Portal 2 (PS3)
Valve
4/5
Released April 21, 2011
Portal 2 continues on from the first instalment featured seemingly as little more than a bonus mini game in the Orange Box. There were even rumours that the entire original game had only been a testing platform for a new weapon to be included in the Half-Life Series.
That weapon and the real star of the game and it’s sequel is the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, more commonly referred to as the ‘Portal gun’.
You are introduced to the mechanics of the ‘weapon’ early on in the first few tests which act as a tutorial on how to solve the later puzzles. The puzzles all revolve around the same idea; you are trapped in a room, you can use a gun to create a blue portal and an orange portal. If you travel through one, you come out of the other. Only one of each can exist at one time. Using this tool, some fun physics and things called companion blocks you must work out how to escape.
Obstacles come in the form of bottomless pits, lazer beams, poison water and turrets, though many of these will have to be used to help you just as much as hinder.
A new element in the form of hard light bridges has too been introduced.
The gun is incredibly simple to use, which means that you can focus your attention on solving the puzzles without needing to worry about fiddly control systems.
You play as Chell, a silent female whose only purpose in life seems to be to test the gun and discover the potential of it’s use. She has been equipped with special futuristic leg braces allowing her to not take damage from long falls, an extremely useful tool.
Your taskmaster comes in the form of the robot/ central system named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). She is an artificial intelligence who throughout the progression of the game, reveals a dark humour and manipulative nature, suggesting much more to her than being a simple computer program.
Players of the first game will know that Chell destroyed GLaDOS at the end, yet the song played over the credits revealed that the machine was ‘Still Alive’ fully ready to take part in the sequel and create more tests for her subject.
Now of course, knowing that Chell would no longer trust GLaDOS after the events of the first game, a new ally is introduced in the form of Wheatley, another small machine with artificial intelligence, excellently voiced by Stephen Merchant.
Word of warning though; When he says ‘see you at the bottom’, it does not mean jump down the bottomless pit.
Following the success of the first game, it being many players favourite part of the Orange Box, the story has been expanded on and the series stands as a franchise in its own right as opposed to a side project to Half-Life, and deservedly so.
The makers have built upon the original to give the game a fresh look, set after the apocalypse in Half-Life, and long after the destruction of the facility in the first game, the setting often comprises of ruined laboratories and broken down buildings overgrown with plant life. GLaDOS takes it upon herself to begin rebuilding the place and continue her work now that her favourite test subject has returned to her.
The facility itself has a new grander scale that was not quite as apparent in the original. In the opening scene, you are swept through a massive structure presumably buried deep underground, which is only a small part of the compound.
There is also a two player mode, allowing two players to co-operatively solve puzzles, adding another layer to the highly original game.
What with it being a linear puzzle game however, the replayability factor is lost somewhat. There is really only one solution to each puzzle and once found your best bet would be to wait long enough to forget how you did it first time around before playing again.
That however is the games only flaw, while it’s strengths lie in the gameplay, varied puzzles, characters, comedy, story progression and originality.
Unfortunately, no sign of any cake yet.
