Building comparison
head to head
Portal 2vsSam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
Portal 2 asks more than Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, and the gap is optimization.
Portal 2
Optimization · Pure Optimization
A first-person puzzle game where seeing the solution is the whole skill.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
Optimization · Pure Optimization
A comedy point-and-click testing lateral inventory-puzzle logic and nothing else.
Portal 2 leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Portal 2Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
Axis by axis
Execution3 vs 0
Portal 2 leans clearly harder on execution.
Portal 2
Portal placement requires some precision but timing is lenient.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
Pointing and clicking has no dexterity bar
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Portal 2
No opponent; puzzles are static.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
No adaptive opponent in a comedy adventure
Variance0 vs 1
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Portal 2
Puzzles are deterministic with no randomness.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
Puzzle states are visible or discoverable by poking
Optimization9 vs 5
Portal 2 leans clearly harder on optimization.
Portal 2
Solving the puzzle's logic IS the entire game.
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space
Inventory-logic puzzles are the entire solvable test
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.