Portal 2

This game is truly magnificent. The game's atmosphere is amazing. Valve really nailed the mysterious abandoned laboratory feel this time around. They knew they couldn't just rehash Portal, so they tried something new and it really paid off. The puzzles are fun and challenging, but not infuriating, and the way that the game chooses not to have any cut scenes breaking up the game play makes the game much more immersive. It's easy to get lost in this game for hours. The story is wonderful, and the ending is powerful. I would highly recommend this game to anybody who likes puzzle games, story telling in games, or games in general.

Portal 2 is the much anticipated follow-up to 2007's Portal which Valve released as an extra game on their Orange Box compilation. Although short, Portal's innovative game-play and memorable cast captivated players and made it a runaway hit. Calling Portal 2 a sequel would only be partially correct since the first game was more of an appetizer with Portal 2 being the main course. Does Portal 2 live up to the expectations? Let's take a closer look and find out.

Portal introduced us to our silent protagonist Chell and her fight to escape the deserted Aperture Science facility controlled by the insane AI GLaDOS armed only with her portal gun. Portal 2 picks up roughly 300 years after the first game where Chell has been recaptured and placed in cryo-storage and is woken up by Personality Core Wheatly so that they can escape the run-down facility before the reactor core melts down. Chell is once again forced to use her portal gun to navigate the ruins of the facility and deal with the resurrected GLaDOS. The story takes some very interesting twists and turns along the way and the terrific dark humor of the first game remains intact. The voice acting in the game remains top-notch. Ellen McLain returns as the voice of GLaDOS and as the voice of the polite and cheerful attack turrets. Joining the cast are Stephen Merchant who gives hilarious life to Wheatley and the always entertaining J. K. Simmons features as the voice of Cave Johnson, the eccentric founder of Aperture Science.

The game-play from the original game returns in all of its mind-bending glory. Players use the portal gun to shoot blue and orange colored portal holes onto walls to traverse over deadly pits, transport Weighted Storage Cubes to switches to open doors and lower elevators and redirect lasers (or Thermal Discouragement Beams if you prefer). Additions to the game-play include the propulsion and repulsion gels (in keeping with the Portal color motif they are orange and blue respectively) which do pretty much as they describe either sliding the player off at great speed or sending them bouncing high into the air. In addition, players must redirect light bridges and conveyor beams with portals as well. Perhaps one of the most exciting new features in Portal 2 however is the inclusion of co-op game-play. Co-op game-play gets its own storyline and characters, Aperture Science robots ATLAS and P-Body, each armed with their own portal gun and even more challenging puzzles for the gamers to solve. You can either play with a friend (split-screen or online) or team up with a random player. Good communication is vital to success however, and the co-op interface has several helpful tools to communicate with your partner including a small pop-up window to see their viewpoint though you may want to use a microphone as well. Portal 2 even features a commentary mode (a returning feature from the first game) where you can play through the game with speech bubbles placed throughout the levels which, when activated, trigger audio files of various production members discussing the creation of the game often relative to where the player happens to be at the time. This feature really shows off the amount of effort that went into creating this game.

In general the game-play is challenging, but never really frustrating. The game does a good enough job of teaching players the basic mechanics as new elements are introduced that even newcomers will be able to pick up the nuances of the game fairly quickly but has enough challenge to it that even veteran Portal players won't be able to just breeze through it. Some of the achievements/trophies are centered around players having to solver certain puzzles either in quick fashion or in different ways then they normally would. Exploration and experimentation is highly encouraged in game. In short, there is plenty of content to keep veteran Portal players on their heels and dazzle newcomers with all the possibilities.

