Portal 2 - Archived Review

Originally published June, 2011.

The original Portal was one of most interesting and mind-bendingly pleasant games I’ve ever played. The puzzles were thought-provoking, requiring the player to think outside of the simple point A to point B strategy. It forced people to use gravity and the physics of the engine to navigate the mazes of the Aperture Science Facility. The only problem? Far too short. There were some time trials of the same levels, as well as some tweaked versions with specific limitations like # of steps or portals taken to solve. Overall, these additions were cheap methods to lengthen the experience, but still an experience that showed how much of an experiment the game truly was.

With several years behind it and a cult following that has grown large enough to no longer be considered a cult, Portal is back. With the following that the game has gotten, its universe has grown and its production value has increased with it. With a massive graphic boost, a lengthier campaign, extensive writing for a new story, and a cooperative campaign as long as the single player with entirely different levels, where could this game go wrong?

Story

If you haven’t played the first Portal, go out and beat it before reading this review, it will only take a few days and you’ll likely enjoy it so long as you don’t get motion sickness.

Picking up possibly years after where the previous game left off, players inhabit Chelle, the same protagonist as before. Mute (and often insulted as such), she is just a means for players to navigate the world. She doesn’t contribute anything to the story as anything other than a set of ears for the NPCs to mouth-off. Typical of developer Valve, it’s the side-characters that are interesting, despite how few there actually are. Their comments are well-written to say the least. Be it passive-aggressive insults from a nasty AI, or the statements of a simpleton that knows nothing of socializing with human beings (and is embarrassed of his hacking abilities), or the pre-recorded messages of a mad-genius with a disregard for human life, the characters that you hear throughout the game come to life with vibrant, and funny personalities.

This isn’t by any means a bad thing, but what made the original Portal so interesting and unique, was its subtlety. With the higher production values and the growth of Portal as a franchise that subtlety has somewhat disappeared and been replaced by this witty writing that is much more overt and at times, over the top. It isn’t bad, but it just seems like the franchise has lost some of the charm that made the original so interesting and unique.

There’s no need to go any further into detail with Portal 2’s story because so much of it quality is based on its pacing and writing that would be damaged if any of it were spoiled here. There are far too many jokes and quips that require a player’s surprise or immersion to really appreciate them.

Gameplay

If you played the first game, you’ll feel right at home playing Portal 2. The core gameplay remains the same with the basic premise of bridging gaps by cutting holes through space. You’re still going to be using physics and momentum to get to propel yourself to the hard to reach places and playing catch with cubes.

Of course, there are some additions to the gameplay to make the sequel stand out. New physics effects like gravitational lifts as well as light bridges passing through portals change up the simple puzzle dynamics. It forces the game into something much deeper than getting from point A to point B. Reflecting three different lasers through a single portal to open a door is a simple example of the creative planning and interaction involved.

Further down the road in the campaign, the game introduces even more crazy additions to the gameplay physics with the colored gels. There is the blue gel that makes whatever it touches extremely elastic and springy. The orange gel makes every surface extremely slippery, giving the player much more momentum when sliding across it. The addition of all these variables make the puzzles more challenging and complex, making what were once rooms that would only take a minute to complete at the most, a much longer and well-planned ordeal.

But what really makes the game more challenging is the inclusion of the new multiplayer mode. The extra player brings 2 more portals into the fray with puzzles becoming exceedingly complex. Each room requires thought on who should fire their portals where and who should be the one to travel through them.

Creatively and accurately using the elements like light bridges and the gels only adds to the chaos that will ensue during a co-op campaign. And fortunately the chaos tends to remain light-hearted and fun. The developers at Valve did a good job giving players the tools needed to communicate between players with or without a headset. The re-spawn time during co-op is brief, allowing players to get back into the fray with each other and keeping frustration to a minimum.

Of course the experience is entirely dependent on whom you’ll be playing with and where. The game supports split screen co-op, a feature that seems to have disappeared from games as of late, unfortunately. It also feature cross-platform online co-op. That’s right, people who own the PS3 copy of the game can play with their friends on Steam and visa versa. Naturally, not too many gamers were able to enjoy this feature while PSN was down, but nonetheless, it’s a great addition to the game allowing people with different preferences of play to still be able to interact with their friends.

Cross-platform support is a rare feature that is obviously possible, but unlikely to show up for many other games. But it doesn’t hurt to be hopeful that more games will get similar treatment from Valve and other publishers.

Presentation

The audio portion of the presentation has already been mentioned as an entertaining portion of the game. The voice acting is spot on with only a few voices making their way into the game. With a silent protagonist, the rest of the story-telling is left up to the side-characters who really propel the story forward and steal the show.

The music retains the creepy atmospheric sound in the background. Thrown onto the eerie ambience are little bits of electronica helping with the sci-fi theme and maintaining the lonely and barren atmosphere; it’s something along the lines of Metroid. It also features procedural effects for when the player is using a variable of the world such as the physics gel or a catapulting spring.

In the visual department, the game is not spectacular. It’s certainly steps well and above the previous Portal, but the Source engine is definitely showing its age. Environments are filled with detail and look great once everything loads and so long as they aren’t inspected too closely. But frequent and annoying load-times plague the game.

I normally don’t care much about loading screens so long as they don’t break up the flow too much and are an acceptable length. Portal 2’s load times are not necessarily long, but they are annoying and far too frequent. It’s obviously needed in order to bring as much detail to the screen as the engine can, but it is nonetheless an obstruction to the flow of the game. When playing Portal, a certain flow is obtained. Solving room after room, puzzle after puzzle builds a momentum that adds to the experience of playing that game. This momentum is halted at the end of a room with a dark load screen completely removing the immersion to the experience. It will even occur between stages where the amount of time spent in that area—which is essentially an in-game cutscene—is less than a minute.

Conclusion

For all its faults in visual presentation, the game still holds up well to some scrutiny and is a delight when it comes to good writing. It will still be fun years down the line. The first Portal was successful in making a game worth returning to once your memory of how to approach each puzzle had faded. The sequel has achieved the same level of replayability if not more so with the increase in puzzle complexity as well as the addition to a co-op campaign. And with promised free DLC down the road for players, new maps and puzzles will only add to the experience.