Portal 2

HEEEEEEEEE hehehehehehe.  WHEATLY!

Okay, so I will be joining the multitudes of people wanting to talk about Portal 2.  Yes, many people will talk about and it and post videos and do playthroughs and throwing my two cents in about the game seems kind of redundant but dammit!  The game is finished and I want to talk!  Now, I don't normally announce my biases when it comes to reviews but...wait...yes I do.  All the time.


The one thing to keep in mind if you're reading this is that 1. I am a huge fan of Portal.  I almost played through all of it and got stuck on one of the last levels.  This makes me pretty lame but doesn't lessen my absolute love of this game (I did end up watching someone play the ending, so I know all about what happens), 2. I am reviewing this from the perspective of someone who watched the game, not actually played it themselves.  Oh, I was there, I shared in the experience but it is a different experience to observe a game than to have the control for yourself.  No, this does not make me lame.  $50 is a lot of money to me, even for something as anticipated as portal 2.

So Portal 2.  Considering that the first game was more of a bonus feature to pad out The Orange Box, it's pretty amazing that it got such a following that it warranted a big budget sequel which became one of the most anticipated sequels of gaming history.  I'll admit, I was slightly skeptical when I first heard the game announced.  Didn't we say all we needed to with the first game?  How could you expand it without it being too much?

Portal 2 begins some time after the events of the first game.  You wake up from a stasis sleep in what's supposed to be a sort of recuperation chamber but has clearly been left in disrepair for some time.  Of course, you happen to be the sole surviving human in the whole facility, and that's when you meet...Wheatly...Wheatly is....oh hell, just watch (and opening cinematics don't count as spoilers...so there).

Wheatly has to be one of my favourite sidekicks of all time.  Steve Merchant does an amazing job voicing the character and I don't think there's one line that is not hilarious.  My friend Dan, who I played the game with, thinks it's just because it's a British accent, but no, it's mostly the hilarity.  He rambles constantly but it's rambling that you want to listen to because there's always comedic gold in it.

But he's not the only being you will be communicating with.  Glados makes a return as well (this isn't a spoiler, her voice is in the trailer so THERE times two!), and she's more than a little bitter about you killing her and all in the first game.  There are plenty of other surprises as well, so I won't ruin the storyline anymore because to go into those details will give away some wonderful twists.

And so you're sent off again into the test chambers and we can get into the meat of the game now and maybe lay off Wheatly a little....maybe.  Portal 2's first chambers are almost identical to the first game's test chambers except it's pretty apparent that you've been gone a long time and that the facility is in a severe state of disrepair.  The atmosphere is a lot creepier this time around, with weeds and plants encroaching on the building and broken machinary and robots desperately trying to fix themselves.

Actually, a lot of Portal 2 feels as though you're stumbling onto some lost forgotten civilization and it has a much more unsettled feeling about it.  In the first game, you didn't necessarily know what was going on until Glados went all batshit on you and you discovered just what happened to the testers.  In Portal 2, you already know Glados is not good news, so everything is pretty much out in the open already.  Still, as I said, there are still a couple of ways the game can surprise.

Things have been updated slightly in terms of graphics and design.  The elevators look different now (as well as more decrepit), there are more video screens with ad campaigns for Aperture science.  You'll spend a lot more time behind the scenes as well since your main goal is to get away from Glados' influence and it's here that the game gets a lot more epic than the first one was.

Being a sequel, of course, it has to offer something new in terms of gadgets.  You get your beloved portal gun fairly early on, but there are a few new innovations added to the chambers such as light bridges you can walk across, floaty...light...beams...that you can float through?...Then there's the invention that most people by now know about, which is the bouncy gel (there's a term for it, but i just know it as bouncy gel).  These definitely make for more intense and warped tests and there is some real mind bending required to try and wrap your head around the physics of it all.

I will say, though, that Portal 2 definitely feels...padded...That's not to say it isn't a good game, it's a great game!  But, and this is probably the first time I am EVER going to say this, sometimes you don't need too much story for a game like this.  It did definitely feel as though the game was being extended and stretched out for the sake of putting more gameplay in, and while I always enjoy a good storyline, there's something to be said for being concise.  Portal 2 does stand well against the original, but I do fear it will turn into another Pirates of the Carribean debacle if they try to make another one.

That is a very minor complaint though.  This game was so worth the wait to me.  It's got tougher puzzles (it took the effort of both Dan and I to solve some of them), a hilarious script, a wonderfully bumbly side-kick, and some new elements that add to the experience and don't just feel like new gimmicks.  I have yet to play the co-op mode.  Hopefully the game will go on sale or I will finally marry that millionaire and can buy the game for myself to try it out.  Check out this game.  A word of warning though, playing the first game is kind of necessary.  You just won't understand it the same way otherwise.