Portal 2 isn’t the easiest game to play. Parts of it certainly can cause you to feel sick. It’s a bit of mind-fuck to begin with and once you start getting into the more complex levels, it really starts to mess with you. The whole concept may be enough to make some people feel nausea and certain parts can definitely cause dizziness, especially in the levels where you have to use momentum to fling yourself through various portals. Imagine though if the game also included the ability to walk on walls. Well, it almost did.
Valve lead writer Erik Wolpaw revealed to EA that they were going to include a gel in the game that would let players walk on walls. He said that during testing they removed it since “Valve concluded that the gel’s use was so “disorientating that it made people nauseas [sic].” He went onto say that Valve “made changes to frame rate and movement that will help anyone play Portal 2, even if they do experience a feeling of nausea while playing other first-person games.”
As much as I love Portal, I think they’re right. A wall walking gel would have been a bit too much, especially considering the amount of sickness inducing movement they already have. Generally, I’m fine when playing it. That being said, there are moments in particular levels when I do have to take a break and just get up and walk around. It happened in the first game also. Some of the motion is just a bit too much for me sometimes.
What do you think? Would wall walking gel have worked?
Published: Apr 25, 2011 01:00 pm