Portal 2 Review
The old adage goes, “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”. This is exactly what Valve have done with Portal 2, taken their original recipe and simply expanded upon all that was good in every conceivable way. However instead of simply running tests for the false promise of cake, Portal 2 takes you on a roller coaster ride through the rather expansive caverns that hold the Apeture laboratories while subtly narrating the rise and fall of this once mighty establishment, hammering home some shock realisations.
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The start of the game sees you within what appears to be a hotel room, an unfamiliar artificial voice bellows out from nowhere asking you to perform some simple tasks, once complete you simply go back to sleep. The next time you awake though is when the fun begins, everything in your “hotel” room looks dilapidated and broken, the same artificial voice states you’ve been in stasis for quite the spell. A knock at the door where upon opening reveals Wheatley, voiced by Stephen Merchant, your companion and comic relief for the game.
The game then takes you through some familiar territory, dumping you in the same pod in which you started in the original portal, along with some of the original test chambers. performing these tests is an integral part of Wheatley’s plan in ensuring that he and yourself finally escape the clutches of GlaDOS. From here on out you’re thrust into unfamiliar territory, hurled into the bowels of the Apeture labs into the once forgotten testing chambers set up by founder Cave Johnson and enriched with back story and insights about the whole operation.
You are also introduced to some of the new mechanics of Portal 2, the speedy bouncy portal anywhere gels. Three gels are now a part of the Portal experience, the blue gel makes you bounce, the red gel increases your run speed while the white gel allows you to place a portal opening on any surface that it covers. Along side these new gels you’ll also come across light bridges and tubes to utilise in your quest for the holy
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There is no denying that Valve have gone to town with Portal 2, the scriptwriting is genuinely humorous, while the puzzles are more dastardly than ever and there were a few occasions in which I was left scratching my head in bewilderment wondering how to complete the puzzle in front of my eyes. That being said, I was never left feeling defeated, admittedly it may have taken me longer than the average bear to solve a puzzle but nevertheless I solved it, I felt that sense of elation when I conquered one of these puzzles and more importantly I never felt the urge to abandon my campaign. While the puzzles are indeed devious, they are never too harsh.
The graphics look good but it seems that while the extra bells and whistles has made Portal 2 look better than original, the Source engine may be coming to the end of its life cycle and does not seem to have the horsepower to compete with the advancements of the Unreal engine, so maybe we’ll see something new from Valve in that department soon.
The single player campaign is going to take you roughly six to eight hours depending on how well you cope with the devious tasks set out in front of you. If that is not enough Portal to quench your thirst then fear not as Portal 2 has a brand new co-operative mode to play online with a friend.
This mode puts you into the shoes of one of two robots created by GlaDOS specifically for running test chambers, Atlas and P-Body. They are both armed with their own portal gun, however they are not your standard orange/blue affair, Atlas has two blue portals while P-Body has two orange ones, the purpose of which is clear when you start running their test chambers.
Now you may play with someone on your PC Steam friends list, alternatively you may play with someone that is playing the game on their PS3 as for the first time in Valve history, cross platform multi-player has been created, but if you’re a Xbox 360 player, well tough titties, no cross platform multi-player for you.
The co-op campaign does require some form of communication between both parties in order to succeed so if you happen to come across a mute player then some hard times are in front of you. Though to alleviate some of this frustration, you’re able to place a ping marker in the game world which will indicate that you want a portal placing at that location which is a very important tool indeed if you’re playing with a logically challenged partner.
Along side this ping tool you also have a partner cam button which appears in the bottom right of your screen when pressed, this gives you their perspective live, quite a useful feature in figuring out some of the most devious puzzles known to man. Overall you’re looking around six to ten hours of game time through co-op which is again dependant on your own skill level as well as your partners. One final note about the cross platform play is that it worked extremely well, if it weren’t for the fact that steam states someone is playing via Playstation 3 you would not have known they were using an inferior control system.
