Portal 2 reviews

Portal 2, when compared to it's predecessor (Portal 1) is significantly longer; around twice as long, and that's not counting the co-op levels, which are seperate from the main game's levels. (Single player took me about 7 hours.)

The levels introduce new things to play with (non-lethal fluids, for one thing) and retain some of the old things. (cubes, portals, the strangely solvent water/goop in chambers) The chamber themes are now vastly varied, as well, taking you from the overgrown wreckage of the chambers from Portal 1, all the way to the newer, more polished chambers, and beyond.

That said, the puzzles are a shade on the fustrating side, with a fair few of them being simple to solve, the hardest bit being “where is the surface I need to portal”.

The rate of joke/smart comment delivery is a shade higher than in Portal 1, but if you've got a taste for the kind of humor Portal 1 had, Portal 2 will definitely tickle your funnybone. (“This next chamber is incredibly dangerous. To distract you from the threat of impending death, we will deploy smooth jazz in three, two, one: [smooth jazz]”)

The character development has also taken a turn for the more detailed, with the history of Apeture Science and it's more significant denziens (Glados, Wheatley) being exposed a little more, and fleshing out just how much the company has changed since the days of making shower curtains.

The graphics are suprisingly neat. Even a mid-high laptop can squeeze decent looks out of this game, a proper gaming computer would look fantastic.

New to the series is the “Co-Op Testing Initiative”, where two buddies can do science together as P-body and Atlas, two robots running gauntlets deemed too dangerous for human use. Death is something gauranteed to occur as one player accidentally steps on the wrong button, and it's all in good humor. Due to the fact that there can now be two portal-guns in one area, there can be 4 portals, leading to some very neat portal-based ninjary.

Overall, the Portal experience is back, longer, funnier, deeper, and with a brand new credits song. If you care to read between the lines a bit as well, you'll discover numerous easter eggs and secrets, which is a testament to just how much love VALVe put into this game.

If you played and loved Portal 1, you'll love Portal 2. If you still haven't played Portal 1, I'd strongly reccommend playing that one first, and THEN playing Portal 2.

A game that makes you think outside the square. I enjoyed every minute of playing Portal 2.

When the original Portal came out I played it through in one sitting, and I remember being astonished at how fun the puzzles were, and how consistently funny I found the GlaDOS banter.

When I saw Portal 2 available for Pre-Order on Mightyape I jumped at the opportunity to claim the game as swiftly as possible (I only rarely pre-order), and having played through the single player component over the soggy easter weekend, I am glad I did!

Essentially it is more of the same sorts of sometimes mind-bending puzzle solving, but there are additional elements being introduced throughout the game to keep the pace up, and keep the player from drifting in to apathetic disinterest.

The location types change throughout the game also, giving a nice bit of back-story to Aperture Laboratories. The feeling of enormity of the testing facility is well portrayed, admittedly giving me an uneasy feeling at times (thinking specifically of bottomless pits here).

On close inspection, the graphics may seem a bit dated; but not distractingly so (long distance viewing still looks really good), and the sound design and general feeling of immersion more than make up for it.

On top of the excellent puzzle work and immersive nature of the game, the witty dialogue (monologue?) is also a major winner in keeping the player engaged. GlaDOS is still there, but there's one or two more characters now, and they all play a big part in keeping the humour level nice and buoyant. One of the new characters is voiced by someone I'm a big fan of too, so that was a brilliant surprise!

Five stars from me… Anyone for co-op?

Portal 2, when compared to it's predecessor (Portal 1) is significantly longer; around twice as long, and that's not counting the co-op levels, which are seperate from the main game's levels. (Single player took me about 7 hours.)

The levels introduce new things to play with (non-lethal fluids, for one thing) and retain some of the old things. (cubes, portals, the strangely solvent water/goop in chambers) The chamber themes are now vastly varied, as well, taking you from the overgrown wreckage of the chambers from Portal 1, all the way to the newer, more polished chambers, and beyond.

That said, the puzzles are a shade on the fustrating side, with a fair few of them being simple to solve, the hardest bit being “where is the surface I need to portal”.

The rate of joke/smart comment delivery is a shade higher than in Portal 1, but if you've got a taste for the kind of humor Portal 1 had, Portal 2 will definitely tickle your funnybone. (“This next chamber is incredibly dangerous. To distract you from the threat of impending death, we will deploy smooth jazz in three, two, one: [smooth jazz]”)

The character development has also taken a turn for the more detailed, with the history of Apeture Science and it's more significant denziens (Glados, Wheatley) being exposed a little more, and fleshing out just how much the company has changed since the days of making shower curtains.

The graphics are suprisingly neat. Even a mid-high laptop can squeeze decent looks out of this game, a proper gaming computer would look fantastic.

New to the series is the “Co-Op Testing Initiative”, where two buddies can do science together as P-body and Atlas, two robots running gauntlets deemed too dangerous for human use. Death is something gauranteed to occur as one player accidentally steps on the wrong button, and it's all in good humor. Due to the fact that there can now be two portal-guns in one area, there can be 4 portals, leading to some very neat portal-based ninjary.

Overall, the Portal experience is back, longer, funnier, deeper, and with a brand new credits song. If you care to read between the lines a bit as well, you'll discover numerous easter eggs and secrets, which is a testament to just how much love VALVe put into this game.

