When you come into Portal 2 you'll try to avoid the other portal that leads out.
You return to the Apeture Science laboratories and are awakened by a new announcer, one who is NOT GLaDOS. You soon learn that you have been under for several years and apparently, in those years a robot known as Wheatley has served out his days tending to all the "smelly test subjects" and after a good time has passed he decides to break out. Meeting you he figures he can use you to help with his escape plan and perhaps the both of you can escape. After breaking through the walls of the test subjects "room," you are soon thrust into the game beginning where Portal began. Through a trip down memory lane you and Wheatley reunite with the Portal gun and after some clever dialogue Wheatley professes that in order to escape, you and him must go through "her" chamber. After you and him make a leap of faith you find the main breaker room; Wheatley attempts to help by finding an escape pod but needs light to find it. Once he flips the light switch he bumps the rising platform button and soon all levers are switched to on; reactivating…"her." GLaDOS is reawakened, kills Wheatley, and sends you down the garbage chute to find the Dual Portal device. This is the beginning of your Portal 2 adventure and what a journey you shall take on it. Like other Valve games before it, Portal 2's story is played out via in game "cut scenes". This usage of immersion is able to keep a constant feeling of surrealism; you start out without much knowledge of what's going on but overtime you soon piece together the mystery with the help of your friends GLaDOS and Wheatley. The story is one to write home about but it wouldn't be amazing without the characters, the setting, and the voice work and Portal 2 nails each one in the head with not a hammer but a crowbar. The characters of Portal 2 are immensely likeable and just simply downright funny to listen to as the writing of Portal 2 is superbly clever and laugh-out-loud funny than any 2011 game and could almost be better than Portal itself.
The settings also take a spotlight as Valve has realized that if you return to Apeture Science laboratories in about, what? 50 days/ 500 years; then it would look VERY different. So Valve has given a destroyed and degraded look of Apeture Science to convey the feeling of age that your return to Apeture Science. While Portal 2 runs on the 2004 Source Engine that made and powered Half Life 2 the engine gets the job done and it is a very impressive feet. The physics engine still makes for wonderful visual flair such as debris from crumbling sites and the destruction of objects when they pass through the Emancipation Grill. The voice work is also a superb stand out with everyone being noteworthy. Ellen McClain returns as the evil maniacal yet funny, incredibly charming, and likeable GLaDOS. Stephen Merchant comes in as a newcomer as Wheatley the, "wants to help personality core but ends up being not so nice" core. Even the disembodied voice of Cave Johnson as played by J.K Simmons is also a well spoken role that has emphasis and emotion in his vocal performance. Overall, the story is a superbly written, well voiced, immersive, laugh out loud funny, and exciting to progress through to see just what could be next that these charmingly funny characters have to say. Not only that but without out-game cinematics to break up the flow the game goes along incredibly smooth and without a hitch in narrative and also provides some of the best scenes any game with in-game cut scenes has to offer.
The audio of Portal 2 is also a superb stand out among so many other amazing things in this wonderful game. The ambient sounds and music create a true experience of atmosphere and tension, the musical score is simply wonderful as when a situation gets tense it gets TENSE. What's also able to stand out in Portal 2's soundtrack is its unique use of the music; when you're solving a puzzle such as a laser oriented puzzle once you put a laser into one of the laser holes an ambient music note starts up. Once all the lasers are aligned with the holes the ambient notes all pile together to play a little tune that is Portalesque and well crafted. The sound effects are also stand outs such as the gel sound effects or the strange surreal sounds of the funnels. The squishes and blob like sounds of the gel has a convincing realistic sound to it and the surreal funnel sound is simply mesmerizing. The portal gun also sounds good as portals sound like they did before and the portals bouncing off of non portal placement tiles still sounds quite good. The voice acting is top notch and the robotic sounds within the recorded dialogue sounds incredibly realistic. Overall, the music and sounds of Portal 2 do their job extremely well; immersing you into the adventure of your Apeture Science Laboratory return into a world that has been degrading and destroyed yet still is able to keep you happy in the process.
