Portal 2
Year: 2011
Rating: E10+
Time Played: 8.5 hours
While Portal felt like an innovative leap in gameplay, its bare-bones test chambers left a little to be desired for the variety of puzzles. Fortunately, four years after the release of Portal, Valve released the masterpiece that is Portal 2. Everything about the original game was taken into consideration and improved significantly. The environment was chock-full of lore, the gameplay added interesting mechanics with the addition of the gels, and the characters were funnier than ever. Even playing through this game over a decade after my first time still felt fresh and entertaining.
Exploring the different areas of Aperture Laboratories (in various levels of decay) brought a much-needed ambiance to the series that was merely enhanced by the narrations of Cave Johnson (J.K. Simmons). That the game acts as a sort of prequel and sequel to the original merely emphasizes how well-considered its story is and how much lore can be crammed into a physics-based puzzle platformer. And with more than one character able to talk in this game, the dialogue between them—or their commentary about what was said—is even funnier than the original.
Playing with the various mechanics in this game is the most fun I’ve ever had in a first-person POV game. The “aha moments” when a puzzle just clicked were frequent enough to keep me playing. That I use this game as a gold standard against which all other physics-based puzzle platformers are compared says something about the quality of this game’s puzzles (unlike the somewhat cheap knockoff, Q.U.B.E. 2). With new mechanics added at regular intervals with settings to match, this game was just the right amount of everything. Even if you haven’t played the original Portal, this game is a must-play for everyone.
A significant improvement on an already well-done gameplay concept, I give Portal 2 5.0 stars out of 5.
