Now You're Thinking With Sequels (Spoiler-Free)
No, it is very plain and clear that Portal 2 is a comedy game, but one that defies its viral predecessor. It makes a formula, and starts iterating that formula with genuinely witty writing, clever twists, and delightful characters. Continuing the puzzle structure from the first three-hour adventure, we find Valve gleefully doling out masterful mechanics that bring the Portal gun to its inevitable gameplay conclusion. For some strange reason I don't think we've seen the last of it yet, but in the meantime we can indeed say that Portal 2 delivers.
The game's puzzles combine new mechanics in a way that makes the low difficulty less of a problem then it would be on the surface (and Valve has promised game-girth-increasing DLC). The new pieces are puzzling, temporarily challenging, and fun to experiment with - things like light bridges and propelling vortexes are a sight to behold in their first appearances. The game's only major flaw would be that it relies on these mechanics to keep things fresh, and even of the strength of the puzzles is absurdly high it still feels like we're juggling these different concepts to keep ourselves from getting bored, particularly in the co-op.
Not that such a feeling sets in for too long, of course. The eight-hour single player campaign and the six-hour co-op campaign are brisk endeavors, only stopping due to a particularly tricky puzzle. In the single player in particular the environments and stakes change almost hourly to keep the puzzles flowing and to give the puzzles a natural chapter-like feel, with natural crescendos and then subsiding to let the story entertain. The co-op lacks this, but the puzzles are entertaining enough to make the back-and-forth engaging. Split-screen gaming is a must here.
Following every puzzle is a laugh. Most games allow for a few smirks at the detriment of its frowning focus of serious behavior, but Portal 2's playfulness never gets old. This is a strength purely of the writers, who make a minimalist cast of characters that leap off the computer screen and inhabit your heart so quickly you'll be swearing the game was made by Disney. Both villains and allies make their hilarious case for the fate of Aperture Science, and the voice acting performances are all so uniformly stand-out that just listing one would not do it justice. Thankfully the game is kept rather dark like its predecessor and despite a lack of much violence never becomes too loony or silly in its successful attempts to entertain the player, with one notable exception at the end.
This is backed up by the best animation any game has ever been graced with (the PC version stands out with a gorgeous frame rate, as long as you have the computer to play it on) that shows its pedigree - Valve hired animators from Pixar to assist and it paid off massively. The visual offerings are nothing particularly special, but the shader quality, lighting, and environment design keep impressing even during the game's final moments of interactivity. The music combines gorgeous melodies and vast differences in genre to make a score that is both interactive, changing based on where you are what what you're doing, and injecting the awe and spectacle that the story wants the player to experience, especially in the game's latter half.
Much will be said about how the game differs and compares to Portal 1, and the most common complaint of Portal 2 is that its a sequel. Does the game lack the same mysterious sense of foreboding dread and cackling humor that the first game implemented so well? Due to the simple fact that the game is not the first in the series it is unable to build up the mystery of what happened and why - these things have already been answered. What Valve did was make a simple, intriguing story with those same basic parts, and while it lacks an aura of curious, mellowed fear, it makes up for it by being surprisingly epic and grand. Plot holes are filled, information is gathered, and the Portal series comes to a distinct finish, at least for now. The game's final note is so brilliantly clear that it will go down as one of the best endings ever made.
It's obvious why the online communities want to shoehorn the game's impressive wit into memes and jokes. It's hard not to have a childish infatuation with the game when you've finished, a sort of love that only springs from really true, pure masterpieces. My only sadness I had when the game ended was the realization that I wouldn't play a new game this good for a long, long while. I guess that isn't too bad.