Hey all,
So I got my grubby little mites on
Portal 2 last Sunday. I have to say, this game is pure genius -- although I have to admit that it's pretty short. That being said, I still didn't try the multiplayer game which is apparently very good from what I heard.
If you've played the first
Portal you pretty much know what to expect, but if you don't, let me explain it in a fairly simple way. This game is basically a 'first person puzzler' -- a first person shooter in which your goal is not to shoot stuff -- or people -- but to solve puzzles. Your gun shoots portals, a blue and an orange one. These portals allow you to enter one and exit the other -- if you enter the blue you'll exit the orange and vice versa. This is basically the core mechanics of the game.
Now it may sound ridiculous, and rightly so if you shoot one portal next to the other, but when you have to cross a gap that you can't go around or jump over, then the portal gun becomes extremely handy. All you need to do is shoot one portal on your side of the gap and the other on the opposite side and
voilà, you've got a way across. This sounds extremely simple at first -- or maybe super complicated -- but the farther you go in the game, the harder the puzzles become as you need the portals to pass objects, lasers, light bridges and other stuff through them.
The second game starts off... I don't know how many years after the first one, but you still play as Chell only this time you wake up in what seems to be a cheap motel room. You then meet Wheatley, an unsure A.I. core that moves around a ceiling track. He brings you back to the testing facilities of Aperture Science to help you escape -- although how Chell was brought back to those facilities is beyond me. It turns out that the cheap motel room is actually an Aperture prison/suspended animation room.
Once you get at the facilities, you realize that years have gone by since the last time you were there. The testing chamber have decayed and also vegetation has been growing in them for quite some time. Wheatley helps you along your path to freedom but tells you that the only way to escape is through 'her' room. And because of a fsck up on his part, GLaDOS is once again awake. She then takes you and puts you back into the testing chambers just like good old times. I don't want to say anymore because I don't want to spoil it for you guys.
Once again, I must commend Valve on the writing because the sequel makes sense. It doesn't make perfect sense, but it's believable enough for me to get sucked in. The chatter that GLaDOS and Wheatley -- and also other voices -- offers is anything but boring. It also serves to give you insight as to what was going on and what happened to Aperture Science.
The graphics are amazing. Valve really put everything they could into this game. At the same time though, the super awesome graphics leads me to a miner grippe that I have about the game. Loading times/screens, something that wasn't in the first game -- or very little depending on what format you were playing. Portal seamlessly ran from the beginning to the end without any pause for loading. Portal 2 not only has loading screens between each test chambers, but sometimes during the heat of the moment, the loading screen pops up and breaks the momentum. Like I said thought, it's a miner grippe.
I'm dying to try the multiplayer now. Problem is though, I don't want to play with a totally random fscktard on Xbox Live. It would be better to play with someone I know. But I guess I'll make a little sacrifice just to be able to try it. I may fall on someone completely awesome though. In the multiplayer game, you play as either Atlas or P-body. Two robots that GLaDOS created after Chell escapes in the main game. So in essence, it's kinda like a sequel to the single player story. You run around with your friend trying to figure out the puzzles that were created for these two robots. Apparently, some puzzles require simultaneous actions. I will keep you posted if I ever try it.
All in all, I think Portal 2 will probably be the first game that I reviewed on any blog that will receive the highest note. I give this game the perfect score of 5 thumbs up despite it's miner flaws. I suggest you pick up this game. You'll thank me later.
Until then this is me signing off.
