One Life Left - "Portal 2"

The original Portal was something of an anomaly in the gaming world. What started as an independent project by some students turned into a small game that came packaged in Valve’s “Orange Box,” a collection of the Half Life games, Portal and the multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. Portal became one of the biggest memes to hit the Internet. And how could it have not? The game featured amazingly fun gameplay (the likes of which players had never seen before), the lovable Companion Cube and the hilarious-yet-terrifying homicidal super-computer GLaDOS who even sang for you as the credits were rolling. A sequel was inevitable, and we should be thankful.

Portal 2 is everything a sequel should be: it maintains the core mechanics that made the original fantastic while improving on absolutely everything else. The player finds himself or herself in the role of Chell, the silent portal-gun-wielding protagonist, who is trying to find her way out of an abandoned Aperture Science testing facility before her old rival, GLaDOS, turns up the deadly neurotoxin to 11 and kills her.

The gameplay is largely intact from the original. Chell has a portal gun, and she shoots her blue and orange portals in different places to freely travel between them. The velocity mechanism stays the same as the player travels through portals, so using some clever physics-based gameplay, players will find themselves flying across test chambers to the finsh line.

Portal 2 throws a bunch of new mechanics into the mix, such as different colored goos that change the physical properties of the objects they touch, “hard light” that can be used as shields or bridges and gravity funnels that slowly drift you in a single direction. It all makes for very compelling and fun gameplay. However, I couldn’t help but notice that despite all these new ingredients added to the mix, the puzzles were generally easier than those in the original. I understand that Portal 2 is its own product and not a side project meant for a collection; in this manner, Valve wouldn’t want to isolate the casual gaming crowd who may grow frustrated and give up. I can see why they would want to do this, and the story is far too amazing to pass up.

Players will be exploring much more diverse environments in this installment. I really can’t explain much more without ruining a major plot point, but trust me: it’s quite the treat. What I can say is that even the environment feels alive this time around. Since GLaDOS controls the entire Aperture Science facility, she controls the test chambers you must survive. As Chell enters the room, the panels on the wall readjust or fix themselves (in a seemingly modest way). You can tell that you are inside what is basically a sentient being, which makes the crushing loneliness of the game even more powerful.

This game also introduces a few new characters to the mix, the most obvious (and hilarious) being Wheatley. Wheatley is a robotic orb with a single blue eye voiced by Stephen Merchant (Extras) and delivers a mind-blowing performance. Wheatley, despite being a disembodied orb and only having a few metal panels that he uses to convey emotion, expresses so much personality and is much more believable than any human character I’ve seen in recent games. There are moments in the game where players can stop what they are doing and just listen to Wheatley talk to himself. Lines of dialogue are never repeated or recycled, and the writing is absolute gold. Backing up Merchant is Ellen McLain, who returns to reprise her role as GLaDOS. McLain brings GLaDOS back to life (literally and figuratively) and through her flawless voice work, she is able to make you fear her in the beginning of the game, then feel sympathy and then even a sense of closeness in the end. As if McLain and Merchant don’t rob the show, J.K Simmons (Spiderman, Juno) literally comes out of nowhere and delivers some of the funniest dialogue in the entire game. And that is saying a lot, because in terms of humor, Portal 2 is the funniest game on the market right now. The writing, all the way to the very end of the game, is some of the very best the industry has to offer. The characters are well-developed, the environment grows, back-story is added, the dialogue is hilarious and, shockingly, the protagonist never utters a single word. The single player mode is something that must be experienced, even if it is a tad short; my final playthrough was about five and a half hours. The last half hour of the game is climatic and ties everything together, yet leaves just enough room for speculation for a third installment of the series.  But just because the credits rolled doesn’t mean the game is over.

Portal 2 introduces a cooperative mode where two players (each with their own portal gun) must work together to get through an entirely different set of test chambers. Nothing is recycled from the single player mode; even GLaDOS’s dialogue is unique to co-op mode. Gameplay can take place either online or on the same console via splitscreen. I highly recommend you play it with someone you know, and in real life sitting next to each other. Not only is it easier to manage each other’s directions when together, but it’s such a fun and unique experience to share with a friend. The puzzles require legitimate teamwork and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as completing a puzzle on the first attempt. Co-op mode also features very useful in-game tools, such as markers that can point out special objects within the environment and even a timer so players can synchronize their actions. Like the game says, “Now you’re thinking with Portals.” The co-op adds not only an interesting piece to the story, but an additional 4-5 hours to the total gameplay.

Portal 2 is a game that oozes charm and technical finesse. It’s an amazing gameplay experience, and you will probably get a laugh or two from it. Occasionally people ask me, “You’re 20 years old and in college, why are you still playing video games?” Portal 2 is now an acceptable answer.

Portal 2 gets a 10/10. Go play it. Seriously.