True, Portal 2 can hurt your head if you play it too much. True, the soundtracks on YouTube of people playing Portal 2 are mostly filled with silence or the occasional, “Hummm,” as players struggle to figure out the level. True, sometimes after I solve a level, I am not even sure why it worked the way it did. So why, then, should I keep playing Portal 2 multiplayer?
After the jump, I’ll come up with three good reasons. Continue reading →
The dirty little secret about Portal 2 multiplier is this: It’s dull. It’s incredibly, mind-numbingly slow.
After the jump, more dirty little secrets about Portal 2 multiplayer Continue reading →
My son Aaron is deep in thought on his side of the couch.
Playing Portal 2 with him is like playing any first person shooter game with God mode turned on. You really don’t have to worry much about playing the game. You simply move from level to level with impunity, unlocking the game’s secrets or collecting its rewards. This is how I like to play most first person shooters. I am a completest gamer. That means that I play first person shooters to know every secret panel, locked room, or Easter egg and, really, not much else. I think it comes from growing up in the 70s in a big family without much money. I want to wring every ounce of value that I can from the game. I do not want to be killed, blocked, or even low on health. I am perfectly willing to seek out cheats so that I can have the most powerful and devastating weapons, even on trivial training levels.
That’s just how I roll.
After the jump, R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: Find out what it means to me! Sock it to me, sock it to me. . . Continue reading →
“How do I do the high-five thing again?”
“Use the D-pad,” Aaron says. He is sitting next to me on the couch, staring intently into the screen. He doesn’t look over.
I look for something D shaped on the shiny black controller in my hand. One of the most frustrating things about Xbox games is the fact that you must play them with these little handheld gadgets. They are as user unfriendly as a television remotes. I feel like I need my glasses to really get a sense for what is going on in my hand. How I long for my keyboard, the simplicity of WASD.
I am squinting in the dark of the living room, holding the controller at arm’s length.
“It only goes up to B,” I say.
After the jump, Dad gets all badass and starts quoting Old Testament. Okay, not really. If he asks you to pull his finger, pretend you didn’t hear. . . Continue reading →
“Wait, crap! What happened?”
My thirteen-year-old son, Aaron, groans upon seeing his character do a virtual face plant after leaping from height in Portal 2. He is sitting next to me on the couch, Xbox controller in hand, and I glance up to his part of the split screen, just as he glances down at mine.
“Did you put your portal over mine?” he asks.
“Oh, I’m sorry, son,” I say. “My bad, my bad.”
I’m screwing around with my portal gun, trying to get a feel for the game. Aaron dismisses my mistake with a good natured chuckle. There was time when I might have had a better grasp of a game as popular as Portal 2. There was a time when, if you had come to my house, you might have found various joysticks and force feedback steering wheels clustered around my computer desk, itself piled high with the cardboard boxes of games, or plastic CD holders stacked in towers. There was a time when I was the last one up in a quiet house, my face bathed in the monitor’s soft blue glow.
Of course, that time is now no longer with us.
After the jump, the prince kills the pauper. No wait, that can’t be right . . . Continue reading →
