I played through this game's single player mode on PS3 around when it
came out earlier this year, but because of the issues Sony had getting
PSN back online, by the time I was able to get the game online (and
activate my free PC copy), my friends who also bought the game had
already played the co-op, and I wanted to experience it the first time
with someone else who hadn't seen the solutions before either. I ended
up waiting until this weekend, when another friend finally bought it and
we blasted through the mode in one day. All it did was cement my
position that Portal 2 is my favorite game from this generation, one of
the best games ever, and also probably the funniest.
In a lot of ways Portal 2 is just more of Portal, but when Portal
was already one of the most acclaimed and interesting games to come out
in years, that's not really a bad thing. The sequel returns you to the
same general environment of Aperture's underground laboratories, but
expands on their scope exponentially in multiple directions. A lot of
time has passed since the first game, and you get to explore the
facility's entire history, from when it was first created deep at the
bottom of a mine, and moving forward through time as they built newer
and more advanced additions on top of the old ones. Part of the series'
fun is the vaguely sinister nature of the environment, which is
enjoyably disrupted by the games' sense of humor but still detectable
through little areas you stumble upon, and the second game really
explores this, creating one of the most intriguing locations ever in a
game, both from an art and gameplay perspective. You frequently go
between sterile, carefully managed testing chambers and the industrial
decay that surrounds them, a juxtaposition reflected by every aspect of
the game. The frequent changes in the feel of whatever area you're in at
the time keeps things constantly fresh, and along with the clever
gameplay and fantastic humor, you have a single player campaign that is
longer, deeper, and ultimately more satisfying than the original's.
There's definitely a detectable shift in the general puzzle design
between games. Besides replacing bouncing energy cores with laser beams,
all of the discrete elements from the original return, along with
several new ones, such as energy-based bridges that can be
redirected with portals and various kinds of gels that alter the
properties of the surfaces in the environment. The increased number of
variables to work with is accompanied by a shift away from
experimentation and acrobatics in the puzzles, as solutions are
generally more constrained to prevent overwhelming the player with all
the possibilities inherent to the new elements and require less physical
skill with the controller, letting players instead focus on thinking
through the proper way to address all the obstacles present. I can see
why some players might regret the slight loss in freedom this
represents, but I thought the puzzles were extremely well-designed and
constantly thrilling to solve, a feeling I don't think will go away that
quickly on periodic revisits.
And as I already briefly mentioned a couple times, the writing and voice
acting are fantastic. Valve has always done a great job of having a
player experience a story through the act of playing a game, though in
recent years their games have gotten more and more dialogue-heavy,
usually to great comedic effect, and Portal 2 is possibly the
culmination of that effort. GLaDOS was already wickedly funny in the
first game, and having her be only one of a few characters in the
game was a great idea. The two most significant new characters are
Wheatley, a bumbling robotic friend who helps introduce you back into
the world of Portal, and Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture who had
been mentioned previously in content from outside the original game and
who lives on in a series of recordings in the facility's lower levels.
Wheatley is played very well (and often ad-libbed) by The Office
co-creator Stephen Merchant, and Cave is voiced by J.K. Simmons, who is
consistently one of the most affable presences in Hollywood and does a
great job as well. Johnson's dialogue is necessarily limited to solitary
rants, but frequently GLaDOS and Wheatley are able to play off each
other to great comical effect. It's all really memorable material
without falling into the Internet meme pit that bits from the first game
like all the cake-talk did. As always the script does a good job of
creating a setting and telling a simple but interesting plot without
having to directly explain it to you, and the ending is one of the
single most gripping and unexpected things I've seen in a game.
And that co-op mode was worth the wait, as well. Just the inherent
possibilities of what having two sets of portals instead of one is
exciting, and I was glad to see the game fully capitalize on that
potential. More portals means more complex set-ups, but even beyond
that, having two sets of eyes and two brains working together on a
problem means Valve could design tougher challenges, knowing that they
had more freedom to try truly off-the-wall stuff and could expect
players to roll with it. With the Left 4 Dead series they found
an intriguing way to force players in a shooter to work together in
order to survive, and they continue to have success here in making a
unique experience out of cooperation. With the two player characters
being easily-reconstructed robots there's a perfect opportunity to
encourage experimentation and the occasional bit of messing with your
buddy as you know there's no true consequence for a bad idea and the
challenge is in figuring out the puzzle, not avoiding death. They also
felt the freedom to bring back some of the more skill-based concepts
like momentum, and find ways to combine elements that never interacted
in the more straight-laced single player, like the previously mentioned
bridges and gels. It's also just another showcase for GLaDOS, as she
gleefully scolds the two robots and tries to set them against each other
while they work towards whatever she feels like making them do.
All this and I haven't mentioned the yet-again entertaining and
insightful developer commentary, the great use of music (not just in the
background during dramatic moments, but also as a gameplay clue with
the various new toys), the clever use of trophies/achievements and title
cards, and the fact that they're still finding ways to make the Source
engine impressive seven years later. Valve is easily one of my favorite
game developers, and they seem to only cement that further with each new
release. It's a testament to what they do that despite the continued
radio silence on anything related to Half-Life, I find myself only intrigued by what's possible in the future rather than truly disappointed.
