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    Portal 2

    Game » consists of 20 releases. Released Apr 19, 2011

    Portal 2 is the sequel to the acclaimed first-person puzzle game, carrying forward its love of mind-bending problems and its reckless disregard for the space-time continuum.

    kelpplankton's Portal 2: Perpetual Testing Initiative (PC) review

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    Level editing made easy!

    Portal 2 is one of those games that's so perfectly executed, it makes you worry whenever they try to add something new to it. Luckily, the Perpetual Testing Initiative not only gives you one of the easiest to use level editors in any game, but it includes a sizable amount of new Cave Johnson dialogue specifically for these user made maps, and thanks to Steam Workshop, sharing these levels with friends or strangers is incredibly easy.

    At a glance, it's easy to mistake the level editor as being maybe too simplistic or limiting. But in truth, it's Valve's design philosophy of simplicity at work again here. With the tools provided, a player can easily make a replica of the majority of the test chamber puzzles they've experienced throughout the game, as well as combine puzzle aspects that were previously never used together into interesting new gimmicks. Taking it one step further is the ability to then take your Portal 2 map into Hammer, Valve's (free) professional level editing tool for all Source engine titles. Once there, more advanced users can do anything they want with the maps- making Valve's in-game level editor not just a great tool for the inexperienced, but a quick way to hammer out a basic map for much more advanced mappers as well.

    Steam Workshop, already heavily used by Team Fortress 2 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is used to great benefit by Portal 2 for not only sharing maps with friends, but downloading new ones as well. The interface is incredibly easy to use, just click download on any map you'd like to play and the game takes care of the rest. One of the great parts about this is that, not only can you do this from in-game, but you can do it from your browser window too, making sharing maps with friends on forums, facebook, or wherever you frequent an absolute breeze.

    The Perpetual Testing Initiative is not only one of Valve's most ambitious projects to date, but it's something I expect to see get used in some form for future Valve titles. So there's absolutely no question here that this DLC not only improves the overall Portal 2 experience, but perhaps even redefines the game, taking a small subset of it's community and suddenly including anyone in it who wants to participate in making maps, no matter how much they know about doing so. Don't dismiss it as a last-minute attempt to wring some extra sales out of Portal 2. This free content is much more than that, and it's worth checking out.

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