Review: Portal 2 (PC)

After Portal 2‘s credits roll one might find themselves left with more unanswered questions; but, at the same time might have gained a deeper understanding of Aperture Science’s zany history riddled with references to the Half-Life universe. The original Portal gained instant critical appeal for its unique emergent gameplay elements, but fell victim to critics as an afternoon sitting, lack thereof storytelling, and absence of multiplayer. Portal 2 improves on all of those previous criticisms in one of the most compelling and freshest adventure puzzle-platformers this year.

The song remains the same, dragged back into test… for science.

In Portal 2 you resume control of Chell directly after the events of the first game and are awoken by a personality sphere named Wheatley, tasked with helping Chell escape the crumbling Aperture Science facilities while GLaDOS seeks revenge on Chell. While Wheatley’s voice is provided by the charisma and charm of one Stephen Merchant, this also had animators tasked with finding a way to convey enough human emotion into the metal sphere. Valve rises to the occasion and reaches even Pixar levels of quality. The dialogue between the comedic foil of Wheatley and cold and calculated GLaDOS should be a lesson to any other developer that try to inject genuinely funny lines of dialogue.

A dated Source Engine? It’s not state of the art engines here, but a state of the art style.

Valve has continued to update the Source Engine over the years never assigning a number to it, but instead updating it periodically. Gamers with older PCs need not be afraid since the engine scales very well, even with my P4 3.0 Ghz outdated AGP graphics card I only ran into a few dropped frames. Terrific use of shadows evoke unsettling moods and reveals the complexity of the facility when you see hundreds of intricate pipes and “do dads” casting their own shadows as you merely walk past them in seconds.

Valve gets credit for amount of detail that went into animating each room and each event justifying Valve’s “it’s done when it’s done” modus operandi. Aperture Laboratories are no longer the same white-pristine test chambers of the first. Walls are overgrown and panels are falling apart while GLaDOS desperately tries to reassemble them as you walk into each new chamber. This leaves the player the sense that GLaDOS could pull the floor beneath you at any moment.

The “indie spirit” lives on in Portal 2, bridging new gameplay elements and ideas.

Since Portal was originally a free indie game itself (Narbacular Drop) picked up by Valve, they’ve followed the same spirit by picking up the “paint” elements of indie game The Power of Paint by absorbing those elements into Portal 2 as gels. Orange gel increases movement speed, blue gel bounces the player past super human heights, and white gel allows the player to create portals on previously innate inert surfaces. Each of these surfaces emit unique sounds that mixes on top of an excellent electro bass heavy soundtrack that’s akin to the “Daft Punk” Tron soundtrack.

The effect of diminishing returns holds weight in Portal 2. Once you’ve solved the puzzles players will instantly be reminded from a certain wall or pad that was used previously that leaves that player for an unchallenged second play-through. Don’t play-through again for the challenge (unless you’re finding other solutions or speed running), but for the story and dialogue. The puzzles in Portal 2 aren’t particularly hard, but designed well enough so that the player gets an “A-Ha!” moment of feeling smart. This could only have been achieved through extensive play testing which puts the testers in the limelight whenever the credits roll.

I’ll never call a game perfect and developers don’t want to hear that either (how will the sequel be better?), but Portal 2 comes damn close.

Pacing of the story comes to a halt due to the surprising amount of loading screens present of all versions of the game. If new areas were streamed via elevator rides like in Portal, it would have helped keep the flow of the game alive. However, once the singleplayer campaign is over there is co-op that has less emphasis on story, but with puzzles just as clever. It’s recommended that you play with another player who hasn’t already finished the co-op campaign themselves so that both of you can find that “A-ha!” moment together. Valve adds features like ping tools to point out objects for your partner and an innovative picture in picture mode so that you can see what your partner sees.

In what the original Portal lacked, Portal 2 expands and adds even more whit, intelligence, humor, and detail that fleshes out the Half-Life universe. Portal 2 has now solidified itself as an integral part of the Valve family of games as juxtaposed to the series of tests that was the original Portal.

Verdict: A

About the Author

Andrew Espejo Co-Founder and Editor from Los Angeles, CA. He tries to post what others aren't.