As we all know Portal is one of the if not the best game ever created but dew to little faith in the project at the time it had a small budget only getting around 50 textures and models created for it Idk what the real number is reusing most of its content from half life 2, But what if it had a bigger budget, what would it be like, Would it still be the game we know and love? Would the cake still BE A LIE?!?

No, but seriously. Portal 2 was made by most of the original team members, plus some more. I think it's a pretty good indicator of what Portal on a big budget looks like.

Back in 2006-07, the Source engine base was Half-Life 2. This is why Half-Life 2 entities spawn in Portal. The Portals must be hell, and I heard from people with the leak that it is mostly dynamic coding. Dynamics were/is harsh on the Source Engine, so all time and energy went into the Portals then pretty much everything else. This must be why Portal reuses a lot of things from Half-Life 2, and just used the idea of the game being in the Half-Life 2 universe so that they can get away using the energy ball, and other Half-Life 2ish things. Portal was not on a small budget. They were just focusing on the idea of Portals more, and they were not sure if it was not going to work. There was actually some speculation that it would flop, but if it was just a bonus in The Orange Box, who would care!?

Portal 2 was a different story. They knew Portals worked, there was room to improve, and a lot of ideas came about. Since they knew the core concept worked, they used that time and energy to work on characters, scripting, and now that they had a better engine, they could work out other dynamics such as lighting, moving walls, etc.

Moral is: Why do all the other stuff if your core concept fails? People don't get it that some new games lack the goodies because more time was on the actual game then anything else.

No, and it would have had to have been something special to beat what the original Portal was. While Portal 2 was very good, I think I prefer the more minimalist style of the original.

Jomonay wrote:
No, and it would have had to have been something special to beat what the original Portal was. While Portal 2 was very good, I think I prefer the more minimalist style of the original.

Agreed.
Portal had its charm, I loved how simple it was and how alone you felt.
Portal 2 just seems... alive, somethings happening all the time, it's not the sterile testing enviroment we've known and loved. Hospitals freak me out because they have the same atmoshpere as Portal 1 - sterile enviroment that you are detached from.

Let's pretend Portal was small-ish compared to Portal 2 because of low budget, and the creators wanted to make something amazing from the start but had a low budget. Then I could say that Portal might have been longer, with more testing elements, test chambers and dialogues before the fire pit. Maybe more polished areas and other goodies like stable coop. But I think Portal is amazing itself and is a masterpiece. Like said above; the missing feel of Portal in Portal 2 is a disappointment for me.

reepblue wrote:
Back in 2006-07, the Source engine base was Half-Life 2. This is why Half-Life 2 entities spawn in Portal. The Portals must be hell, and I heard from people with the leak that it is mostly dynamic coding. Dynamics were/is harsh on the Source Engine, so all time and energy went into the Portals then pretty much everything else. This must be why Portal reuses a lot of things from Half-Life 2, and just used the idea of the game being in the Half-Life 2 universe so that they can get away using the energy ball, and other Half-Life 2ish things. Portal was not on a small budget. They were just focusing on the idea of Portals more, and they were not sure if it was not going to work. There was actually some speculation that it would flop, but if it was just a bonus in The Orange Box, who would care!?

As you probably know, Portal was based off of another game, Narbacular Drop. Valve didn't really expect Portal to be that big of a hit and a relatively small amount of people were working on it, so that all plays into the subject as well.

t3x wrote:

Jomonay wrote:
No, and it would have had to have been something special to beat what the original Portal was. While Portal 2 was very good, I think I prefer the more minimalist style of the original.>
Agreed.
Portal had its charm, I loved how simple it was and how alone you felt.
Portal 2 just seems... alive, somethings happening all the time, it's not the sterile testing enviroment we've known and loved. Hospitals freak me out because they have the same atmoshpere as Portal 1 - sterile enviroment that you are detached from.

They both have pluses and minuses. Portal 2 was much more story oriented. Portal 1 felt very much like an idie game whereas Portal 2 felt much grander.