The long-awaited sequel to Portal is finally out, and it is even better than expected, improving on the original in every way.
When Portal was released in 2007 as a part of The Orange Box, it received almost universal praise and multiple Game of the Year awards. Portal was a short game, beaten within two hours, but its humor and original gameplay made it a hit.
In the first game, players are put through a series of test chambers inside Aperture Science Laboratories as an increasingly malevolent artificial intelligence wants to test out a portal gun. The portal gun shoots two colored portals, blue and orange, and passing through one brought you out of the other. The game focused around puzzles using the portals to navigate dangerous rooms, and all the while GLaDOS, the AI, promised cake and freedom for successful tests and kept you motivated with sincere compliments about "[SUBJECT NAME HERE]" being "the pride of [SUBJECT HOME TOWN HERE]".
Portal 2 takes the same concept and runs with it. Instead of a mere two hours, the game takes eight hours to clear single-player and another four or so for the cooperative campaign. However, Portal 2 does not just extend the first game; it expands on the gameplay concepts, the characters and the story.
The game picks up hundreds of years after the events of the first game, with Aperture Science overgrown with vegetation and in an advanced state of disrepair. Wheatley, a new AI, awakens you and attempts to get you out of the facility before it falls apart. I can't really talk about why the plot is so good without spoiling anything, but I'll say it is much deeper and even funnier than the first game.
And GLaDOS is back and not happy with you for killing her.
A lot of the charm and humor of Portal 2 comes from its new characters. In addition to Wheatley's bumbling around as he tries to help you ("There's a password. That's fine. I'll just hack it. Not a problem. A-A-A-A-A-A. No? A-A-A-A-A-C?"), there are recordings of Cave Johnson, founder of Aperture Science. Cave is voiced by J.K. Simmons and is an enthusiastic people person.
"You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son-of-a-gun got blue paint. Blood splattered everywhere," he says in the game.
Simmons' acting brings a lot to the game, and his energetic performance really brings the character to life. GLaDOS is just as funny as she was in the first game, if not more so, as she is still very bitter about the whole being killed thing: "Okay. Look. We`ve both said a lot of things that you're going to regret ... but I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster," she says.
Portal 2 also adds a lot of new puzzle elements to play with, which vary from fairly simple, such as launchers that shove you through the air, to more complicated, such as blue paint that makes any surface it hits essentially a trampoline. There are also new movable objects to interact with, such as mirror cubes that can redirect lasers. The new elements have a lot of creative uses and work well with each other, and it never feels like too much is going on at once. The game is never too difficult and has a good, smooth ramp of difficulty.
My only real complaint with the game is that there are fewer surfaces available to put portals on as compared to the first game, which leads to fewer puzzle solutions and a few parts where you spend more time finding a surface than doing any puzzles. However, the puzzles are so well designed I very rarely minded it.
The same good level design continues in the co-op campaign, which adds a new layer of complexity, as the players have two sets of portals to work with. Players can walk through each other's portals, which leads to interesting puzzle solutions and some neat tricks such as using the four portals together to build up momentum from falling. It takes a while to get used to thinking with four portals, but once you get the hang of it, the campaign is very fun. The plot of the co-op campaign is not as deep as the single-player and takes place after the events of the single player, so you should play that first.
I could write about Portal 2 for pages, but you really need to experience it for yourself. The plot, the humor and the puzzles all are phenomenal. It improves on the first game in almost every way, and I was laughing out loud at many of the jokes, a rarity in video games. It is easily the best game released so far this year, and I will be surprised if it isn't one of the best at the end of the year.
