The first Portal took the world by storm, winning the hearts of millions of gamers and creating one of the most-quoted internet memes in recent memory. It really is that good.Creating Portal 2 must have been an incredibly daunting task. Superbly paced, brilliantly designed and totally engrossing, Portal 2 does for Portal what Half-Life 2 did for Half-Life. The comedy gets even better, and before you’re done you’ll have a deeper understanding of Aperture’s oddball history. The answer is always slap-on-the-forehead obvious when you finally spot it, and it’s definitely worth persevering.
There are periods in this second act where you might struggle to see where you’re meant to be going or what you’re meant to be doing, but stick with it. The game then builds up for the most gruelling and thrilling set of tests we’ve seen. On top of the all the old Portal mechanics, Valve throws in a selection of liquid gels which radically change the properties of surfaces they land on, so you're racing and bouncing all over the place. Saying too much here would spoil what follows, but we can safely say that just when it seems to be drawing to its end, the game is really just building up for a second act that’s every bit as ingenious as the first. In fact, it’s all so good that it comes as a bit of a blow when Portal 2 appears to be building up to a climax all too soon. Where Portal was more of a cerebral exercise - at least in its early stages - Portal 2 is a rawer, more emotional affair. The music fits the mood just as perfectly. The dark, paranoid humour is absolutely spot-on, as Marchant’s dumb, bumbling robot schtick contrasts with GladOS’s line of ironic, bitter put-downs, and while you're unlikely to bust a gut chuckling, it's hard to resist the game's bleak wit. With Wheatley and GladOS quite directly involved in the action, Portal 2 is also a less lonesome game than its predecessor, which felt (perhaps appropriately) clinical at times. Graphically speaking, there’s a lot more detail here than there was in the first game, with some spectacular sequences that take you deep behind the scenes of Aperture Science, and this is probably the most impressive outing Valve's Source engine has had yet. The old pristine whites have tarnished and decayed, vegetation creeps over rusty surfaces, and you’ll frequently catch glimpses of the machinery behind the chambers. Years have passed since the first game, and Aperture’s chambers are in a state of disrepair from the off. In Portal the story almost sneaked out from behind the stripped-back setting and the gameplay. Where Portal 2 really steps away from the original is in the setting and the style. Spring-pads (dubbed Aerial Faith Plates), bridges made of light and new laser-bending cubes are quickly thrown into the mix, along with old favourites like the robotic turrets (which come complete with a range of cheerful greetings before the bullets start flying your way). It’s not long, either, before new ideas start trickling in. It sounds complex and it is complex, but it’s also surprisingly easy to pick-up, and the feeling when a concept clicks or a solution to a puzzle suddenly falls into place is one of Portal 2’s biggest pleasures.
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