If you played and loved Portal 1, you'll love Portal 2. If you still haven't played Portal 1, I'd strongly reccommend playing that one first, and THEN playing Portal 2

As a new player, find it fun, not too difficult to understand

I can't say as much as I'd like to about this game, as almost everything would spoil the game for you, unfortunately. What I will say, however, is this:

Portal 2 is amazing. I find it hard to compare to Portal, as it's so much better than its predecessor. I didn't like Portal – I never got the hype, really. I'm glad Valve released for free a couple of times, as it's a 3/5 game at best. Portal 2, however, is a totally different beast.

If you played Portal, you'll know the deal with gameplay in its sequel. Run around shooting portals at flat objects, sometimes picking up stuff or pressing buttons. Simple, and it works well. The controls on the PC are simple, with no deviations from the standard FPS keybindings. No complaints here.

Voice acting is far better than the original, with GLaDOS sounding far more like an hyper-intelligent AI than the glorified answering machine she was for most of the original. Stephen Merchant (from The Office) plays a leading role, and does quite a good job of it too, I must say. Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture Science is probably my favourite, his voice fitting the character completely.

The soundtrack is mostly excellent, with only a couple of tracks getting on my nerves while I tried to solve a puzzle. ‘Still Alive’ doesn't make a return, thankfully; it's replacement is far better.

The game looks great, even though it's running on the Source engine, which is starting to look old. Valve have obviously made some improvements to Source, and it shows – the portal gun was the only imperfection I consistently noticed.

The story is where Valve shines. The story is what I will replay Portal 2 for. Unfortunately, I can't say much. All I can say is that it lives up to the plot of Half Life 2, and has the same depth you'd expect from Valve if you've played Team Fortress 2. Take it as what you will.

I fully expect this game to be finalist for Game of the Year, depending on how The Witcher 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution turn out.

The game was quite fun despite the puzzles being rather easy to figure out. The game is quite short only took me a couple hours to complete. The graphics are good and storyline was great. Definatly recommend it if you like working out puzzles.

Great game and awesome fun.

I really wanted the multi-player, but on the PC version you can only go multi-player via the Internet to another STEAM account holder. Single-pc multi-player is not supported.

A work around is available, but you need to create a config file and run the game in developer mode and type in special commands. And then you can't save your progress

This sucks badly, and hopefully VALVe will sort it out in an update.

MightyApe, if you read these reviews, please make it clear in your advertising that two player mode is not fully supported.

It was as great as the first game, and longer. The voice acting and jokes were hilarious too, although in comparison with portal, where it was created with a few guys in a room, Valve had a whole team dedicated to producing this game, so it was a lot more flashy, which seems to fit in nicely. Plenty of secrets to find, and it even has a mulitplayer section, which gives you so many extra hours of fun, whether you are just goofing around or actually trying to solve the puzzles.

Excellent game that makes you think outside the square. If you're looking for a game that is challenging and fun at the same time, this is it!

Enjoyed by all. Great little brain teasers and a new way of thinking about things. Makes you think outside the box.

This has got to be my favourite computer game yet! The gameplay is great, and the characters, although robots, have quite unique and well thought-out personalities. It really gets you thinking, and you can never be quite sure what's around the corner! All in all, a wonderful game that will keep you going for hours!

If you don't know who she is, don't worry, you'll find out…

A really good game. Good story, good music and the puzzles are puzzling enough without being too discouraging to first timers. Although they added new gameplay mechanics, they don't really expand on it. Hopefully there will be DLC's to address that. Multiplayer is great, trying to coordinate with a friend is like lefty does not know what righty is doing, but it only adds to the fun.

Get a copy now!

Great story, replayable due to fun achievements, two-player is great fun. That's really all you need to know. There is no versus or anything because it is a puzzle game but it doesn't need it.

Also the comedy is hilarious.

Buy this game.

The game was pretty solid but in the end I felt the game play and story were a bit of a let down. I do not think Portal 2 deserves the 95% metacritic score it received.

The difficulty of this game seemed to jump from easy to challenging, back to easy to challenging, over and over again as the story progressed, and the challenges were quite repetitive towards the end of the game.

The single player is a little short and seems to end suddenly. One moment you are solving a group of puzzles, and on the next level you are told that you are about to finish the game. The build up to the end game challenge, was just not there.

It is overly a good solid game, entertaining, tricky in parts, but I was just expecting more from Valve, who seem to have put more effort into the media campaign, that should have gone into the design of the game instead.

The replayability, which is very important to the consumer for bang for buck value, is short.

I give it 3 out of 5.

If this game was not tied to my steam account, I would be selling it on trademe.

If you liked Portal, you will love Portal 2. I played this as soon as I got it and was absolutely amazed! The game may run on an old engine but it still looks very nice and the gameplay is unmatched in any other game out. The script is carefully crafted and hilarious and the voice acting is superb. Stephen Merchant did an awesome job as Wheatley and Jonathan Coulton is back with another ending credits song for GLADoS to ding. You won't regret buying this game.

Awesome game! Graphics are stunning and the atmosphere builds strongly from the first making this a must have!

This is one sequel game that shouldn't be missed! Story was both interesting and funny. The gameplay is amazingly unique. The best thing about the game is that the controls aren't hard to understand, but its using them to solve a puzzle that makes it so fun! Don't worry if you haven't played the first game. This game is good enough on it's own and you won't get confused