Portal 2 Review

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Portal 2 kicks off with player waking up in the Aperture Laboratories, the human behaviour research facility from the first game, and finding out very quickly that things have gone haywire. Aperture is a wreck: without GlaDOS – Portal 1's female AI antagonist – to run things, the facility is in an advanced state of disrepair. Walls are crumbling, test chambers malfunction and every room the player moves through is riddled with smashed windows, natural overgrowth and broken machinery. In the opening stages of the game, players are introduced to Wheatly, a stammering, motor-mouthed droid voiced by Stephen Merchant, and reacquainted with the Portal Gun, which creates interconnecting portals capable of bending distances, and physics, in their environment.

While the set-up will sound incredibly familiar to Portal veterans, Portal 2 is hardly a retread of the first game. There are Aerial Faith Plates, which fling the player through the air. White Gel can be sprayed on to surfaces to make them Portal Gun-friendly. The puzzle rooms are incredibly well designed in that there's no hard and fast rule with the game's difficulty curve. The humour in Portal 2 is another trump card in the game's well-paced, engrossing and unsettling story. Without giving too much of the game's plot away, the player will find Portal 2 funny throughout, but also faintly spinechilling. The game's main campaign is longer than in Portal 1, and arguably better too. Valve has created a masterpiece in Portal 2. Portal 2 is a unique first-person Action-Puzzle-Platforming game that tests player's abilities to think and act creatively as they use the game's ingenious wormhole creating portal gun to produce their own paths through otherwise sealed surfaces and across the open spaces of the game. Sequel to the original Portal game -- the surprise add-on hit included in Valve Corporation's 2007 release The Orange Box -- Portal 2 continues the storyline from the first game, featuring both new and returning characters, and poses a range of new challenges making for a much deeper game. - Valve





It's tough being a fan of Valve made games. Even more so with Portal 2. The sad part about it was that just as a puzzle based game, judging the core mechanics only, Portal was an extremely fun title. Portal 2 is fairly familiar territory at its heart, and players of the first game will have a head start on newcomers to the franchise. With more room to expand on the puzzle premise of Portal 2, Valve has incorporated some new dynamics into the puzzle solving. The gels are probably the biggest addition to the puzzle element of the game. With so many ways to accomplish puzzles in Portal 2 you'll definitely be left scratching your head at some moments of the game.. As we said above, the puzzle aspect of Portal was great. With it's expansion in Portal 2 you'll have plenty of opportunity to show GLaDOS your proficiency in the test chambers of the game. The writing in Portal 2 is once again, top notch. The thing that I loved most about Portal 2, was that the ending felt like a video game should. Of the original game's biggest draws, Portal offered a great deal of re-playability in that there were many different ways to complete puzzles. With five areas to navigate in the cooperative campaign, and between 6-8 chambers for each, the cooperative mode of Portal 2 is fairly large. Working together in the cooperative mode of Portal 2 is a must. There's a great balance between difficulty and fun in the cooperative mode of Portal 2 because of Valve's great use of humor and how the characters play off of each other. For the most part, the beginning of Portal 2's cooperative mode is a breeze. Around the time that you become familiar with the controls of Portal 2's cooperative mode the difficulty begins ramping up considerably, following a very similar path to the single player portion of the game. Portal 2 does make a great case in the debate of graphics and gameplay. When playing the cooperative mode for Portal 2 the first thing you'll notice is that your Portal colors have now switched. In the single player portion of the game, your standard portal placement is Left Trigger=Orange and Right Trigger=Blue. If you go from playing the single player to cooperative it takes some time getting used to. Portal 2 Cooperative mode is BEST PLAYED WITH A FRIEND. You can still play the game without one cooperatively, but the experience is horrible. Whether you are an experienced test subject or are just experiencing Portal for the first time, Portal 2 is a great game.

Aperture Science is proud to present after a long hiatus, Portal 2. The sequel to the 2007 acclaimed Portal. Does the co-op work as well as Valve has touted or does Portal 2 end up in an endless loop.

The story itself has a lot of twists and turns and you find out a lot about Chell and other characters in Portal 2. Portal 2 retains all of those aspects and mixes it perfectly with a story that makes players care about the characters giving them each a unique story to uncover and learn about. You are forced with your co-op partner in online via PSN, XBLA or Steam (with cross platform play for PC and Mac to PSN) or offline co-op with a friend to go through series of trials that test your partnership for maniacal GLaDOS. The tests are broken into chapters, there are about five chapters in co-op which ranges for a lot of gameplay and replay value for trophies and sheer fun. Portal 2 is unmatched in its unique gameplay and wonderfully engrossing dialogue. Portal 2 is a must-have title for fans, gamers, puzzle nuts and anyone who appreciates wonderfully crafted title from beginning to end. No matter, Portal 2 looks to be a very early Game Of The Year contender.