Visually Portal 2 holds up pretty well considering it's running on Valve's somewhat dated Source engine. The environments are much more expansive and dynamic than in the first Portal and the visuals are much sharper. Some may lament the change from the cold and sterile look of the test chambers from the first game, the change in style suit's the story well. While it may not quite hold up to some contemporary major releases, it is by no stretch of the imagination ugly. The background score does a good job of reinforcing the tension and isolation of the game's story. All this really comes together to bring an enjoyable experience to the player. Portal 2 delivers in all aspects. Fun and challenging game-play, engaging characters, and the ability to play with friends make this a can't miss title, unless your only system is the Wii, in which case you're out of luck.

Portal was an already excellent puzzle game. Portal 2 however expands everything from the first game and makes it eleven times better. The puzzles are bigger, the stakes are bigger, the Enrichment Center is bigger. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Chell has been kept in stasis for a long time since the first game ended and is awoken when a tiny personality core named Wheatley tries to break them out of the facility. Chell and Wheatley pass through a few test chambers before accidentally reawakening GLaDOS, who has many more tests for you. You have to get out of the facility and finally escape GLaDOS and Aperture Laboratories... at least at first.

Portal 2 is one of the most fun games I've played all year. The puzzles have the same basic formula of portal shooting as the last game but there's a lot other stuff thrown in as well. New gels that propel you and increase your speed and a lot harder puzzles that will keep you guessing.

Not only does Portal 2 increase the puzzles, it also goes deep into character development. When you go deeper into the facility you find out the truth about Aperture's origins and also the origins of GLaDOS.

Portal 2 is one of the best games of the year. If you haven't played it, I strongly suggest it. You'll laugh, you'll get frustrated, and you will be heavily engrossed in this amazing game.

It was only recently that I discovered what has been public knowledge for a long time – that Portal is a great game. I decided to jump into Portal 2 recently on the basis of enjoying the first game so much. True to form, Portal 2 does not disappoint and everything good about the first game is present, polished and improved here – well, pretty much everything.

The game begins the same as the first one did, with levels that introduce you to the world of portals gradually so that you get the basics before the puzzles start getting a bit harder. This is normal with sequels because the makers cannot assume players are familiar already but at the same time have to try not to bore old hands who have seen this all before. Here there is no such problem because while I was already familiar with the ideas I was being introduced to, I was not familiar with Wheatley. At first Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant) is your guide and he is hilarious and he makes the introductory levels a lot of fun to play with his comments and advice: this is a game that tells you which button is "jump" by getting you to push in to "speak" and then judging your character for jumping. It is hard to describe but fans of the first game will know the style of humour at play here and indeed fans of Stephen Merchant should also know, since he is doing his usual stuff here (most notably like he did in Extras – the cheerful numpty).

The single player game takes you through the same sort of test rooms as before but plot developments see you exploring different areas in the facility as well. These areas tend to be more broken down and the differences in them does serve to rather break you out of autopilot to a point. At times it is too easy to solve puzzles by simply observing the room and recognising the process rather than solving the puzzle, the change in location made me have to pay attention more. Also in addition to the varied locations we also have substances added which have particular properties and play a role in solving puzzles – these also serve to break up the "routine" of knowing where to put the portals and makes for some nice puzzles. There are also laser and other new things but rest assured that the trusty companion cubes remain. I still didn't find it particularly hard but I do think it was a little tougher at times than the first game – the makers said the focus was to make the game bigger but not necessarily harder and they did do that.

Of course bigger does make it better and I think the single player game was about 10 hours which, considering it is very similar throughout, it is testament to how engaging it is that it never gets boring. The story helps as we have great characters in GlaDOS, Wheatley and Cave Johnson, all of whom are really well written and hilarious but yet also charm and engage – they can be tragic, threatening, cruel or insane but the player always likes them and is entertained by them – like the turrets, even when they are trying to kill you, you always feel bad about knocking them over! The dialogue is key in making this work and it is really well written. Johnson's dialogue is funny and also informative in terms of back-story, while GlaDOS is as evil as ever harbouring a massive grudge from the last game and constantly making lots of little digs at the player about their weight or about their parents not loving them. Again, it is hard to explain how funny it is but my girlfriend (a hater of video games) loved watching me play – although was always impatient for me to solve the puzzle so she could get the next piece of dialogue from GlaDOS etc. It is hilarious and it is this way throughout – the final song is not quite up to the standards of "Still Alive" but to be fair – what is? The delivery of the lines is near-perfect. McLain returns as GlaDOS and various other voices, while JK Simmons (yes, Schillinger from Oz etc) is really great as Cave Johnson. Standout though is the cheerful little bumbler Wheatley as played by Merchant. A great character and Merchant totally fits, delivering by far the funniest performance I have seen him give.

