Portal 2 Review

By Mark O'Beirne

If you liked Portal, you will love Portal 2. If you didn’t like Portal, you should check out your local psychiatrist; there’s clearly something deeper that needs to be ironed out. Perhaps, you have been the subject of a series of test chambers, risking life and limb in the past.

Portal 2 is a more rounded and developed game than its predecessor. For example, players are introduced to the founder of the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Centre. Players get a peek at how Aperture operates, the characters that make up the corporate machine and the intense rivalry with Black Mesa. Portal 2 simply seems to have more depth and substance to it.

The Aperture Science facility has changed since the first title. It has been overrun by decay and mother nature herself. The main character from Portal, Chell, is back after being woken from a cryogenic freeze. After being guided to where GLaDOS lies, dormant but alive, Chell and a side kick robot by the name of Wheatley attempt to escape. Unfortunately, they wake GLaDOS who is surprisingly pleased to see Chell…considering their shared history. This forces Chell down the route of a series of tests in a crumbling environment, with a number of twists and turns along the way.

It would have been easy to follow up Portal with more of the same, but there is a concentrated effort to add more while staying true to the original. Unlike the first which was essentially a series of tests, there is more of a storyline present…interlinked with a series of tests.

Players have more at their disposal, or challenging them this time around. Along with portals, players must make use of three different gels that are sprayed around certain parts of the facility. These change the dynamics of the game as they can propel the player, make them bounce higher, or allow them to place portals on surfaces that it would not have been possible to previously.

At its core, Portal 2 is very faithful to its legacy. Humour is present in abundance with quips and comments from GLaDOS and Wheatley. Meanwhile, Cave Johnson chimes in with pre-recorded messages from time to time that are certain to make players chuckle while pondering the ethical greyness of the facility. Even the early tutorial gives an inclination of the tone that is present throughout the game. All that can be said without spoiling it is that it is a more refreshing and enjoyable tutorial segment than usual.

The scripting in Portal 2 is excellent and carries both the story and the dialogue well. However, it is voice acting performances from Ellen McLain (GLaDOS), Stephen Merchant (Wheatley) and J.K. Simmons (Cave Johnson) that round off this performance perfectly. The scripting suits them, and appears to have been meticulously crafted for them.

The puzzles are similar in style to Portal. Players must get from one place to another through the use of cubes, buttons, portals and gels. Exploration is also encouraged where possible. The “Rat Man” is back with his scrawls that tell a tale. Achievements are often ignored in reviews, and with good reason. However, the achievements list shows that players can do quite a bit. From messing with the way Aperture conducts its business to disobeying certain instructions from GLaDOS; there is more to the game than may meet the eye.

Portal was often a solitary experience. This is not the case with Portal 2 thanks to the added Co-operative mode. Despite controlling two robots by the names of P-Bot and Atlas, players are still treated to insights, comments and remarks from GLaDOS. Players are required to work together to get through the environment. This can be done on- or off-line. Once again, there is plenty of depth. The robots able to interact such as playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, while GLaDOS will interject if the player waves in front of a camera and so on.

Portal was a good game, but it is the depth that makes Portal 2 a great game. Everything seems more real as there is a background in place. Everything has a history. The humour runs throughout the game, which is certainly needed in what could otherwise be a sterile test environment. While the graphics haven’t become more elaborate since the first rendition, the gameplay has made progress in leaps and bounds. Portal 2 has been out for a week; therefore you should own it by now.