Video Game Review: Portal 2

Portal 2 is an odd game to me, because it is a mixture of contradictions. It is one of my favorite games after having played it for only two days, but it also frustrated me more than any game I have played in a long time. This combines to a game that I would recommend to anyone, but perhaps not for as long at a time as I have played.

The game is at the beginning nearly identical to the first portal, though the look and feel of the game has changed. In fact you go through several of the same puzzles that you went through in Portal, sometimes following the same path while other times changing the way you solve the puzzles. Most of these changes are because it has been a long time since the last portal and everything has been destroyed and overgrown.

This allows the game to do a lot of things that were not really possible in the first game, including going in and out of the behind the scenes part of the Aperture Studios, and in this game the changes in scenery are both more common and more dramatic.

 As you advance there are a number of new puzzle elements added to the game, including paint that can let you go faster, bounce,  and let you create new areas that portals can be shot. This helps some with the feeling of having only one solution for every puzzle, but while it helps some I would have far preferred a game more open with the portals allowing you to reach areas and solve problems in the world rather than simply going through a series of puzzles.

In the end if you liked the first portal you will like this game, but it also feels a bit like an expansion for a game that was short, more or less ignoring the end of the last game. So, if you’ve played the game and are excited to play more get it right away, otherwise wait a few months until the price goes down because it’s a bit short for a fifty dollar game unless you’re playing through the puzzles more than once, or playing the coop mode as well.