Portal 2

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.

Years ago, when Valve launched Portal as a fun Half-Life 2 mod, everybody was thrilled with the concept of the game. Portal 2 didn't just live up to the expectations I had, it slammed them harder into the ground, than I could have ever imagined. If this is no game of the year, I don't know what is... Portal 2's plot reaches much deeper into the history of Aperture Science, revealing new characters and shining a light on the events of Portal 1. Of course the humor most certainly made it to Portal 2 and I want to say, this game is even funnier than its predecessor. The new characters and the deeper plot make this game a must-buy, but that's not good enough for Aperture Science, I mean Valve: A co-op mode was the only thing missing from Portal 1, and they included it in this gem of video games. Challenging test chambers and hours of brain explosions await you and your partner in the Aperture Science Co-Operative Testing Initiative. If you liked Portal, you'll love Portal 2. And if you've never played Portal... do 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!

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.

"Aha!" that is the word you will be saying most to yourself as you progress through Portal 2's nine chapters in the single player campaign. These test chambers or individual puzzles you progress through are so cleverly designed, that once your about to give up you find the perfect piece of information you were missing in order to solve the puzzle.

The game starts off as you awake from suspended animation, several hundred years after the events of the first game. You play as the same silent protagonist "Chell", and are broken out of containment from an artificial personality core named "Wheatley" in an attempt to escape the Aperture Science facility while accidentally awaking GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), the chief antagonist of the franchise in the process. Eventually your put through another series of test chambers but things take an interesting turn in the second act which I won't spoil.

The gameplay from the first installment remains mostly the same with developer Valve adding several new elements to freshen things up. First off, the art style has changed with the setting of the Aperture Science Facility having been dilapidated for so many years. Overgrown vegetation and ruined architecture freshen up the scene as well. Tools such as Repulsion and Propulsion gels, Excursion funnels, Aerial Faith Plates, Thermal Discouragement Beams add a new level of complexity to the puzzles, but the development team does a really great job of introducing you to these new elements, allowing you to master them before they hand you a new thing to play with. It's all great fun!

Graphics wise, the eleven year old source engine that the game is powered on continues to be updated with some great lighting effects and animations with a mostly steady frame rate, but the loading zones should definitely be trimmed, especially for a game this late into the console life cycle. The audio work is fantastic helped by the hilarious dialogue voiced by Stephen Merchant, Ellen McLain and J.K. Simmons. This is truly the funniest game I've ever played!

The game is well worth its sixty dollar retail price with an equally long two player Co-operative mode (which wasn't available at the time of this review due to PlayStation Network being down) and developer commentary throughout the single player story mode. The PlayStation 3 version (which I recommend over the Xbox 360 version) comes with Valve's SteamWorks support, a popular service on computers which allows for cloud saving and automatic updates not previously available on consoles. Two people are able to play with each other cross-platform from the PS3 over to PC or Mac, which is a fun bonus.

The take away from this experience is the atmosphere of the world you are re-introduced to. The game trains you in solving puzzles based on the physics of forward momentum allowing you to walk away from this game feeling smarter than before. The themes of isolation and science as a main priority above all else, are minor messages scrolled into the background, similar to the environmental storytelling you will find written on the wall of the game world, in one of the best games of this year.

Rating: A