Karsten’s greeting from parental leave: 2nd place in his top 10 best games ever
If you are reading these lines, I am doing the acclimatization in the nursery with the offspring. Alternatively, I hide behind the armchair while Fabi practices the art of self-sufficiency with spinach and katopü, bury highly explosive diaper mines in the garden or take part in secret pram races in the park with other fathers (just don’t tell Mom!). In short: I have two months of parental leave.
Since you shouldn’t break traditions you’ve grown fond of, I want to present you with a (hopefully) humorous book article every Friday in October and November, which you can use to end the evening or start the weekend. So I thought for a little while what I would like to write about for the next ten Fridays. wait, ten? Top 10? That fits! But what kind of ranking should it be?
Then it occurred to me how excited I was about Elden Ring this year. So excited that I made a mental note: The game definitely belongs in my personal top 10 best games of all time. But what exactly does my top 10 look like? After all, I’ve been playing for…oh my…about 35 years?! Oo The subsequent discussion process with myself was, as you can imagine, quite lengthy. But successful! Over the next few weeks you will find out which ten games made it into my top 10 and for what reasons – this week I’ll tell you my place with number 2. Tell me and the other readers in the comments which game it’s from what reasons you rank second.
Karsten’s place 2: Portal
When I ordered the Orange Box from Valve in 2007, I only had one game in mind, and that was the sequel to one of my personal top 10 gems: Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Team Fortress 2 and this little game called Portal were on top of that. Well why not. A gift horse… and such. 15 years later I have to say: This little game called Portal is the big highlight of the box and perhaps the biggest positive surprise in video game history.
The Valve developers not only managed to design a great, varied puzzle game for the first-person perspective around the ingenious portal cannon. With GlaDOS you also get to know one of the most humorous and memorable antagonists in … there’s that word again … video game history. The few hours to the end were a feast thanks to the intelligently designed headbutts, the constant aha moments and the AI’s witty comments, which in the finale were then also complemented by the best credits of the… you guessed it… Video game history has been garnished. Attention, catchy tune danger: “This was a triumph. I’m making a note here; “Huge success”. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction” – trill!
With Portal 2 to the milestone
Of course, when Valve released Portal 2 in April 2011, the element of surprise was gone. Instead, an expectation formed in me for another very special puzzle fun, and the developers delivered! Portal 2 is bigger, more varied and funnier than its predecessor. The war of words between GlaDOS and Wheatley is one of the funniest things you can get in this medium. The puzzles have been supplemented with new facets and physics gimmicks.
Well, the credit song at the end may not be quite as iconic as in part 1, but you can expect a nice twist in the course of the second part, which I didn’t see coming at the time. There is also the ingenious co-op mode, which takes the gameplay to another level. Portal 2 for two is always great fun! In short: If any of you haven’t played Portal and Portal 2 yet: drop everything, invest the few euros and thank me later!
Reference-www.buffed.de