Portal 2 Review

Portal 2 is one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. Continuing
from the original, Portal 2 is packed with more mind-bending puzzles to get your brain working.

The games begins with you waking up in a small run-down apartment, part of the Aperture Laboratories. Here you are introduced to a flying sphere side-kick called Wheatley. He really wants you to escape and does everything he can to make it happen. Everything doesn't go according to plan though and this is when the game opens up with it's mind-blowing puzzle brilliance. The first few puzzles have you picking up cubes and dropping them on buttons to open exit doors. Early on you come across the Portal gun used to open, well Portals. Using the Portal gun you can fire two oval shaped Portals through certain walls and floors. This lets you walk through one and come out the other.
 
If you played the original you will notice some new additions to puzzle solving. Lasers are one of the new additions and can be used in many ways. For example,  You will need to place cubes in certain directions to  shine lasers through the portals aswell as destroying enemies. Another big addition is paint which can flow through portals and then be splattered onto surfaces.

"Get your head around that one"

The voice acting in Portal 2 is some of the best i've heard in a video game. There's plent of laughs to be had and most of them will proberbly come from Wheatley, voiced by the talented Stephen Merchant. The script is fantastic and every voice performance is at top quality.

Once you've completed the single player theres even more puzzles to solve with an all new C0-op experience. You can play CO-op with anyone over Xbox Live but playing with a friend is so much more fun. Playing with a random player who is't talking can give you actions to solve puzzles. If the player needs to show you a certain point for placing a portal for example, the player can set a marker to show you.  You will need to work togeather in many ways to complete those challenging puzzles, set by GLADOS. Shooting portals for your friend to get into a certain area, or pressing buttons at the same time for example. Each puzzle will require good team work and have both players racking their brains.  

Portal 2 is a puzzle masterpeice with great voice acting and humor. Stepping up from the original with new puzzle elements and a great CO-op experience, Portal 2 is a must have.

Review by Gareth Smith