TDZ Video Game Review: Portal 2

Making a brief departure from the world of sports, TDZ is offering its first official video game review. The subject is Portal 2, made by Valve, which produced other legendary titles such as Portal... not to mention Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike. For those who grew up in my generation, there's a 100% probability that you or someone you know was obsessed with one of those games in college.

While other Valve titles are 1st person shooters, the Portal series is better characterized as a first person puzzle shooter. Your "gun" shoots two holes to create a portal - one blue, one orange - giving you the ability to manipulate the movement of objects within a level, including yourself. See the trailer for the original Portal below for an orientation:

Sweet. Now that you've got the basics down, on to the review!


Storyline - 9/10
Evidently in the dystopian future awaiting us, "test subject" is considered a worthy title of gainful employment for thousands upon thousands of people. Hey, a job's a job, right? As one of these test subjects at Aperture Science, you live a regimented life where everything is controlled, even the amount of time you sleep. Something goes wrong one night (an apocalyptic event that may or may not involve aliens conquering humankind), and you find yourself awakened after many years. A well-meaning but daft (and laugh-out-loud hilarious) robot named Wheatley greets you, and tries to get you out of the facility, which is crumbling like a scene from Life After People.

HA! I knew someone was alive in here. AH! Oh. My. God. You look terrible - ummm... good. Looking good, actually.

He eventually springs you from your domicile, and you come across the villain from the first Portal: GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). Let's just say that she's the genius who has control over the entire science facility, and the only thing sharper than her mind are her snide remarks about your waistline and dead parents. Fortunately, she is deactivated, just as you left her... until Wheatley accidentally turns her back on while trying to power up an elevator to the surface. Guess what: she's got a fever, and the only prescription is more portal testing! Until she decides to get revenge by killing you, of course.

Well done. Here are the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: a horrible person. We weren't even testing for that.

As you go through the tests, Wheatley follows you and attempts to break you out. He's eventually successful, and you end up confronting GLaDOS once again, forcing her out of her command module and into a potato battery, and substituting Wheatley in her place. Wow, the game's over in 3.5 hours again?! Nope: Wheatley (I mentioned he was daft, right?) gets drunk with the power he suddenly possesses, and banishes you and GLaDOS to the depths of the facility.

From there, you have to overcome a variety of obstacles and puzzles to reach Wheatley, all the way learning more about the history of Aperture Science, and the origins of GLaDOS and Wheatley.

Gameplay - 10/10
Not surprisingly, the game truly shines in this area. The first Portal was completely innovative, and this edition pushes the boundaries even further with new technologies that enhance the puzzle solving experience. Just one example of these new gameplay elements are gels that can cover surfaces and enable you to jump higher, run faster, and create portals on surfaces where you couldn't make portals before. Lastly, there are plenty more puzzles this go-round; play time for me lasted in the 10-12 hour range, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Graphics/Visualization - 10/10
Valve always does a great job with their graphics, and in particular with creating immersive environments. Considering the sophistication required for visualizing a scene through a portal (of a portal of a portal, etc.), it's still amazing to me how they put a game like this together. Valve's physics engine is still the gold standard for the industry.

What to do, what to do...

Sound/Voice Acting - 10/10
When I first heard the voice of Wheatley, I knew it sounded familiar. About an hour into the game, I grinned from ear to ear when I realized that it was Stephen Merchant, better known as the co-writer and co-director of the original British version of The Office. Though he only had brief cameos in that series, he took on a larger role in the Merchant-Gervais follow-up Extras, in which he played a similarly dimwitted (but also vile) character who said ridiculous things (see link in caption below).

Hilarious.

His performance as Wheatley is easily my favorite video game voice acting performance ever. His lines are hilariously delivered, and while many games struggle to make dialogue sound natural, Portal 2 does a great job at making it feel seamless with the flow of the game. Considering that Ellen McLain, the award-winning voice actress for GLaDOS, also returned for this game, I wish I could go above a 10/10 rating here.

Replayability - 8.5/10
This was the downside of the first Portal: you could play through the game twice in one day and not have a challenge anymore. Portal 2 offers better replayability by offering a co-op mode in which you and a partner have to work together to solve additional puzzles not encountered in single player. I have not scoped out this mode yet, but I've heard that co-op mode is equal in length to single player, so you're looking at easily over 20 hours of gameplay. Then you have to factor in additional hours spent trying to unlock Achievements for both modes, so Portal 2 will keep you coming back for more.

Overall - 9.5/10
This game just oozes cool. It's a must-play for people who love puzzles combined with amusing dialogue, and I'd recommend it as a rental at a minimum for all gamers.