Recent reviews by Sarshi

I can't find things in the UI, which is something I could probably deal with in time.

There are loads of barbarians everywhere at the beginning of the game, which is something people have complained with and which the developers will probably deal with in time. I mean, I can't roam with my warriors because I need to keep kicking constant ass on the home turf, especially since cities apparently don't know how to defend themselves anymore. (I didn't play long enough to figure out if two roaming barbarian hordes truly can conquer your city in the early game, if they're so inclined)

The graphics, however, were the deal breaker for me. It's not the fact that the bushes look like little, green sheep pellets, but that I struggled to tell the difference between a grassy hill with some wood and some plains with a few trees, or whatever, I couldn't see my units and, eventually, my eyes started hurting. It's too tiring, I quit.

I am *in love*.

After playing the first Portal I wasn't very certain whether the sequel would rise to the challenge. There was something about the simplicity of the game, the lovely GLaDOS sarcasm/blatant lies and the plot twists which seemed repeatable, but not improvable. I was a bit worried that Portal 2 would be a repeat of Portal, only bigger. I resigned myself to it and decided to play it anyway.

Luckily, I was wrong, although at first I was still sure I was being cheated. After all, the first few test chambers are carbon copies of Portal test chambers (trust me on this one, I re-played Portal right before starting Portal 2). I was about to complain before I realized that I Wasn't Getting It, because it was obviously a stylistic choice, a sort of "Previously, on Portal" combined with "Yup, this is going to be about history. Prepare for a ride."

Oh yeah, the game is about history - the history of Apperture, the history of GLaDOS, the history of the facility. And it's done just right - with the perfect amount of fun, sarcasm, disappointment and twists to keep me glued to the screen (and to keep *you* glued, I assume, but who knows). I mean, seriously, the puzzles are great, but the story? I am hooked here. Definitely played it for the sheer fun.

The only issues I have with it is that some of the puzzles were a bit... well, not sure if they were *hard puzzles* per se, but they were hard to figure out because of not being able to see details of the scenery properly. For example, I couldn't find spots to put the portal on (I shot *at* them, but the portal didn't catch and I thought that meant they were unusable surfaces and tried other solutions again... and again... and until I went through a walkthrough).

One or two of the puzzles were hard in and of themselves, enough to make me wander about for many long minutes (you know the feeling, right?) But that isn't quite so bad. Except for being frustrating. Very frustrating.

9.5, only deducting 0.5 from its sheer perfection because from time to time I stared blankly at tricky walls that weren't meant to be tricky.