Portal: Still Alive Comments by Dan Whitehead

@Ryze
"I haven't the time or the will to relearn game controls at age 28"

So if any game attempts a new control scheme, you aren't willing to play it? I know that's not really what you meant, but if I had that mentality I'd still be playing racing games with face buttons and the d-pad rather than the far superior triggers and analog stick setup (and I'm 30, so being old has nothing to do with it).

I know that a dual stick setup will never be as precise as as a keyboard and mouse (well, as the mouse, the left analog stick is actually more precise than the keyboard input, which is digital), but I don't see how anyone with a reasonable amount of gaming experience couldn't easily adapt to it.

Edit: Maybe I should point out that I'm not really an FPS fanatic, so maybe I just like the fact that the dual stick system drags other people who are down to a level a little closer to my own.

Well I bought Portal on Steam last year and finished it in one sitting, and today I stumped up the cash for this... and finished it in one sitting. I don't feel ripped off in the slightest: I've only seen the first two of the bonus levels, but they seem fun and challenging enough, and the achievements alone have given this greater replayability. Plus it looks just a little nicer on 360 than it did on my laptop.

I also believe that Portal has great art direction (besides being an amazing game).
Loved it, couldn't play for hours in a row but that doesn't prevent me from thinking it's among the best of the year.

"however, it doesn't feel right to mark this release down on the basis of what other people may or may not already have in their software collection"

Perhaps a game not made by Valve wouldn't get the same courtesy?


/bitchy

'like a fat man in a hot bath' - I liked that.

The pricing is not stupid, btw, although you could argue that the people who'd pay it might be. People are proven to be happy to pay high prices for old tat on XBLA and (espeically) the Wii, so perhaps the price is better described as 'normal'.

For one of the best games of last year a tenner is spot on.

Buy the Orange Box second hand if you want but don't moan about the price of this download (a good proportion of which goes to the company who created it) which is very good value.

FPS + gimmick = sales getting slightly p**ed off with this formula. Bioshock, portal, Far cry, blah blah blah...

also arn't these added levels free on PC?

@Gnort

It actually took me a good while to get used to the 360's pad and the controls of several games after I bough the console last Dec. This was due to the PS2 being my main console for the previous 6 years. I had picked up Crackdown a few months earlier preowned, as I thought it'd tide me over until GTA IV.

What I found was that I could hardly drive, and hardly shoot, due to having to get used to the trigger controlls and right stick aiming. GTA IV and a bit of PGR4 and Burnout Paradise brought me up to speed with the driving, but I had to revisit Crackdown a couple of months ago to really appreciate it.

I've been playing games since Track and Field for 10p a go at teh local community centre. I was excellent at video games up until 1996 or so - then I started noticing girls and stuff... it's all gone downhill since then, gaming-wise.

the industry could lose a massive amount of money to people like me, as I'm going to have to reduce the number of games I buy if I'm not getting my moneys worth by only seeing 20% of the content before getting bored / annoyed with the controls. I know I'm not in a minority, as I've read articles about similar hard/casual players.

They've already lost sales on games like Halo and CoD4 to me and others who just hate the control systems, despite longing to see these games played though, and enjoy the experience of playing them.

I've tried, and it clicked on the PC with Quake 2, Half-life etc 10 years ago, but it's not happened on the consoles. It's also very easy for me to turn off a game and not touch it for several months to a year nowadays. I'd keep playing the game if I was having fun with it. Outrun 2006 is still one of my favourites despite it seeming like few others bother with it despite its greatness.

It just looks like the industry is missing out, and will continue to unless they really look at and address this.

£10 for just Portal (which you will finish in an afternoon) and some short bonus missions is not a good deal for anyone except the greedy developers and MS.

Anyone who doesn't have this yet and wants to try it, just buy the Orange Box for goodness' sake. You'll get all the mildly diverting fun of Portal, and you then have four other games to play if you want to. If you do, huzzah, great, you've got a bargain. If you don't, you've paid exactly the same price as you would have for this but you haven't encouraged this sort of rip-off pricing.

Very, very, VERY disappointed that they were so lazy/greedy with this, I was really looking forward to it when it was first announced having absolutely adored the original Portal in the Orange Box.

/gutted

/sobs into The Cake is a Lie t-shirt

I've got H-L2 and the two episodes on PC, but I want this. So I might just wait till it comes down in price, or when I've got the cash I might just bite the bullet and get it there and then.

I would love the extra levels packed as an reasonably priced add-on for us who already got the Orange Box, alas I don't see that coming any time soon :(

STOP going on about greedy developers!! orange box had 5 games for the price of 1, that's the best bargain i've ever seen! if you already own orange box, this is not for you. if you don't own it in any other form, an expanded version of one of the best games of last year is well worth a tenner!

over-priced repackaging. The eurogamer of old would have given this a 5 and call it out for being over-priced repackaging.

I wouldn't call them lazy or greedy.

It would be nice however if they had included more new levels to entice their core audience - Orange Box owners - to buy the game.

It's obvious that this would piss off several Orange Box fans. Bad move if they're after making some decent money - I mean, this must have took them all of a week to put together.

Hopefully there'll be more levels in store at a later date.

Ryze sorry, but your post contradicts itself. it does not have lots of new levels as you yourself point out. It is reasonable to call it an over-priced repackaged game.