Portal 2 is a very story driven game, the characters are given more lines of witty writing, there are more characters, the setting is diverse, and the voice acting keeps on changing but still keeps their charm. However, Portal was made amazing not by incredible story telling but on its game play mechanics of being able to combine puzzle and first person shooter mechanics together. The innovative feel is gone this time around but the game still has the tricky puzzles and the moments of, "I am truly stuck, I don't know what to…wait, if I shot a portal there…OH! I'm a genius." The puzzles this time around are challenging and if played out of order somehow would just mean certain death for players. However, Valve has been able to smoothly ramp up the difficulty, at first you get down to the basics and then the game will have you changing up your ways and then using those ways to solve the new puzzles. The system works incredibly well, people who have never played Portal will still be able to learn the mechanics of how to use Portals and understand the Apeture Science Heavy Duty Super Colliding Super Button. The new diverse array of equipment in Portal 2 has been upped and features new items such as repulsion and propulsion gels, light bridges, and excursion funnels. These new test chamber puzzle equipment goes smoothly with the old and creates an experience that is thought provoking but again through a smooth difficulty curve it is also satisfying and fun. Every new mechanic flows into the next and you can never really stop being amazed at how your brain works. One second there are turrets, excursion funnels, propulsion gels, and a cleverly made map that has you stumped but once your mind starts working and thinks of "what would happen if this was there." Portal 2 can look like an incredibly hard, difficult, and unsatisfying puzzle game if the difficulty curve wasn't smooth, if the game wasn't fun, and if there really was no satisfaction. Yet there is in this big sequel and Portal 2 does something that games never could do before, it makes you feel smarter. Still, puzzles aren't plentiful and while they offer challenge there isn't much for Portal veterans. You may find said Portal veterans in the newest area of the Portal 2 universe; the Cooperative Game.
Portal was a unique experience but it was incredibly short, Portal 2 addresses this issue by including a Co-Op game that returns you to Portal in a nostalgic way. Portal 2's Co-Op challenges are more head though provoking than that of the Portal 2's single player campaign but that is due to the fact that it's Co-Op. You play as Atlas or P-Body, two robots working together towards science to achieve the goal of the head of Appeture Science Laboratories; GLaDOS. With two people in the Portal universe now, Valve increases the complexity of the puzzles as you and your Co-Op partner obtain a Portal gun with two Portals each. Once again, the difficulty curve is smooth as you start out with the fundamental basics and then progress into a much more challenging turf. Co-Op supports microphone chatting and chat boxes but even with these two well known communication tools, Valve utilizes an interesting form of communication using a tool called the Ping Tool. People who have no headphones or are afraid of just typing out words to communicate need not fear as the Ping Tool is an incredibly useful, easy, and well understood communication tool. With it you can tell your partner to look at a wall, stand at a certain spot, initiate a countdown, go through portals, go through portals via momentum, or to press a button. This system works well with real people as even if you just say to look at a spot and not even indicate what to do with it they will understand what you mean. The Co-Op is a blast and not just through the complexity and satisfaction of puzzles but again from the smooth difficulty. The fun mechanics of the single player campaign are implemented into the Co-Op but are spaced out in the same way as the single player allowing you to get into the gist of things easily. Co-Op also features another Portal story however, this time it is after the end credits of the single player version.
The story is that you, P-Body and Atlas, must find a secret vault that contains a network of clones that can be engineered for testing. Sadly, in order to get to the vault, GLaDOS must make sure that you are able to be trusted and understand the mechanics that will be awaiting you. So you must be put through your paces like the single player version yet again. Wheatley is no longer at the lab but it doesn't matter. GLaDOS still has her usual charm and wit among her and even though you are robots and she can't make fun of you being a human anymore, she still is able to wisecrack about the humans and about your "becoming" of humans. The story isn't as depth as the single player portion as this time it returns to Portal roots and therefore lacks any sort of dramatic emotion and you know what? Dramatic emotion is for sissys, the story may not be as complex and amazing as the single player but you won't be minding that when you're laughing at GLaDOS' taunts and wise cracks about humans and their "unique" features. P-Body and Atlas throughout the story are an incredibly funny and charming couple of robots that are just doing this because their programmed to. However, their charm is not only limited by the opening and ending cinematics but is emphasized through Valve's new take on emotes. P-Body and Atlas have a certain feature that in game you can perform Apeture Science's take on emoticons. The animations are hilarious to watch and add more humor to GLaDOS mix as doing an emote in front of her cameras will make her bite back with a snarky comment on the gesture. Co-Op's mix of puzzles, its own brand of humor, and more longevity make it an outstanding part of Portal 2 and not just some "tacked on" version.
