Portal 2
(14/05/2011) Portal was close to perfect. Technically precise, clever, witty and tightly designed, it’s probably one of the best examples of a modern videogame. What gave it such impact on arrival was the fact that it was reasonably unknown; it was the ‘third bit’ of the Orange Box, receiving little of the hype that was reserved almost exclusively for its more established siblings, Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2.
Yet it can be argued that Portal was ultimately the best game in that collection, which against those two contenders says something about its quality. As does the reaction of the internet public; the game pretty much became a meme overnight. That’s a tough act to follow.
But Portal 2 pulls it off. Through impeccable design, smart twists and heavy doses of ingenuity, Portal 2 manages to exceed its predecessor in almost every way. It’s bigger, bolder, funnier and more intelligent. The one thing it can’t do is recapture that spark of wonder players felt when first witnessing the original.
Portal 2 is the vision of the original, re-imagined as a large-scale blockbuster. If the original Portal was a technical demo, a proof-of-concept, then Portal 2 is the finished product. Everything from the first game returns, but this time into a vastly larger, more established environment, rendered massive and impressive by its AAA budget.
The quality of the script was one the greatest surprises of the original Portal – it did what few games ever manage, and was genuinely funny. Virtually every line of it was re-posted thousands of times over the internet. It would have been very easy for the writers to play up to this in the sequel – give the fans more cake and companion-cube references, more GlaDOS quotes – and still end up with a satisfying product.
What’s pleasantly surprising is how little the writers relied on these now-established tropes – cakes and companion cubes are mentioned once each, respectively – and instead crafted a script that takes mute protagonist Chell deeper into the world of Aperture Science, whilst delivering a constantly high-standard of humour delivered by a relentlessly perfect voice cast. Only the ending of the game itself, which comes across a little like a sudden grasp for the heavily meme-able lure of the original, feels a little out of touch with the otherwise stellar writing.
The mechanics of the game have been subtly tightened, removing any minor frustrations of the original – the often-erratic bouncing laser balls have been replaced by solid laser beams, and portals are now automatically aligned to stop you from flying out upside-down or facing backwards – and new mechanics are added constantly throughout, stopping the gameplay from ever becoming dull.
One thing that is not as tight as the original is the structure of the game itself. This is something of a necessity, being as the original game is a couple of hours long at most, and the sequel almost three times that – six hours of test chambers, however expertly designed, would have become stale long before the end. The necessary periods of downtime, in which you get to explore behind the scenes of Aperture, are enjoyable in their own right, but lack some of the engagement and challenge of the actual test chambers. These sections can start to feel like padding at times, and are the weaker part of the game’s whole.
The test chambers themselves, however, are impeccably designed throughout. They display possibly the best understanding of 3D space in a videogame yet. The puzzles are great in their own right, but what sets this above similar puzzle games is that the solution to a puzzle is almost always a joy to carry out, even when you’ve cracked the puzzle itself. The balance between puzzle solving and the physicality of executing the solution is spot-on.
This master class in level-design carries over to the newly-minted cooperative mode. The co-op features a series of test chambers continuing from the end of the single-player, and is where the game’s hardest challenges lie. With each player firing two portals, things quickly get complex, but the experience is never overwhelming, and the pleasure of sitting down with a friend and combining brain power to complete a particularly nasty set of challenges makes this mode a welcome addition.
One of the only negatives to the whole experience is that the whole game, both the single player and the co-op, is very much a once-through affair. It’s a fantastic ride, but one you can blast through in a weekend, and beyond a few hidden easter-eggs or simply the desire to experience the fist-class script again, there’s little reason to return to it.
Also, while each of the game’s new additions - including dynamic reactive goo that and portal-sensitive bridges of light – are executed with the same level of ingenuity as the rest of the game, they feel a bit under-used. Each element appears for a specific set of chambers, after which it disappears again, only to be combined into a meaningful whole for the game’s final few levels. What this does mean, however, is that there’s plenty of opportunity to play around with these elements in both future DLC and user-generated mods, both of which will extend the enjoyment of the game months into the future.
Portal 2 is almost perfect, in that it’s likely as close to how the designers intended the original vision as it could possibly be. Technically, it’s a far more accomplished game than its predecessor. However, it will likely be the original that lingers longer in the memory, simply because of that scrappy indie flare that it embodied. That’s something that a sequel, however expertly crafted, will never be able to recapture.
This doesn’t diminish from the fact that Portal 2 is one of the finest examples of a videogame in a long time. Clever, witty and perfectly executed, it is a game that will stand up against the greatest of this generation, and will be fondly remembered in years to come.
