Portal 2 review
The first Portal was an amazing game that came out amidst 2 giant pc games (Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2) on the Orange Box. It is a testament to how good portal is that it was the most impressive game to come out of that package. A full $60 sequel to a 2-4 hour gem that was extremely original. That was a concern coming into Portal 2 could it stay original? Could it really work as a 6-8 hour game? Could it justify the $60 price tag? The answers are yes, yes and mostly. Portal 2 delivers a full and extremely satisfying single player experience along with a robust co-op campaign.
Portal 2 is very clever using different gels, light bridges, tractor beams, and more to keep the game fun, fresh, and challenging. Even with all the new stuff Valve still finds a way to continually revolve the game play around the same old portal gun. Valve also, does a good job with the difficulty curve in the game as you gradually work with new elements it continually tests you, but I often found that the answer was staring me in the face the whole time. That is the joy of portal 2 though that “AH HA” moment where it all clicks and you figure out the puzzle. Portal 2 gives you a wider cast of characters to enjoy other than just GLaDOS and the weighted companion cube. They also add Cave Johnson (Aperture science founder) and Wheatly a personality sphere in charge of all human test subjects in Aperture Science. The single player story can be broken up into three parts the first, where in large it’s about escaping Aperture science and re-learning how to play portal. This part can be a little tedious for veteran portal players, but the story beats here are great, and completely worth it. The second third, where you get new “toys” to play with vastly advancing the game play, but you sacrifice story for game play here unlike the first third. Finally, the best part of the entire game, the last third where you apply all you have learned while getting equal story and game play. The ending of Portal 2 is fantastic. Of course I won’t spoil anything here, but needless to say it’s completely out of this world.
Now, in the co-op section of Portal 2 you and a buddy play as two robots P-body and Atlas. GLaDOS has picked you two to do some “co-op testing” as she puts it. The co-op campaign is more difficult than the single player to a degree. Both of you use your own portal guns. P-body shoots an orange and red portal combination while Atlas shoots a blue and purple combo. It requires a great deal of team work to be able to coordinate with four portals at once. One great feature that Valve has implemented into the co-op campaign is a ping tool. It allows you to mark places where you want your partner to place portals, but I imagine without voice chat it would be quite difficult. Even though you could say that Portal 2’s co-op is twice as hard, it is also twice as rewarding when you and a friend work together and find that “AH HA” moment together. There is online match making if you don’t have a friend to play with, but most of the times I played the partner I was assigned did not have a microphone so you might want to be aware of that.
The reason Portal 2 is mostly worth $60 and isn’t totally is because once you have played through both campaigns there is not much more to do. You can go achievement/ trophy hunting or listen to the developer commentary, but besides that there isn’t a ton of replay ability. One of my biggest grips in Portal 2 is that after almost every chamber or puzzle you solve there is a loading screen and it becomes quite annoying after a while. It happens in both single player and co-op campaign. Besides that I loved both single player and co-op I found both a ton of fun to play and the story enthralling. I would say if you own a system that this game is on to buy it and make sure to have a buddy to enjoy it whether on the couch or online