Portal 2 has great game play as the puzzles are challenging and the smooth difficulty will never make them incredibly hard and the rewarding story, dialogue, and ending all pay off to make it an amazing adventure. However, one stand out of Portal 2 is actually in its graphics. Valve refuses to upgrade and therefore Portal 2 has been created under the power and capabilities of the Source Engine that powered the aged masterpiece, Half Life 2. Yet somehow, even though over 7 years have passed since Half Life 2 was made and the Source Engine was introduced; the graphics of Portal 2 look superb. The settings your puzzles take place look astounding, the Apeture Science Laboratories is currently overrun with plants after the events of Portal many, many years ago. The plant life looks good and the shadows they emit and details on them look amazing. Not only that but the lighting of Portal 2 also steals the show, it was only seven years ago when Half Life 2 graced the scene with it's amazing flash light shadow and light feature and it's a good thing that Valve has kept that tradition with Wheatley's built in flashlight. Testing rooms in the Apeture Science Labs don't look all that amazing as they are created with simple and rather bland textures; but it is to be expected given that it does stay with the charm and tradition of regular testing chambers not exactly having a wide range of amazing colors. Still, the test chambers are to be commended for their size and depth. The test chambers have been expanded to a much larger playing field giving way to some incredibly clever and dynamic usage of puzzles. While the test chambers do look bland and dull the sheer size, lighting, and puzzle solving portions of Portal 2 should more than make up for the lack of color; not to mention you do have your own color to add due to the Portal gun. What is also another simply amazing stand out is the use of the source engine's physics. The physics have been well integrated into the experience of Portal 2 as the opening scene of Portal 2 is one to remember with its amazing humor to start you off, its tense sound tracks, and the physics system in motion during the room destruction. Physics also return in terms of Portal's puzzle component; momentum. Jumping into a Portal and coming out the other with more momentum is still a well conceived mechanic cleverly integrated into its puzzles. Compared to other games, Portal 2 doesn't have good looks but what it lacks in looks it more than makes up for with its smooth animations, its impressive lighting techniques, its varied settings and colorful wall art (thanks to the Ratman), and its clever characters. You probably won't even notice the surroundings while you're bursting in tears from the previous room where Wheatley finds a bird.
Portal 2 is simply a masterpiece in every sense; this big and bold sequel offers a much larger game than what Portal gave us. Portal 2 delivers an incredibly clever story and writing, more memorable moments than any game ever created, clever and challenging puzzles with a smooth difficulty curve, a Co-Op adventure that contains everything the single player has and more, and a cast of likeable and charmingly silly characters. Portal 2 lacks in only one area that makes this game a masterpiece but a bittersweet masterpiece; its replay ability, there is really not much to do after the main single player campaign. The only whiff of replay ability is in the achievement collecting, developer commentary listen in, and for the good spirited people: helping out newbies to the Co-Op campaign. Still, the witty dialogue is somewhat diminished but still enjoyable to listen to. The puzzles are varied and challenging that if you (do what I did) stay in one section of the game your puzzle skills in the other areas will decrease and you'll find yourself resolving the same puzzles with the same feeling of accomplishment that you had before. While the replay ability isn't high there really is never high replay ability for many of Valves "masterpiece" games.
Pros:
-Great sense of immersion
-Dialogue is witty and wonderful to listen to
-An English robot
-Puzzles have a smooth difficulty that allows everyone to play
-Characters are great and go amazingly well with the Portal setting
-Portals
-Speedy things go in, speedy things come out
-No more cake, thank the lord
-Puzzles are challenging but not too difficult
-Co-Op is more Portal than Portal 2 leading way to more clever puzzles and great times
-You'll feel smart, never saw THAT coming did ya?
-Best. Jokes. EVER.
-Emotional depth and complexity makes the story even better
-Immersion, like you feel as though you are there
-Credits
-After credits
-Music is simply amazing
-Great sound effects
-For 2004 graphics they really do look amazing
-Long awaited return of the Source Engine
-Appeture Science Emoticons
-GLaDOS, DOY!
-Achievements are clever and well made
-Team Work is required; I'm looking at you trolls
-Lots of shocking moments
-THE MOON!
-Feels great to help out the newbies
-Portal charm
-Ping Tool is great for communicating
-Turrets
-Different puzzle mechanics combine together great, even new mechanics
-Developer commentary allows you to understand what the team was dealing with
-Super 8? Oh…just wait
Cons:
-Little to no replay ability
-Some textures aren't that good looking
-WHY (will not say as it is a mega huge spoiler) WHY!?
-It gets annoying working with a rookie
-Close, but can ANY song beat "Still Alive"
-Isn't the original Portal so no surprises here
-Rated E10+ so kids will play it and we all know how kids receive challenging things
-Frequent Loading Times in-between sections
Portal 2 isn't a game, it's an unforgettable experience that creates an immersive, well developed story that allows you to understand the witty and wonderful characters through a journey that if missed for any reason, makes you a horrible person. That's what it says, a horrible person, and I don't even know you.
Real Score: (9.8)