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I feel pretty disappointed that my opinion necessitates my being “pulled up” in the first place. I don’t understand how any thinking person can say that someone’s opinion and indeed *feelings* are wrong, and speak of me as though I were a naughty child who ought to be disciplined for having feelings others don’t share. I can certainly understand how the first sentence in my post my be taken for hyperbole, as it’s a rather absolute statement. However, I contend that even were it hyperbole, it would be exaggerated expression of my personal reaction, and so not subject to objective reason. Perhaps people don’t wish to read opinions that differ severely from their own; I would venture that the internet is probably not the ideal place to be, and comments threads in particular.

Saying that Portal 2 is ruined for me is, however, most likey not hyperbole. I thought I had explained *why* in my original post, and perhaps those accusing me of being wrong, ridiculous, silly, or confounded failed to read past the first sentence. Perhaps I simply expressed myself poorly, however, and so in service to those people (and to my wounded ego that yearns for defense), I offer the following explanation, which I hope shall elucidate my feelings without risk of being taken for “THIS IS TEH WORST MOVIE EVAR!!1″.

I am very introverted. On the Myers-Briggs personality scale, I have throughout my life scored 70 out of 70 on the introversion scale. I feel uncomfortable being outside my bedroom, not such that I can’t function in the world, but certainly such that I almost constantly yearn for solitude whenever I am not alone. Games are one way in which I can express this personality trait; I’m sure many people here are similar. Games-as-escapism is well documented. Portal, to me, represented one of the most wonderful escapes from the world I could ever imagine. It was, to begin with, a perfect game – also well documented. But it was also a game in which I was the only “person”. Oh sure, there was a computer, but clearly I’m comfortable with computers. It was a game in which I solved problems and achieved things without a single piece of help from, or contact with, anyone (contrast with HL2, for example, where I am just one albeit powerful member of a larger resistance, in whose presence I must often fight). It was a haven for me – Aperture Science my own private little getaway.

Hopefully, then, one can see how introducing ANY other character would immediately break this spell, and Portal 2 suddenly goes from More Paradise to Just Another Great Game From Valve, Only You Have to Share It With Someone Else Making It A Draining Experience Rather Than A Refreshing Experience. Playing a co-op game for me is like being outside, at uni, at work, at friend’s house. Sure, I can do it, but not for very long stints, and I need to come home to relax and recharge afterwards. I know this to be true from years of playing D&D and a year of playing a co-op shooter whose name, for safety, I shall not utter here. I find co-op gaming to be a mildly pleasant experience. It’s better than being at work, but worse than just about any other gaming experience I could be having. To have Portal 2 go from More Paradise to Worse Than Just About Any Other Gaming Experience is pretty disappointing to me, and so it is not hyperbole to say that the co-op has ruined it.

Of course, there is a single-player component as well. As said, I will in all likelihood love this as I love HL2 and episodes, and many other games. But it will never, to me, be as good as it might have been. There is a chance that the co-op mode will not have anything to do with the story, and instead function like the advanced maps did in the original: purely building on the puzzler gameplay without any intrusion into the fictional world at all. That, for me, is currently the best-case scenario, as I feel that that would make the minimal impact on my enjoyment of the presumably story-driven single-player component. This is similar, I think, to how I and many others here feel about MMOs: sure, the big world is great, but it’s ruined by all the other people breaking the illusion.

In summary: Portal, for me, was all about being alone. Co-op obviously breaks that, which in turn ruins the game for me. This is not something I am attempting to apply to anyone else, I am simply sharing my feelings on the matter. (In addition, I feel the frustration of missing out that only Vinraith, of my respondants, has seemed to understand.) If you find it difficult to understand how I feel this way, I’m sorry, but I can’t do much else to help you. However, I suggest that you are barking up the completely wrong tree if your reaction to this lack of understanding is to tell me that I’m ridiculous, silly, or “confounded” (whatever that means – sorry that I don’t quite know). I find it supremely narrow-minded to assume that when you can’t find a reason to think a certain way, then no-one else ever could, which is how I interpret phrases like “It’s a silly opinion” and “hyperbolic nonsense”. My opinion is, in fact, quite sensical; the only nonsense is treating it like an error of fact to be corrected.

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And a full $50. Because it’s a full, stand alone game, right.

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I’m not suggesting it’s not a spectacular game. I’m not even suggesting that it’s not worth the twenty bucks (though I am not sure that I’d pay that much for it). But likewise, I don’t think it’s too outrageous for someone to hope that Portal 2 lasts a bit longer than two hours. And the argument that “2 hours of tightly packed awesomeness is better than 20 hours of padded filler game” doesn’t hold any water whatsoever, because it doesn’t have to be either or. Half-Life 2 was what? Like 25 hours long? Was pretty awesome all the way through, too.

So yes, hopefully Portal 2 will be longer. You can feel free to hope that it will only be about two hours long, but as someone who really loved the hell out of that game, I seriously hope that I can spend some serious amounts of time in it.

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Sometimes one takes a little step back from this modern world and then sees that, one culture, manages to control the oscillations of *subatomic particles*, tunneling their flow through special microscopic metal engravings, in such a way that not only such oscillations are propagated, but that *information* is transmitted within them. By some mysterious reason by fumbling with the engravings they manage to make the subatomic energy flow perform *calculations* on its own, without human assistance.

Then only two generations after such a development took place, this magnificent victory over the mystery of nature is used to *play games*, mainly within highly realistic *virtual worlds* that exists only encoded in the oscillations of *subatomic particles*.

But then, while in some parts of the world people eat dirt for a little fun, one guy seems *disappointed* that a *game* features the possibility of two human beings interacting in a virtual world thousands of miles away from each other using *equipment that costs about one week of labor* by a standard citizen… because he doesn’t like it so much really.

Really, I’ll take my step back forward. It all seems a joke from that distance.

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that somehow valve should somehow cater just to them

Except, of course, that’s not what he said. Nor, as clarified later, is it what he meant.

I don’t dispute that the first line of the comment was hyperbolic and unproductive, but I do understand being frustrated by included content that you won’t be able to personally enjoy. It’s not a matter of being mad at the devs for including it so much as it’s a matter of being mad at the circumstances that prevent you from enjoying it.

Plus, honestly, it’s not “pulling him up on it” I have a problem with, it’s people making this into another “everyone is out to get Valve” tirade when it really has nothing to do with who developed the game.

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