, I didn't really get bored with them at all. Which is interesting, because they are as linear as it's possible to be. It goes against my normal gaming instincts - I usually prefer games that are open-ended, or have a lot of choices, or at the very least have enough side-activities that I don't have to do everything in the same order.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. There are books I've read a half-dozen times, and they've never changed. There are some movies that get better when you know how they end. There's no reason a video game can't simply tell a good story without also being a fully-realized virtual world.

Anyway, in case it's not obvious -  I highly recommend these games.

Portal and Portal 2 - 10/20 hours

It's strange - ordinarily, I feel like a game should ideally last between 20-30 hours. It usually takes a bit of time for the world's details to sink in, and then a little more time to wrap things up while the game is still a preoccupation. Too short, and I can't really get into it; too long and I lose interest. The Portal series, clocking in at 10 hours, should probably feel too short.

And it kind of does. I want more Portal. Navigating 3-dimensional space, solving puzzles, being insulted by GLaDOS - I could do that forever, probably. Yet I don't really feel "cheated." The Portal games are short, but they don't have an ounce of fat on them. There's no padding, no busywork to stretch out the play-time.

I can respect that. As much as I might want double (or even triple) the Portal, I can't say with certainty that it wouldn't have worn out its welcome eventually. The creators must have felt that there wasn't more game to be had, and they didn't want to force the issue. It's kind of a bummer, but at least I got 10 hours of near-flawless gameplay out of the whole thing.

From here, I have a couple of options. I could try and complete the challenge maps, or explore Portal 2's co-op mode, or I could replay the games with the commentary turned on. I think I'll go with the last, primarily because I'm intrigued. I will often watch movies with the commentary track on, but so far I've never encountered a game with this feature.

Portal and Portal 2 - 6/20 hours

Having finished Portal and played a bit of Portal 2, I'm finding that I'm feeling less abstracted in the second one. It may just be a matter of mood - perhaps I was especially pensive the day I played Portal.

That sounds reasonable, but honestly, I think it comes down to something in the games themselves. Portal 2 is a bigger game than Portal, and I don't mean just in size. Portal barely had a plot, and there were only two characters, one of whom didn't actually have any lines. And yet its spareness is also its greatest strength - Chell starts off as a lab rat, and everything about the game, from the sort of obstacles you face, to the simple design of the environment puts you in her shoes - you become a lab rat. Then, there's a plot twist halfway through, and you escape the maze and become an avenging badass, and aside from the changing tenor of GLaDOS' taunting, the entire story is told through the things you do.

Chell doesn't need dialogue declaiming her motives, because those are also your motives. You are driven to confront GLaDOS, to find a way out of the facility, to end the game, because the game has trained you to go forward no matter what. It's masterful.

In fact, I'd go farther than that, and say that playing Portal is one of life's perfect experiences, like listening to Beethoven's 9th or seeing the Grand Canyon. It's just something everyone should do at least once.

And therein lies the trouble. It's possible to go into it already aware of the reaction you're expected to have, and that can blunt the edge of the experience. In my more neurotic moments, I worry that might happen to me if I ever get the chance to visit the Grand Canyon - that I'll get so hung up on how I'm supposed to feel awe at its majestic beauty that I'll miss out on the grandeur of the actual thing.

I also worry that I might be doing some damage in going on this way about Portal. I mean, it absolutely lives up to the hype, but it's also true that there's no reason to think the hype will enhance the game (then, I remember that I'm writing an obscure blog that's read by, like, 20 people, none of whom are likely to be waiting on my recommendation to play the most celebrated game of the last decade).

Which is to say, that Portal made such a strong impression on me, that there was no way a second playthrough could escape the shadow of the first.

Portal 2 does not have that problem.

Don't get me wrong, Portal 2 is a great game in its own right. I have nothing bad to say about it. It's just that in terms of flustering internet commentators who are trying to compose blog posts as part of a hastily conceived personal resolution to play more video games, its bigness works against it.

Portal 2 is a sequel to Portal, and like many sequels, it aims to give its audience more of what they loved about the original. And Portal 2 delivers. GLaDOS is more hilariously cutting than ever. Aperture Science is even more bizarrely and selectively incompetent. The pitch-perfect learning curve that leads gradually yet inevitably into puzzles of devious complexity is everything you could hope it might be. Cave Johnson and Wheatly are brilliant comic inventions, perfectly keeping with the humor of the first game, while taking it to the next level.

