Neowin: Portal 2 Review

The original Portal release on the PC was one that deservedly received high praise from gamers and journalists alike. It was different to many other Valve titles in that you no longer had any weapons in your hands, just a simple two-way portal weapon, along with a jump and crouch button.

Although the original was maybe a little short in length for some gamers, its selection of mind-bending portal based puzzles kept gamers coming back for more. The excellent dialogue was also a major plus in what was essentially a puzzle game at heart. Well here we are, almost 4 years down the line with the release of Portal 2, the premise stays the same, but the length of the game has almost doubled. This is also the first time that we see Valve's Steam service make its way to consoles, well, on the PlayStation 3 at least!



Story:

Once again the game is set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, though this time there are a number of new characters and a range of new puzzle elements for gamers to get to grips with. You still have your trusty Portal gun and use it in the same way as you did in the first game, but there are improved physics on offer to open up even more ways to complete test chambers and some of the more open areas that are now in the game.

We don't want to spoil things for anyone who will be picking up the game, as we felt the story and dialogue was once again excellent, so we will only outline the basics here. The idea behind the game is that you are woken up from an induced sleep many years after the original title. Then just as it looks like Aperture Science Labs have been destroyed and damaged beyond repair, you and your Robot companion Wheatley (Voiced by U.K. actor Stephen Merchant) accidentally reboot GLaDOS, the murderous and sarcastic computer that guided you throughout the first game