Portal 2

Portal 2 is an outstanding logic game created by Valve Software. Its story starts several hundred years after the events of the first game. Your actions in the first Portal awakened dozens of personality cores. One of these AIs is Wheatley. Bored with the monotony of Aperutre laboratories, he decides to get outside. In order to do this he wakes up Chell (the protagonist of the first game, who has been remaining in hibernation) and offers her a chance to escape. Unfortunately, not everything goes according to the plan and the two bump into GLaDOS, a hostile artificial intelligence, who has been asleep since the events in the first game. As she awakens, the AI decides to forgive Chell and resume testing, as we know it from Portal.

Players have much more freedom of action than in the first game. Previously, the game locations were rather straightforward as to what can or cannot be done. Now, this has changed. Players are free to transform properties of rooms and make use of advanced physics engine, which allows gravitation to act through portals. For instance, a vacuum tube can suck a sentry turret through an open portal. You often come across devices that generate gravitational beams or bridges made of pure energy. Combined with open portals, such environmental elements help you solve logic puzzles. Another important innovation are gels, able to transform properties of a surface. Another example here – walking across a floor covered with orange gel causes acceleration, so you can use it to gain supernatural speed. On the other hand, surfaces painted blue work like trampolines. Another novelty are objects that reflect light, letting you change the direction of a laser beam.

Portal 2 sports an extensive cooperation mode, which offers a separate campaign with its own story and puzzle. Players assume the roles of two robots existing as an evolution of the technology used for sentry turrets. Each one has its own portal gun (up to four portals can be open at the same time). In order to enhance teamwork between the players Valve offered split-screen mode, as well as mini-camera showing your partner’s actions. There are also visual commands, i.e. icons that can be placed in a particular spot in the game to inform the other player what you are expecting them to do there.

Last updated on 02 March 2011