![]() ![]() I'd have been happier if those puzzles were designed differently, but they didn't adversely affect my overall enjoyment of the game. (I'm sure some will disagree with me on this, and that's their prerogative, but this is my review.) The good news is that - I don't think this is really much of a spoiler if you've seen forum post titles, but I'll tag it anyway - all of them can be considered "bonus" puzzles because they aren't absolutely essential, in that you can reach the game's primary ending without them. By that, I mean that they require some combination of mechanics/techniques not found or even hinted at anywhere else in the game and/or blind luck to discover a "trick" required to solve them. There are a small handful of puzzles - somewhere between two and four of them, depending on how charitable I'm being - whose design I consider "cheap". There is one area where I would ding The Talos Principle in comparison to Portal 2 (and in general). Being able to take your mind off of a particularly nasty puzzle and come back to it later is a wonderful thing. ![]() Talos does "gate" your progress to a certain extent, but there will almost always be several puzzles for you to work on at any given time. In Portal 2, if you're stuck on a test chamber, you're well and truly stuck until you figure it out. The Talos Principle's biggest improvement over Portal 2 in terms of gameplay, I think, is the non-linear puzzle flow. Whether you find the story itself as good or as compelling as Portal 2's is very subjective - to me, it was about on par, but it's a very different style of storytelling. What voice acting there is, I was very happy with. For some people, that's a big minus - but it worked well for me, and I'd honestly much rather have to read a bunch of text than listen to sub-par voice acting. It's not as explicitly laid out as Portal 2's (though I think it's more explicit than Portal 1's), and there's a lot more reading of text involved. There's a definite story (and backstory) progression in The Talos Principle. I'm not of the mindset that harder always equals more fun, but I also don't mind a challenge if the learning curve is reasonable, and I think Talos strikes that balance well.) (Oh, also, I don't agree with the poster above me - while I do think the hardest puzzles in The Talos Principle are tougher than Portal 2's, it's not that extreme. It's definitely not a re-hash of Portal puzzle elements minus the portal gun. There are also some impressively original puzzle elements in this game (most notably, I think, the last one you unlock). Like Portal's puzzles, the early ones are pretty straightforward, and the game does a good job of teaching you puzzle elements and strategies individually and in simple combinations before forcing you to deal with the really complex stuff. The Talos Principle's puzzles are entirely about thinking your way through them - I can't think of a single one that requires twitch-level reflexes (and only a couple that require timing of any sort). I stopped playing and deleted it in disgust about 2/3 of the way through. There was a nominal story, but it was poorly presented, made little sense, featured painfully bad voice acting, and its puzzles descended into twitch gaming even more than QC's did. Magrunner: Dark Pulse - This was the biggest letdown ever.Some people adore twitch/reaction puzzle gaming, but I personally have absolutely no use for "you know exactly what you need to do, but now you have to spend an hour trying to actually get your fingers to do it" puzzles. I hated it, because partway through the puzzles started being less about thinking your way through problems and more about jumping/timing your way through them. Quantum Conundrum - With one of the original Portal devs leading the team, I had high hopes (even if the kid-oriented/cutesy theme wasn't right in my wheelhouse).I wanted there to be a bit more to it than there was. Antichamber - Very good puzzle design, and I did enjoy the game quite a lot, but the total lack of any kind of explicit story (no text, no voices, no meaning besides "interpret this abstract world however you will") knocked it down a little bit in my eyes.For comparison and clarification of what I mean, some other games that have come along in the interim: The Portal games remain among my all-time favorites, and The Talos Principle is the first game since Portal 2 that has truly scratched my itch for a game with satisfying puzzles AND a compelling narrative. I think there are some direct comparisons to be made, and they're all pretty favorable (in my eyes). ![]()
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