Portal 2

Portal 2 doesn’t take the newly established series in any unexpected direction. That’s not a bad thing; the first game was good and this one was technically better. We begin the game introduced to Wheatley, who quickly cements himself as the funniest character in the series thanks largely to his voice actor’s delivery. His constant presence reminded me of Grimoire Weiss from Nier, one of my personal favorite video game characters. Obviously, GladOS reappears as well and shenanigans occur. In an interesting (though not unprecedented) shift, this game focuses on the history of Aperture Laboratories, developing some characters while still leaving much in the air. The story is an elaborate farce like Portal’s was, but the setting grows even stronger and more fascinating, which opens the door for a great tale in a potential third game. Whether or not that gets delivered remains to be seen.

Only a few new gameplay elements make their way in to Portal 2. The game designers wisely focus on the new gimmicks in the latter half of the game, which helps prevent this from just feeling like a re-skin of Portal. What’s new is interesting for the most part (portable platforms, tractor beams, movement-altering gels) but I am left wondering why some things were not expanded upon. Most notably, one of my gripes about the first game was that the turret fights were dull, and no new enemies are introduced here. I realize that the Portal Gun makes for limited strategic options in a battle, but it’s disappointing on a perhaps superficial level that no new blood crept in. Oh well, it’s not like I really enjoy fighting the robots so much. The meat of the game remains the puzzles, and they provide the same challenge level of the original game, which felt perfectly fair. Among the best design decisions is the reduction of ‘pixel hunt’ puzzles in the game. There are still a few, but not enough to distract too much.

Overall, Portal 2 is a great sequel and a slightly better game than its predecessor, which is more than most first sequels can claim. It also left me hungry for an eventual third entry, so that’s a plus. My complaints are minor (I still hate first person perspectives, especially when I have to jump) and, yeah, biased. You should play it for science.

7.5