Portal 2 Review

Remember those old cartoons, where a character would get a portable hole?  He’d put it all over different objects in different situations to either jump through, or receive different items from?  Well if you’re anything like us, you used to love those kinds of episodes.  It would be awesome if those holes really existed wouldn’t it?  Well, Valve has brought us the next best thing to those, Portal 2!

Portal 2 is the successful sequel to the 2007 Half Life 2 spin off, Portal.  The idea is pretty simple.  Using your portal gun, the player is required to navigate and solve a series of puzzles involving the use of portals that will transport you from one orange portal, to one blue portal, or vice versa.  It was simple yet incredible, and implemented a truly great new gameplay mechanic for developers to play with.  We’ve seen Portals come into play in games before, but none of them did it with as much freedom, or simple enjoyment as Valve has done with its franchise (Sorry Prey, Portal just did it better).  Portal gave players a fun new world to play in, lots of humor, and engaging gameplay, but we wanted more, for Portal was far too short.

Enter Portal 2.  It’s been four years since the success of Portal, and the fan’s appetite for more never dropped.  So Valve has finally given us Portal 2, and boy are fans in for a treat.  In the first Portal we were given a pretty simple premise to play with.  An AI controlled Computer system named GLaDOS, designed a series of tests for aperture science.  The tests require the player (Chell) to use her Portal gun to get from one end of the test to the other, without dying along the way (with the promise of cake as a reward).  We get some good dark humor along the way, and a fairly predictable twist in the end.  It was good, but simple.  So why talk so much about Portal 1?  Well, Portal 2 is the epitome of what a game sequel should be.  It gave us everything we got from the first venture, kept it the same, and simply expanded on top of it.  The first major expansion is in the story.

Aperture Science opens up to us as we play.  Not only do we find out the direction it took after the events in the first game, but we get to find out a lot about its past.  Who started it, what they did, who continued its legacy, even the origins of GLaDOS herself.  There are many twists and turns players are taken through along the way.  There were multiple times in the game where we thought we were nearing the end, only to find out we weren’t even close.  Valve did a terrific job fleshing this world out more, and giving us a longer more engaging experience than we had received in the first game.

Gameplay was also greatly improved.  Many sequels, especially those that are a FPS (Which portal, technically, is) like to give us new weapons to try and create the illusion of improved gameplay, and new features.  Portal 2 doesn’t do this.    The Portal gun is still the only real “weapon” in your arsenal.  There are however new items for players to interact with.  These items drastically change the way the player is required to solve puzzles.  There are jump boards on the floor, that launch players across the level, gels that will make Chell run faster, or bounce high.  Even a gel that converts any surface in the game into a Portal capable surface is included.  Instead of just figuring out proper placement for your Portals, you must figure out where to place Portals to make gel cover the surface you intend to encounter via another series of Portals.  It simply adds a whole new level of depth to the gameplay, and requires players to think much more than before.  Lasers, laser re-directional cubes, and flotation waves are also all brand new elements brought into the puzzles.

Characters and their development has improved as well.  In the original there were simply two characters, Chell and GLaDOS (okay, the turrets make three, if you want to count them as a character).  GLaDOS spoke a lot, and provided the game with a lot of dark humor, while Chell never spoke at all.  Well that dynamic pretty much stays the same, however we are introduced to more characters throughout our adventure.  We won’t go too far into detail as we don’t want to spoil anything, but we are introduced to two more substantial characters, in addition to one of the greatest characters in a game ever.  Wheatley.

Wheatley makes Portal 2, quite simply the funniest game we have ever played.  While the dark humor exhibited by GLaDOS did give us the occasional chuckle in the first venture, and continues to in 2, Wheatley steals the show as he regularly had us roaring with laughter.  He’s not a super complex character, but he is incredibly well made.  You can identify with him, relate to him, and really like him…(most of the time).  Incredibly well written, and chock full of British humor, we’ve never wanted a non playable character to return on the screen so much so often.

Funniest Character Ever!

Co-Op gameplay.  That’s right, Portal 2 has a co-op mode now.  This is incredibly refreshing, as it isn’t the same co-op venture gamers of late have been accustomed to.  This isn’t a rehashing of some key missions in the single player, nor is it a quick three hour long side story.  No, the co-op in portal 2 is a completely fleshed out original game in its own.  All new puzzles (four Portals per puzzle anyone), and its own story revolving around two robots built specifically to test. While the story may not flesh out nearly as much as the single player campaign, it does what it’s meant to do: it forces players to play cooperatively to accomplish their missions, and their goals.  It’s easiest to do this with verbal communication, either through xbox live, PSN, or online chat software like ventrillo, but there are more than adequate means of communication built into the game just in case.  Text chatting, as well as the ability to tag specific items or locations for your player to see when you want them to place a portal, or even a synchronized countdown option when you need to both hit different buttons simultaneously.   Incredible amounts of work and dedication went into this co-op campaign, and we love it.

In short Portal 2 is the perfect sequel.  There’s really nothing negative to say about it.  Some of the art style around the middle turns into your typical “run down location” settings, but it still feels and looks great.  Portal 2 is quite simply one of the best games we’ve played.  It’s fun, engaging, smart, and lengthy enough to keep players going especially with the optional co-op campaign.  If you haven’t picked it up yet, we strongly advise it.  If you have a PC, 360, and PS3, we recommend going for the Playstation 3 version, as it will give you a hard copy for the Playstation 3, as well as a free complementary steam download of the PC version.  That’s right, two full versions of the game for the price of one.

Overall score: 9.5/10