Valve knows what they are doing. The Seattle based developer has never made a bad game, and Portal 2 is no different. What made the first Portal so great was its completely original style of gameplay and deadpan humor. Portal 2 couldn’t rely only on just its portal puzzles this time around; they needed something else to charm the player. So they made you love the characters.
Portal 2 begins about 28 years after the first with main character Chell being rudely awakened by a basketball sized metal ball with a welsh accent. He is a personality core named Wheatly and he needs Chell’s help to escape the crumbling and decrepit Aperture Science Enrichment Center that was put in this state due to the death of the facility’s caretaker, super computer GLaDOS. What he doesn’t know about you is that you are the one that killed her. So you begin your flight by attempting to retrieve your portal device.
Wheatly is such a charming character, though he lacks a face or body, and GLaDOS’s insults about Chell’s weight and lack of parents really started to get to me. Never have I been as immersed in a virtual world as I was with Portal 2. Valve never ceases to amaze.
The puzzles, while upstaged by the characters, are still quite good. Portal 2 steadily introduces new gameplay elements just as you get the hang of the last. One such element is the Thermal Discouragement Beam, a solid state laser used to destroy turrets and power other utilities such as doors and elevators; with the addition of the mirror cube you can alter the direction of the laser and point it through portals.
Portal 2 also has a coop mode in which the players take control of two robots built specifically for testing, Atlas and Peabody. GLaDOS puts the two through more strenuous tests because they have 4 portals to work with between the two of them, and they technically can’t die. It’s certainly a challenging experience and definitely one that will make you dislike your partner.
Portal 2 blew through my expectations and even topped Portal 1. The ending was probably the greatest ending to a game I have ever had the privilege to experience. Portal 2 gets a 6 out of 5, and is a definite buy.