Portal 2

I never expected a sequel to the first-person puzzle-game Portal to be any good, but they actually managed to create a very well-produced game that relies on great voice-acting and creative level-design. Its clear that Valve is pushing their aging Source-engine to the limits with Portal 2, but they still manage to create some of the best looking levels I've seen in a good while. The game involves a more active story-line then in the first game, but it never distracts too much from the brain-twisting puzzles. And yes, the puzzles are harder then in the first game in my opinion, although they are never near impossible if you know where to look and pay attention to the level. It also features more levels then the original I think. The first Portal took me only a few hours to beat, while Portal 2 took me two days.

A couple of new elements are introduced this time around, to keep the game refreshing and preventing the levels of getting too predictable. This is done in the form of different gels (liquid substances that either make you jump high, or run fast on contact). There's also a white gel that allows you to shoot portals on whatever surface it is spilled on. Regular water allows you to wash either one of the gels off. Besides that, there are also light-bridges that allows you to portal a walkable bridge to otherwise unreachable places, and some kind of anti-gravity beam that propels either you or objects like turrets and boxes into the direction it faces (which can sometimes be altered by pressing a button in the room).

Last thing I have to mention is the music. The music ingame, as well as the ending-music (which was particularly popular in the first game) called 'Want You Gone' by Jonathan Coulton are great. It all fits the game's robotic atmosphere perfectly as well as the ingame glitch-beats that you can hear mostly when the action intensifies.

As you can already make out, Portal 2 allows for some very diverse puzzle-elements, and this together with the already established portal-gun makes it a lot of fun and challenge to play. The story isn't too exciting, but the witty humour and overall superb voice-acting makes it worth while (kudos to Stephen Merchant for providing his voice-talent for such a funny villain). Its a bit early to say with such a long time ahead of us, but I wouldn't be surprised if Portal 2 would end up on many people's lists of best games of 2011. Go play it, you won't be disappointed!

Now, if Valve Software would only get some information out the door regarding Half-Life 3, I would be their number one fan!

"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!

They have done it again. After Portal, which was more of a fun game teaser really, they have finally made the concept into one hell of a game.

First of all, it now has the proper length of a full game (6-8 hours for the single player campaign on your first run). Secondly, the creative puzzle solving from the first part is not only back, but improved with many new gadgets that make you wonder how they come up with that stuff. Find me more creative game play in the industry, I dare you.

The single player campaign is now filled with even more hilarious dialog and characters (the old ones are back of course), a better story line and what i thought to be a jaw dropping finale. That's the scale the concept is made for, well done! The game now features a co-op version where you go through a different set of levels which you can only solve through teamwork. Those will puzzle you even more than the single player campaign (in total the game is about 3 times as long as the original by the way). Before they send you out to places where you have to really rely on your partner to, say, not fall into the abyss, they send you through a course of team building exercises so you can get used to how things work now that you're not alone any more. Extremely well thought out. Solving those puzzles is even more gratifying when you do it as a team, or so i have found.

Last but not least a little shout out to the group of actors voicing the various characters in the game. Good voice acting is something we have come to expect from Valve games but those guys and gals really know how to deliver comedy. At point I had to stop playing for a minute to wait for the laughing to stop ;-) How often do sequels let you down. Not this one. It's longer, bigger, funnier. Now you will see why the people at Valve took so long to make it. Instead of rushing the game and get something half finished *cough* Dragon Age 2 *cough*, they took their time to get it right.

Hats off, Valve, hats off.

"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

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.