User blog:Sunshineandravioli/Stuff Sunshine Likes, Issue II

(Note from Sunshine: Banner still isn't done. Sorry, all, it's been a busy week for me... I'll try to have it done this weekend ^^)

Review of: Portal 2

Media: Video game

System(s): PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox 360

Developer: Valve

Released: 2011

Hello again, all, and welcome to issue #2 of “Stuff Sunshine Likes”! If you read last week’s article, you’ll recall that I presented a review of the surprise phenomenon from 2007, a little game called Portal. This week, I take you four years later to analyze and discuss its successor, the appropriately-titled Portal 2. As before, please realize that this article might contain SPOILERS for both entries into the series.

Now, let me begin by reminding you that the original Portal was a short, very experimental game mostly developed by a team fresh out of college, certainly not expected to become the worldwide phenomenon it has. With the reception Portal received, developer Valve would have had to been insane not to consider a sequel. But the decision came with trials and tribulations and a whole lot of anxiety for everyone involved, from the developers to the critics to the fans – Portal had been considered by many the closest thing to a perfect game we might ever receive. But what would happen now that they were turning it into a series? What would become of Portal now that they were taking this short, experimental, intimate little game and expanding it into a larger, longer, more ambitious project not only for a much more mainstream audience, but for a mainstream audience with insanely high expectations?

We all know that there was a path that could have been taken with Portal 2, a path that most people nowadays – game developers and otherwise – tend to follow when taking a hit and creating a sequel or series from it. When they go down this path, the sequel tends to be practically a complete repeat of what came before, with very little effort or originality – after all, if it worked the first time, why shouldn’t it the second? Unfortunately, the longer and more frantically you milk the cash cow, the sourer the product becomes, and while of course it will still sell, the bitter taste can turn many off and lead to a slow, shameful death for what was once something great.

Valve vehemently refuses to take this path.

As stated above, one of the issues with creating a sequel to Portal is that it’s highly likely you’ll lose the experimental, intimate experience of the original. So what does Valve do to remedy this? It doesn’t try to force that tone into the game. Instead, it takes the fact that this game is bigger and brighter and embraces it, creating a game that starts off with hints of the cold, melancholy nature of the original and slowly but surely evolves and unravels, taking you on a fun, frenetic, uncontrollable journey where the instability of your surroundings grows and grows throughout, right up to the wildly chaotic adrenaline-rush of an ending. Rather than trying to repeat the experience of Portal, Portal 2 acts as a true sequel, picking up where the last game left off and showing you just what happened after the curtain fell on your last adventure – the repercussions of your “victory”, which in turn leads at least one continuous thread throughout the entire series: that nagging feeling that you just might not be the hero of this story.

While Portal was a cold and lonely experience that forced players to bond with the lone voice that guided them – the chilling, conflicted AI GLaDOS, voiced to perfection by Ellen McLain – Portal 2 embraces its bigger scale and lengthier storyline with a choice that stands in stark contrast to its predecessor: while Portal made use of sparse characters and only a single voice actor, Portal 2 features a much larger cast of characters to accompany and guide the player, along with a stellar cast of voice actors that give even the fantastically talented Ms. McLain a run for her money. Don’t let that fool you into thinking McLain somehow did a less impressive job than in the original game, though – GLaDOS is given yet another fantastic character arc that McLain expertly narrates; furthermore, she not only returns as the songstress of another fun ending-credits tune by Jonathan Coulton (more on that later), but also belts out an incredible operatic composition towards the ending (more on that later). Though no longer required to carry the game on her shoulders singlehandedly, she continues to use her immense talent to make GLaDOS a truly unforgettable character.

Let’s go into some more detail, starting from the beginning. The basis of Portal 2, gameplay-wise, is more or less the same as its predecessor. Though the exact circumstances change constantly, you are given control of your two portals (though like Portal, you start with both out of your control, then gain the ability to control the placement of one, then eventually both) and must use them in conjunction with several different mechanics in order to make your way through test chambers and/or other obstacles. One big difference is that, mercifully, Portal 2 places much less of an emphasis on complex portal maneuvers than its predecessor. Rather, in this game, you’re challenged to use your environment to your advantage – looking at the placement of walls, portal surfaces, testing mechanics, et cetera and figuring out which items will help you move forward and how. Add to this several new mechanics that actually allow you to manipulate and change your environment, this provides a significant challenge that ultimately works far better than the complicated flings of the original Portal, acting more of a test of intelligence, creativity and ingenuity than how accurately and quickly you can press buttons. That in and of itself makes the game far less frustrating than its predecessor, and subsequently, much easier to enjoy.

Furthermore, Portal 2 introduces a plethora of new testing elements to help and hinder you both on and off the testing track, and the thought and creativity that went into their designs absolutely shines through. Among the mechanics introduced are panels (as implied, panels which move on hinged robotic arms, which are incredibly versatile and have uses ranging from platforms that lift up upon the activation of certain machinery, to elevators, to shields, to the actual walls of every test chamber) and the derivative crushers (gigantic panels with spikes that try to, well, crush you); Thermal Discouragement Beams (lasers which take the place of the place of high-energy pellets from the previous game, which run in straight lines, can injure the player if contact is made, and often must be redirected into receptacles) and a Discouragement Redirection Cube to match (a variation of the Weighted Storage Cube which has the ability to redirect Thermal Discouragement Beams on contact); Aerial Faith Plates (a spring of sorts that will launch the player into the air upon contact); Hard Light Bridges (bridges of solid light that the player can walk on, and which can be redirected using portals); Excursion Funnels (anti-gravity funnels that will send the player floating in a fixed direction, even over pits); and a variety of gels that the player can use to “paint” their environment to manipulate it to their advantage (blue repulsion gel, which the player will bounce off of; orange propulsion gel, which will negate friction so the player slides across it at high speed; and conversion gel, which will allow any painted surface to accept portals). The new additions provide for a lot of fun and a lot of challenges, acting as welcome additions that make the existing base gameplay seem fresh and new again. The gels, in particular, are an especially interesting challenge in test chambers due to their ability to actually change the way your surroundings work.

