The original Portal, developed by Valve, was acclaimed as one of the most original games of 2007, despite being short in length and being a side feature of The Orange Box.The original Portal had the element of surprise. Its style of first-person physics-based puzzle gameplay was unique. GLaDOS, the murderous robotic villain, was new and vibrant and evil in the most charming way. Cake jokes and songs about surviving dismemberment were still hilarious. It was short, succinct and essential. Creating a sequel without playing all the same notes and making it feel like Portal: The Longer Version is a tough task. For Valve though, it’s apparently no problem.
From the first moments of waking up in the rusting Aperture Science facility to right before the credits roll, Portal 2 rarely falters. The world is bigger, the story thicker, and the character development more surprising. The mania of GLaDOS, the facility’s operator, is molded into unexpected forms alongside a host of brutally funny personalities. The history of the Aperture Science facility is filled in, character origins discussed, and though its pacing suffers as it occasionally strikes a more serious tone, an abundance of cruel jokes and cheerfully sincere death threats prevent it from losing its sarcastic charm. When one is not staring at their screen with a wrinkled, pained expression on their face trying to figure out a puzzle, expect to be laughing.
Players still play as Chell, dragged back into Aperture after the events of the first game. They soon meet Wheatley, a spherical robot, voiced by Stephen Merchant (The Ricky Gervais Show, Extras) who helps gamers through the early stages. It’s difficult to overstate how Merchant’s obvious enthusiasm for the role benefits the game. No word Wheatley speaks is without witty inflection, and the consistently clever writing perfectly complements the onscreen action. It’s easy to be be just as concerned about missing lines of dialogue as about progressing through the puzzles, especially during Wheatley and GLaDOS’ verbal sparring matches.
The attention to detail throughout is nothing short of stunning. The facility is in a state of disrepair at the beginning. Once GLaDOS whirs into action, so does the facility, becoming an extension of her body and personality. When players enter a room, mechanized crane arms and wall plates spin and shift with an urgency like they walked in on them with their pants down. As “Portal 2” progresses, the environments expand from claustrophobic test chambers to yawning underground chasms. Metal girders and structural supports break and crash into each another, snapping apart in chaotic and natural ways, consistently serving not only to entertain the eye but to expand our understanding of the game’s characters.
Though there’s a much bigger emphasis on story and character development in Portal 2, players spend a lot of time tangling with spatial reasoning puzzles in test chambers. Valve brings back the same portal gun while greatly expanding the number of gameplay toys. The gun shoots two linked portals through which the player and objects can pass and momentum is maintained. To get from one test chamber to the next and through the guts of Aperture’s vastness, the gamer uses its portals to redirect energy beams, coat surfaces with globular gel that makes players bounce or run at high speeds, pass over gaping pits with bridges of light and manipulate cylindrical tractor beams. Arriving at a solution will require quick reactions just as often as clear thinking, as portals sometimes need to be repositioned while soaring through the air or before timers run out. This isn’t a first person-shooter in the traditional sense, but at times it can feel like one as gamers zoom in with the portal gun to spy distant targets and frantically adjust its aim and fire with precision.
No matter how complicated the puzzles get, the solutions are always sensible. Sometimes the player will “get it” right away and adjust lasers with lens blocks to activate platforms to reach switches. Other times the player will have no idea what to do, exhausting seemingly all possible options until, eventually, a solution so plainly obvious sparks in the gamer’s brain leaving gamers to curse their momentary daftness. Valve does an excellent job of presenting the gamer with all the necessary clues without slapping a set of instructions onscreen to explain the way forward. Even when multiple mechanics are mixed into puzzles like jump pads, tractor beams, light bridges and gels, the gamers never feel their getting stuck was due to unreasonable or poor design, only their ability to decipher it.
As good as the single-player story is, the co-operative is the real highlight of Portal 2. The beginning of the co-op picks up right after the end of the single-player game, giving the player and his or her partner control of two robots, and serves as a continuation of the story of Aperture Science. It features fewer characters than the single-player mode but is still filled with enough sharp writing, deadpan jokes and absurd humor to keep him or her entertained between puzzle sections and provide motivation toward an end goal. Better yet, instead of simply recycling puzzle designs from the single-player portion, the inclusion of another player significantly alters the way the gamer needs to think.
The original Portal benefited from its brevity. It had a concise story paired with inventive first-person puzzle mechanics that challenged the player to be creative while pulling the trigger. Portal 2 makes the original look like the prototype it was. It’s filled with a larger cast of characters vividly brought to life through brilliant writing and some of the best voice acting in video games. Its puzzles are challenging without being unreasonable, and, once the player is finished with the single-player mode, one of the best co-operative experiences on the market awaits. Valve cuts no corners and finds ways to make the player care about everything from the major characters to the cubes used to solve puzzles. From the beginning of the single-player story to the end of the co-op mode, Portal 2 is a novel, unforgettable experience.
