Get a taste of the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Magazine with our review of Portal 2.

Portal 2

By: Andrew Pfister

Portal was a game about space. The ability to walk through walls required previously unexercised spatial perspective in order to navigate the challenging test chambers, and in conjunction with momentum, there was only one rule you could rely on: Whatever goes into the blue portal comes out of the orange one.

Portal 2 is also a game about space, but now its our trust in that space thats being challenged. In its opening scene, whats presented as a small dormitory room isnt quite that, exactly, and its here Valve immediately establishes that the expectations or assumptions you might have about where you are, where youre going, and whos leading you arent reliable. The law of blue and orange is still in effect, but just when you start to get comfortable, Valve rearranges the room, figuratively and often literally. Through its new puzzle elements and the cadre of narrators, voices drenched in sarcasm and passive aggression, youre asked to try something new.

Portal 2 wastes little time employing the new toys and tools. After a brief warm-up with the portal gun, lasers (thermal discouragement beams), gravity funnels, and light bridges make their debuts. Lasers must be redirected into activation sockets using a special cube, funnels slowly float you and other materials across expanses, and light bridges are walkable surfaces that can alternatively be used to block turret fire or prevent yourself and vital cubes from flying off into oblivion after stepping on an aerial faith plate. Naturally, all three of these elements travel through portals, and a healthy portion of the puzzle design requires they be properly placed.

The combinations of puzzle elementsportals, momentum, lasers, cubes, jump plates, gravity funnels, light bridges, turretsare constantly changing but never overwhelming. Upon encountering a new area, you get the sense that the devs mean to intimidate you, but with the knowledge that youre still riding the confidence high from solving the previous problem. Channeling GLaDOS, theyre essentially saying, Oh, you think youre so smart, do you?, and by varying the elements, locations, and scale of the challenges, they maintain your intellectual momentum. By the time you encounter the three types of experimental gels that create surfaces you can bounce off, accelerate on, and apply portals to, your brain will be tuned to handle tasks like deactivating reversed gravity funnels through portals to drop bounce gel on a row of turrets guarding a vital button.

Now, imagine all of that with two brains and four portals. Portal 2s cooperative portion is unique and separate from the primary campaign, and throws an extra element into the mix: communication. Its one thing to visualize and talk out possible strategies to yourself, but having to work with a teammate further builds on the idea of trust. The test chambers dont get easier just because you have a partner, theyre specifically built for coordinated solutions: two sets of portals, timing-based actions, and frequent separations that require good communication. Valve kept the tools simple and sufficient, allowing you to activate a countdown timer or place icons where a portal should go, as well as letting you see from your partners perspective. Voice chat is preferable, though, if only to allow for moments of experimentation (What if we tried this?) to give way to elated discovery (Ive figured it out!). Five co-op test chambers filled with rooms is definitely enough, but you get the sense that, like the single-player jump from Portal to Portal 2, Valves designers are capable of many more devious experiments.

Portal and Portal 2 are remarkable even if you only view them as the mental exercises of a first-person puzzle game. But the series really wouldnt be the same without its unique sense of cheerily dark humor and surprisingly robust supporting mythology, the latter of which provides much of this sequels context. If Portals last act was Valve letting us peek behind Aperture Sciences curtain, Portal 2 gives us full run backstage. Previously revealed through ARGs and supporting fiction, the origins and history of Aperture are visualized as you move from the familiar test chambers into the bowels of the complex. All the while, the rotating narrators provide running commentary that switches between begrudging support, merciless taunting, and plot revelations. The writing is once again sharp and subversive, only rarely approaching overly clever. And paired with the expert vocal delivery of Ellen McLain (GLaDOS), Stephen Merchant (Wheatley), and J.K. Simmons (Cave Johnson), your tour through Aperture is relentlessly comedic.

Its also frantic, untrustworthy, and ever changing. The narrators, all stewards of Aperture Science, have dubious intentions and, to put it mildly, are less than forthcoming with the truth. The facility itself is also deteriorating. For the player, this means that the floor youre about to land on might not lead to the next test chamber, or the aerial faith plate youre told to approach might not be worthy of your aerial faith. The fusion of the writing and the level design is the core of Portal 2s pace, and though youre always placing orange and blue portals, how, where, and why you place them is always different. Youre constantly analyzing the space youre put in.

For that reason, Portal 2 is one of the most mentally taxing games you could play. But for the very same reason, its also one of the most intellectually rewarding.

SCORE: 10 (out of 10)

THE GOOD: Great variation of puzzles and pacing

THE BAD: Brief loading breaks sometimes disrupt the flow

THE UGLY: The look you get from an accidentally murdered co-op partner

For more reviews, previews, news, features, and other great gaming-related content, check out the June 2011 issue if EGM – on sale now at newsstands everywhere.