Portal 2 Review [Video] (PC Steam Version)

COOPERATIVE MULTIPLAYER

 “Cave Johnson here, fact: the key to any cooperative test is trust.

And as our data shows, humans cannot be trusted. The solution? Robots!”

I found the coop gameplay especially fun, it is the perfect supplement to the single player because it actually takes off right where Chell’s story ended. ’Atlas’ and ’P-Body’ are independent personality cores equipped with arms and legs so they can use their individual portal guns. GlaDOS rigged them up to work on puzzles humans could not accomplish alone, and as a side bonus: intelligent and reconstructible robots should be more efficient for testing purposes. Valve also threw in the robotic enrichness program so players can outfit each robot with DLC like gestures, hats or skins. The upcoming video shows you some of the multiplayer action between myself and a friend trying to solve the first puzzle of the cooperative section. Keep in mind this is the first level, and as such is simple in design. I didn’t want to showcase any of the harder levels for fear of spoiling the solution for anyone who hadn’t played the game yet.

PORTAL 2 IS GREAT, JUST A LITTLE EASY

“The enrichment center regrets to inform you that this next test is impossible.

Make no attempt to solve it... frankly this chamber was a mistake.

If we were you, we would quit now.” - GLaDOS

 I wish Aperture Science would have taunted us with some harder challenges. In the end, I kind of knew this was coming. I expected Portal 2 would be an awesome game, and it really is. But then I knew it might be hindered by the fact that a console gamer needs the ability to preform at the same capacity as the PC gamer. Valve brought Steamworks to the PlayStation 3 version of the game, integrating a set of tools that among a couple other things, allows cross platform play. With cooperative play between both the console and PC, it was paramount that both players could accomplish the same tasks and goals. This results in the inferior console controls being the lower common denominator for which all the puzzles needed designing around. Ultimately it’s a trivial matter because I still loved every single bit of the game, I just found myself wondering how much more enjoyable Portal 2 could be if it was just a tad harder.

Portal 2 lasted six hours for me on the single player experience. This might change depending on whether you’re prone to get stuck solving puzzles or not. The multiplayer section took just around the same amount of time. Overall I’d say the multiplayer is harder just because you need two heads instead of one. I’d love to tell you more. I’d love to explain the nuances of the hard puzzles or regurgitate the new witty jokes, I’d love to talk about the whole deal with potatoes or even the mysterious Cave Johnson. But this is a review and no one enjoys spoilers, so I’ll just have to save these nuggets of awesomeness for you to experience during Portal 2 gameplay. Trust me, its worth it.

“Good job Robots! Cave Johnson - we’re done here”