The graphics are not amazingly stepped up from the original game but some of the areas outside of the testing rooms are impressive in their complexity and detail. However those looking to be wowed by technology will not be here but in fairness it isn't what I came for and it did still look good. The addition of the co-op may only add another 4 or 5 hours to the game but they are great addition. The use of four portals and two players means that the dynamics are really well changed and they worked my brain a little harder because I had settled into a rhythm with the main game. It also features a nice little plot and loads of the usual humour.

Overall Portal 2 is a brilliant game. The puzzles are good without being really difficult – I still found it a bit too easy to solve but many did give me pause and made me think for a minute before sorting it out. The humour is key though and this game is hilarious and engaging at the same time. The characters are brilliant in the writing, the dialogue and the delivery and I have (and will) replay parts just to hear the lines again. A great game – clever, engaging, funny, exciting and with twists and turns in the plot. Buy it now.

"You are now thinking in portals..." - this used to be the tag line for an underdog game-project which completed the Orange Box. While most of the people bought this product because of Half Life 2 - Episode 2 the main feature only had limited playtime. After exploring the game set of the the Orange Box players were stunned by "Portal", an ego-shooter with no shooting and parallels to the Half Life universe.

In fact it was only a matter of time until the huge testing facility of Aperture Science got revived for the next run - and story.

While Portal 1 was pretty much done within 3 hours its successor waits with 7-8 hours of fun. It appears a little short - that's where the co-op mode comes in, adding almost a new dimension to the game's paradigm. Solving puzzles, mazes and riddles with a partner not only opens up possibilities of creating problems to solve - it also enhances one's horizon of thinking. The co-op mode does not really develop a story, but just for the fact that after solving some puzzles ("tests") the player is left with an unique impression, this games deserves a huge credit.

The story picks up where its predecessor left off - but digs way deeper into the history and structures around Aperture Science. It's a delight to move through very different environments solving unique puzzles which are created with a particular love for details. After some rooms the player occasionally feels like a genius because the presentation of problems are extremely unusual. The voices you are accompanied by dramatically raise the level atmosphere as the voice actors do (typical for Valve) an exceptional job. The whole flow of the game grants a fluid game-play and hardly ever comes to halt.

To me personally the main point of praise is the fact that Valve manages to send you through approximately 8 hours of the same game-play without making it boring. The story is appealing, unique and weaves in seamlessly into the Half Life universe.

Two things that I thought were not quite state of the art: 1. The graphics engine is out of date, no doubt. For this game it isn't THAT important to have the latest graphics, still it's very apparent at some point and very untypical for Valve. 2. Many aspects are almost too familiar from part one. The showdown, the credits, some monologues and game-plays, etc...

BUT, some other aspects would receive more than just 10 points and that's why Portal 2 still deserves a solid score of 9 points.

Let's face it: Valve produces games which are far more than the average assembly-line-games pumped out every year. The love for detail, interaction, presentation of problems, dialogs, story and game-play clearly stands out in comparison to even major game developer studios. And Portal 2 continues this tradition seamlessly - yes, I may have expected "a little" more but in the end it's still another magnum opus which will be talked about for a long time. No doubt, this game is already one of 2011's highlights and even though other games have way better effects, graphics, models or realism - Valve draws a very clear line: While other studios produce games, they craft art!