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Team Fortress 2 fans can rejoice too, your beloved hat system now encompasses Portal 2, yes that’s right, hats and lots of day one DLC is available to purchase for Atlas or P-Body. Now while day one DLC is a sore subject for most, its not a surprise addition to the game as Valve know these kinds of micro transactions work for them. So what is available for your robot companions? Well hats for a start, along with paint jobs, gestures and mini flags which are adorned on the back of the robot. Now all of this is optional so don’t think that your experience will suffer because you don’t have that companion cube heart paint job, or that spinning gesture as it simply will not suffer at all.
Overall, we were thoroughly pleased with what Valve have given us in Portal 2; old questions answered, new ones asked, a lot of Apeture Science lore explained and some shock storyline realisations thrown in for good measure it would be stupid not to pick this title up. To sweeten the deal for Playstation owners, pick up a brand new PS3 copy and you get a PC version for free thrown in the box, there really is very little reason to not buy this game.
8.50/10
8½
Portal 2 (Reviewed on Windows)
This game is great, with minimal or no negatives.
The old adage goes, “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”. This is exactly what Valve have done with Portal 2, taken their original recipe and simply expanded upon all that was good in every conceivable way.
This game was supplied by the publisher or relevant PR company for the purposes of review
COMMENTS
Betty_Swallocks - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015
An excellent game to be sure and an interesting progression from the first one but honestly. Six hours of gameplay for 35 quid with virtually no replay value? Appalling value for money imo. I'd have been happy to pay £15 for it but after paying £35 and finding it so short quite frankly I feel a little ripped off.
Kaostic - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015
I'm still on the fence about buying this :S.. I'm not totally sure I'll like it that much.
Platinum - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015
No replay value? I am certainly going to play this again, there is so much hidden stuff, did you find the Boriealis?... This could be said about many games these days, honestly some people are never happy, this is a excellent game and well worth the money imo.
iNTOXiCATiON - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015
Bought this for off steam for less then £30, played it and completed it and loved it - I have missed a lot of the things i did notice hidden but did not want to investigate on the first play through, I will be playing it through again, the co-op alone is worth a few hours shortly and with the DLC coming out for it then i believe it would be worth every penny of the price tag.
ExcessNeo - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015
My only gripe with a lot of reviews is the "day 1 dlc" whining, the fact that the DLC is merely the ability to customise your co-op robot. Seems a bit redundant to me, if they were selling new maps/challenges on day 1, yes I would be a bit miffed.
Wedgeh - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015 Author
My only gripe with a lot of reviews is the "day 1 dlc" whining, the fact that the DLC is merely the ability to customise your co-op robot. Seems a bit redundant to me, if they were selling new maps/challenges on day 1, yes I would be a bit miffed.
For me it was more of a case that there's a DLC pack that is costing more than twice the price of the actual game, while yes it's optional to purchase this DLC content it's still a model of maximising the ways money comes out of the players pocket as quickly as possible. This micro transaction model is something that pisses me off, I'd rather spend 5/10 quid on solid expansions than cosmetic bits of ********.ExcessNeo - 11:44pm, 3rd April 2015
For me it was more of a case that there's a DLC pack that is costing more than twice the price of the actual game, while yes it's optional to purchase this DLC content it's still a model of maximising the ways money comes out of the players pocket as quickly as possible. This micro transaction model is something that pisses me off, I'd rather spend 5/10 quid on solid expansions than cosmetic bits of ********.
Maybe I'm more open to the idea of micro transactions based on my experience with Rock Band, of course some genres really do suit themselves more to it. Iirc rock band 3 had day 1 DLC, as did Rock band 2 but then they had DLC worth thousands already available through the music store so it's not like it was new. Expansions are more suited to a collection of content rather than what Valve are doing in Portal 2 thus far, for example looking at the likes of Battlefield Bad Company 2, the Vietnam expansion would not work if you had to buy things seperately, however in the case of skins, flags, etc buying a big pack isn't necessarily the best value as not everyone will use all items in the pack. As I said in my post above it's quite redundant complaining about people having the option to buy a different flag or skin for their co-op character, in all honesty besides the achievements or for a laugh with someone I know I don't see myself playing with strangers enough to care too much about what my character looks like, I think the base models and items obtainable through normal game play are good.