Yet for all of the great additions (and to be clear, there is nothing in this game that I'd want to cut), Portal 2 feels crowded in a way that Portal did not. Portal 2 has spectacle. It has lush post-apocalyptic environments and thrilling chase sequences. It's crammed with things to watch or to listen to. And that blunts the nostalgia a bit. Playing through a second time, I'm noticing things I missed the first time, and being reminded of things I forgot over the years. I have to say, because of this, I'm finding it more immersive than the original Portal.

Does that mean Portal 2 holds up better than its predecessor? That's a difficult question, and probably not an entirely fair one. Replaying the first Portal felt like walking through a memory because my first time through left an intense and indelible impression, and it did that because it was a masterpiece. Replaying Portal 2 is a bit more engaging and directly satisfying because it is a very, very good game.

Conclusion: playing both is worth my time.

Portal and Portal 2 - 2.5/20 hours

I'll try and make this quick - After 2 hours and 23 minutes, I finished Portal, and I have to ask myself "did I make the right choice combining it with Portal 2?" What it comes down to is, do I believe I could have reasonably played through this game nine more times in a row?

Probably, I could have. It may may even have made for an interesting series of blog posts. Still, I think I made the right choice. Going straight into Portal 2 doesn't quite have the novelty of unnecessarily repeating the original Portal, but I'll probably enjoy it more.

Portal and Portal 2 - 1.5/20 hours

You can only have a single first time.

After an hour and a half playing Portal, I find myself in a surprisingly melancholy mood, and I think it's because I can only have a single first time. Nostalgia has not exaggerated this game in the slightest  - the controls are as flawless, the puzzles are as clever, and GLaDOS is as wickedly over-the-top as I remember . . . but there's something missing.

The first time I played this game, it punched me in the gut. I remember coming to the gradual and hilarious realization that the funny robot with the gentle sing-song-y voice did not have my best interests at heart. I remember wracking my brain trying to detangle the more devious chambers, and the flood of relief and pride when I finally figured them out. I remember the bleakness and isolation of the abandoned testing facility, and how it felt to be successfully manipulated into caring about the companion cube.

This time, though, it's different. It's like I'm playing the game at a remove. Like I'm not really experiencing the game, and more like I'm walking through a cherished memory. It's been 3-4 years since I last played this game, but everything about it has come back to me almost instantly. I'm at the point where you learn that GLaDOS's offer of baked goods may have been somewhat disingenuous, and none of the first 19 chambers has so much as slowed me down.

Everything is exactly as I remember it, but it's just not the same.

That's not a complaint, by the way, except in so far as it is a complaint about the slow yet inevitable unwinding of my youth. You cannot go back. You only get one chance to play Portal for the first time. It was a sublime experience, but it is in the past now. All that's left is a memory.

But, as memories go, it's one of the best.

Portal and Portal 2 - Initial Thoughts

About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)

Portal™ is a new single player game from Valve. Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, Portal has been called one of the most innovative new games on the horizon and will offer gamers hours of unique gameplay.

The game is designed to change the way players approach, manipulate, and surmise the possibilities in a given environment; similar to how Half-Life® 2's Gravity Gun innovated new ways to leverage an object in any given situation.

Players must solve physical puzzles and challenges by opening portals to maneuvering objects, and themselves, through space.

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Portal 2 draws from the award-winning formula of innovative gameplay, story, and music that earned the original Portal over 70 industry accolades and created a cult following. 

The single-player portion of Portal 2 introduces a cast of dynamic new characters, a host of fresh puzzle elements, and a much larger set of devious test chambers. Players will explore never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs and be reunited with GLaDOS, the occasionally murderous computer companion who guided them through the original game. 

The game’s two-player cooperative mode features its own entirely separate campaign with a unique story, test chambers, and two new player characters. This new mode forces players to reconsider everything they thought they knew about portals. Success will require them to not just act cooperatively, but to think cooperatively. 

Previous Play Time

0 hours (combined)

What Was I Thinking when I Bought This?

A friend loaned me the Orange Box, so I could play Portal, and I rented Portal 2. I enjoyed both of them, and had been intending to buy them, so when I saw the bundle for 5$ on Steam, I couldn't pass it up.

Prior Experience

I've played through both of the games' main storylines on the console, but haven't done any challenges or co-op. That's why I decided to combine them into a single entry. I know for a fact they're pretty short, and while I could probably spend 20-hours on each, I  really have nothing to prove here. They're a great couple of games that I've previously enjoyed, but haven't had the chance to experience on the PC.

Expectations

I'm certain that I will sail through the story-mode and then have a blast with challenges and/or co-op. It may well take me a bit more than 20 hours to get through everything I want to get through, but since I already know that these are a wonderful couple of games that entirely deserve their towering reputation, I am greatly looking forward to playing them.