Building comparison
head to head
Portal 2vsThe Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Neither is simply harder - they are hard in different places. Portal 2 demands more execution; The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition demands more variance.
Portal 2
Optimization · Pure Optimization
A first-person puzzle game where seeing the solution is the whole skill.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Optimization · Pure Optimization
Lateral-thinking puzzle solving that converges to a walkthrough once solutions are known.
Portal 2 leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Portal 2The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Axis by axis
Execution3 vs 0
Portal 2 leans clearly harder on execution.
Portal 2
Portal placement requires some precision but timing is lenient.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Pointing and clicking has no physical ceiling
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.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Insult swordfighting is scripted dialogue lookup, not prediction
Variance0 vs 3
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition leans clearly harder on variance.
Portal 2
Puzzles are deterministic with no randomness.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Puzzle solutions are hidden information until discovered
Optimization9 vs 6
Portal 2 leans clearly harder on optimization.
Portal 2
Solving the puzzle's logic IS the entire game.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Once solutions are known the game is fully solved
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.