The Talos Principle 2

It's great. I liked it more than its predecessor.

One of my favorite games of all time, for sure. I've solved all puzzles in the base game and DLC, and I can say that Croteam has put together some of the best puzzle design I've seen, and I've played my fair share of puzzle games. Some of the meta-puzzles ([spoiler]The Prometheus, Pandora, and Sphinx monuments[/spoiler]) felt a bit tedious or like guesswork, but many of them I found enjoyable anyway (not to mention, they're completely optional). This games puzzles get so much right in the small details, which I could talk at lengths about. But, I'll put that analysis at the end of the review. I also think the story is fantastic, which seems to be a slightly less popular opinion. I think most of the criticisms likely come from a place of "stop talking I just want to solve puzzles", which is ultimately fair. The writing definitely tries to get the player invested in the story, and relies on that, so If you're just skipping dialogue or ignoring all the optional conversations, you probably won't be wowed by the plot. As someone who talked to pretty much everyone I could, though, the plot is absolutely golden. It retains the philosophical themes from the original Talos Principle, but in a much more applied context, which I find so much more compelling. The end of the first game also leads so well into a sequel, in my opinion. The setting of a post-apocalypic earth filled with these "new humans" that rebuild society that the is just so unique, and the added elements of mythology really add to giving the game such a specific identity and tone. I could talk at lengths about the theme is discusses, but it'd be a bit redundant, as most concepts brought up by the game are quickly analyzed and unpacked by the characters in the game itself. Many times, it'll even ask the player to make a judgement for themselves in the form of dialogue. It typically strays away from framing any specific answer as the "correct" choice, it seems. With the exception of [spoiler]at the end of the game, where your decision determines whether you get the "good ending" or not. It feels similar to the ending of the first game, in a way, where you choose whether or not to enter the tower.[/spoiler]. It's one of those "makes you think" kinds of stories that have a good chance to seriously impact your outlook on the world if you really take it seriously. If you like puzzle games at all, I highly recommend this game, just try to give the story a serious chance. If you go in expecting 'just a puzzle game', you'll likely be disappointed. (oh yeah, I've seen people complain about the performance. The game definitely needs optimized, but I've got a pretty strong laptop and it handled the game fine. However, I'd never heard it's fans run as loud as they did while playing this game. Needless to say, a decent setup is highly recommended) bonus: my little rant about the puzzle design (mechanic, and story spoilers, minor puzzle spoilers) [spoiler] What the Talos Principle and it's sequel do so well are prime examples of how level design is sometimes counterintuitive. The golden rule of puzzles is usually "don't hide information from the player" As in, give the player everything they need upfront to avoid "how was I supposed to know that?" moments. Applied to the Talos Principle, you'd think this would mean putting all the tools (connectors, jammers, etc.) front-and-center in the level. This is not what the game usually does though. Instead, it makes you work for most of the items. It's best to explain this with an example, so I'll use the level "Switcheroo": - The level starts with you being given a connector, and immediately having to use it to hold up a door to reach the rest of the level. - The next room has a fan and a button to activate it, a red laser and a box. - You can use the box to activate the fan and see the goal is behind door locked by a red laser target - There's a teleporter "stuck" holding open a door that leads to it. If you pick it up, the door closes and you can't get out of the small room - The player is familiar with teleporters at this point, so it's not too hard to swap out the teleporter and the box, and teleport out with the box. -Now that the teleporter is in the main room, you can use it to bring in the connector from the start That's the 'setup phase' of that level. At this point, everything is easily accessible: the box, the teleporter, the connector. The level could have started with that, but now you start with a full understanding of the setup of the level, what's involved, and how to use everything. It's fresh in your mind because you just did it. This happens all the time in this game's puzzles, where it scaffolds the solution with "mini-puzzles" you need to do just to reach the end. The game also crucially understands what it's doing enough to keep doing this even in the hard puzzles. Into the Abyss (from the DLC) keeps doing this in it's extra hard puzzles, even doubling down. There's a puzzle that hides half of itself behind a seemingly normal wall until the player solves a puzzle of difficulty close to a full base-game puzzle. Difficulty comes from the complexity of the solution, not the complexity of the starting conditions. This was honestly half the fun of the game to me, being able to nerd out about these little design choices in every level. If you read through this whole thing and found it interesting, you'd definitely enjoy the game, there's a lot of thought like that put into it[/spoiler]