Portal 2–Game Review
Portal 2
Developed by Valve
for the PC (reviewed) / PS3 / 360
Ah, it’s here. After the long wait, the sequel to the critically acclaimed Portal has finally arrived. The first game was a collection of high quality puzzling wrapped up in a mysterious and very well told story (typical for Valve, not typical for most people); it was an act that would be incredibly hard to top. It turns out that they did top it.
If you have not played Portal (SHAME ON YOU, Valve has given it away for free, multiple times). It is a game where you create a hole in a wall that connects with another hole in the wall. It is with this mechanism that you solve puzzles, using lasers, bouncing energy balls, and adorable, (if I may say so) talking turrets that will turn you into mincemeat if you give them the chance, all while being watched over by an evil female robot known as GLaDOS. To put it simply, you kick her butt and escape (but are dragged away by something), all while being treated to one of the best game soundtracks in recent history (“Still Alive”).
Portal 2 puts you back into the mix, with GLaDOS and a surprisingly charming and funny personality core (robot ball) named Wheatley as the story continues. Plenty of twists, turns, and laughs (wisecracking GLaDOS and scared Wheatley), and you have a story worthy of a Valve game. The ending is quite a shocker (spoiler alert: the end song is not as good as “Still Alive”!)
This wouldn’t mean anything if Portal 2 didn’t come close to Portal’s original gameplay, and it doesn’t disappoint– the eight or so hours you play through the single-player has tricky puzzle after tricky puzzle, with new mechanics like the laser redirection cube and the various gels adding those extra layers of intricacy that we’ve come to enjoy from Portal.
Something new to the series is the ability play in co-op mode! Two equal bots, a tall one and a fat one, need to work together to solve every puzzle they can. Valve has done their best here, giving simple, elegant ways of alerting the other player of what they need to do through “Pings”, and the interactions between the robots are worth a good chuckle. Let me tell you, teleporting your companion through a floor into the abyss never gets old. Unfortunately, with two good players, you will get only half of the playtime you’ll get out of single player, and since the puzzles never particularly change, the game loses much of its replay value. Asking for some DLC soon (which is actually coming) would be fair enough. At least it has a longer first-time-through life than Call of Duty games.
Portal 2 is graphically sound, inheriting a few new tricks from a new Source engine build. I had some graphics errors when I put the settings too low (but at midrange, they were fine). The Source engine still has that rough-around-the-edges look (it won’t surprise me if Source3 is announced around the same time as Half-Life 3 or the next Valve game) but it still looks good, no visible texture blurring or bad jagged edges. The soundwork remains remarkable for a source game as well, with the music and sound effects giving a great atmosphere.
Valve had an incredibly hard job ahead of them in terms of improving the almost un-improvable, but they pulled it off with a new, deep story, lots of new content, and a great new co-op mode. Just bring on some DLC so we don’t go back to playing Portal 1 mods again.
The Verdict
| Presentation: | 4 / 5 | Looks and sounds good, visual bugs on low settings and a little roughness bring it down a little. “Still Alive” beats the ending song on this by a mile and a half sadly. |
| Gameplay: | 5 / 5 | Portal’s wacky puzzles are back and twice as fun with a friend. Unfortunately, they tend not to last very long. |
| Longevity: | 4.5 / 5 | The story is much more of a laugh fest than the first Portal and you can definitely go through it once or twice without getting bored… then there’s the co-op. |
| Tilt: | 4 / 5 | I was never one for puzzlers, but I daresay that Portal 2 is one of those rare ones that can pique my interest, even if it makes me feel like an idiot for not being able to get out of one room for an hour. |
| Overall: | 4.5 / 5 | Portal 2 is a worthy successor, a champion of a puzzle game, and is well worth the money you spend on it. |
