Game Review: Portal 2

Billy O'Keefe - Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

Also available for: Windows, Macintosh

From: Valve Corporation

ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (fantasy violence, mild language)

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Though a rousingly successful experiment, "Portal" was still an experiment - so much so that Valve snuck it into players' hands as the wild card in a five-game suite that also included "Team Fortress 2" and "Half-Life 2" and its two expansions.

As such, while it was a wonderfully original game, it also felt like a project with nothing to lose - short, a little barren in the user-friendliness department, and flashing a hilariously, dryly insulting sense of humor that made the user-unfriendliness its soulmate.

Now as the headliner on its own box, "Portal 2" is obligated to step it up in some respects. The new game's single-player component is a little more than twice as long as the entirety of the original game, and a second, separate co-op adventure (two players, splitscreen or online) makes this four times the game "Portal" was. The game's objective and basic functions are more clearly explained, and the loose not-quite narrative of that first game funnels into a much fuller storyline - with some affectionate callbacks to its predecessor - this time around.

But at no point does "Portal 2" lose sight of the eccentricities that made "Portal" a surprising classic. That same sense of humor is back, and a slight expansion of the cast (no spoilers) makes it even funnier this time around. When the game is forced to change its ways - the extra dose of user-friendliness, for instance - it fully acknowledges the obligation with some of the funniest instances of overcompensation you'll ever experience in a video game.

The amusing storytelling helps move along an early stretch that, for "Portal" graduates, will play a little slow while it helps the uninitiated get comfortable.

It's a necessary evil, because if you've never played "Portal," then you've never played anything like this. "Portal 2" looks and controls like a first person shooter, and the right and left triggers eventually will be used for firing. But instead of shooting enemies, you're firing at walls to create portals. Your two portal guns can create one active portal per gun at a time, and walking into one portal takes you out the other. The goal is to use these portals to manipulate the scenery and make your way to an exit that would otherwise be unreachable.

If that sounds mind-bending, wait until you see it. "Portal 2's" early challenges are simple and involve only one or two steps to get from A to B. But as time passes and the areas expand, you'll have to create chains of events, take uncomfortable leaps of semi-faith, manipulate objects' physical properties, and hone your geometry and timing skills - sometimes simultaneously. The riddles are beautifully designed so as never to be unreasonably arcane, but they can most certainly be devious. Gradually overcoming a level that initially seemed impossible is a wonderfully rewarding challenge that no other first-person game can remotely match.

That holds exponentially true for the co-op campaign, which tells a new story, introduces two terrific new characters (Atlas and P-body, who are the most adorably likable robots this side of Wall-E), and takes the deviousness to a new plane by forcing players to work together with four portals instead of two.

Once again, the difficulty ramps up perfectly. Early challenges have you operating separate halves of the same area to eventually reach the goal together. But once things open up, you'll need to master all the things described earlier while trading steps with your partner and sometimes harmonizing your moves to make everything click. Prepare to communicate, and prepare to celebrate if you take the campaign down together.

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