Now, at this point some of you might have noticed that I keep making statements such as “test chambers and/or other obstacles” and “both on and off the testing track”, which has probably led to some of you wondering: if it’s significant enough to mention, just how much of this game isn’t spent in test chambers? To be blunt, quite a bit, actually. Let’s face it – in Portal, the big burst of test chambers doesn’t seem really monotonous, but with the much-longer Portal 2, the concept of spending the majority of your time in fairly repetitive test chambers is not only daunting, but off-putting. Valve expertly dances around this as well by incorporating more test chambers than its predecessor, but breaking them up into different sections separated by gameplay more similar to Portal’s second act, where you roam free in the Enrichment Center and must advance without the clear-cut goals of the testing track. Furthermore, while the original Portal consisted of two clear-cut acts, Portal 2’s story is divided in-game into nine chapters, which can be divided unevenly into three distinct acts that each contain one of the game’s three testing tracks: act one encompasses the first five chapters and includes the player’s introduction to the base game mechanics (which, in a clever move by Valve, is done by sending the player through dilapidated versions of select testing chambers from the first game) along with the first testing track and “escape” sequence, and of course a massive twist that sets off the next act’s events; act two includes chapters six and seven, and features an unorthodox second testing track that alternates between traditional test chambers and advancement through one’s outside environment, as well as the deepest portion of the game’s fantastic story; and finally, act three (chapters eight and nine) includes the last testing track, plus the frenetic, climatic final battle where all the underlying tension and instability comes to a gloriously chaotic head. Each act expertly introduces new mechanics, new challenges, new revelations – and new characters.

Let’s go into those, shall we? After all, I believe I mentioned earlier that they, and the stellar voice actors who bring them to life, were enough to give GLaDOS some real competition as the greatest Portal character. Considering my earlier lavish praise of GLaDOS and her voice actress, Ms. McLain, this ought to get people curious about these new additions.

How about we start with the first character you meet, who also happens to be debatably the most prominent of the new characters – and, of course, my personal favorite. At first glance, you wouldn’t think him to be a particularly memorable character; he fills what is often a stereotypical “bumbling sidekick” role for a good portion of the game, and perhaps more importantly, he’s a sphere. No, literally, he’s a personality core like those encountered in the final confrontation with GLaDOS in the predecessor – nothing but a single moving eyepiece, a pair of handles and a voice are at his disposal to express himself to the player. But not only does Valve prove their expertise in animation by making that robotic sphere remarkably expressive and easy to read, his voice is done so incredibly that the actor stands as perhaps Ms. McLain’s greatest competition. This character is Wheatley, and his frantic, frenetic stutter of a Bristol burr (translation: he’s British) is done to absolute perfection by the very talented, very funny Stephen Merchant, perhaps best known here for his work with Ricky Gervais, including the original British version of The Office.

Now, I’ll be honest: on paper, Wheatley seems like he would be just another addition to the ever-growing list of Annoying Sidekicks in Video Games. He has all of the standards for inclusion – he’s a well-meaning but bumbling character who splits his time between teaching the player the basics and making jokes. If it was anyone but Merchant voicing the character, it wouldn’t have worked, and we’d end up with another grating video game sidekick. But that’s the thing – it is Merchant voicing him, and against all the odds, it does work; Merchant’s naturally frantic, frenetic speech pattern and hilarious improvisation comes across as funny and endearing and real, as if this character was a real person with no clue what they’re doing, making up what they say as they go along in an attempt to assure someone that all will be well (even though it clearly won’t). Lines that would have been dull or grating in the hands of another actor spark to life thanks to Merchant (if you’re not afraid of spoilers, you can see some hilarious examples here), and in spite of all the messes the bumbling fool gets you into, it’s hard not to become attached to little ol’ Wheatley – honestly, it was seeing what he was capable of with this character that made me such an enormous fan of Merchant’s.

Now, let me take you aside for a moment to take note of something: one of the biggest reasons all of Portal 2’s characters work so well is that each of the main characters goes through an individual arc, and under McLain’s example, the voice actors communicate this arc in a way that makes the player truly engaged and invested in watching this character grow and change. With that in mind, let’s go back to Wheatley… in terms of his character and personality, Wheatley’s role is to act as the exact opposite of GLaDOS – while she is blindingly intelligent, coolly capable and detached in the manner of all great robots, Wheatley is impressively moronic, bumbling, frantic and almost human in many ways (their voices also do a great job of illustrating this contrast; McLain’s voice is deeply feminine and undergoes massive electronic modifications, while Merchant’s is distinctly male and does not appear to be modified at all). But in terms of his character arc, Wheatley actually becomes the sequel’s GLaDOS, starting off as an apparent aid to the player (albeit a slightly untrustworthy one) only to eventually begin to unravel, becoming increasingly desperate and maniacal to the point of becoming completely, rabidly, frantically unhinged. Following beautifully in McLain’s footsteps, Merchant absolutely nails the performance, striking the perfect balance between Wheatley’s bumbling, frenetic idiocy and the power-hungry, dictatorial madness he gains during the course of the arc.

A brief example from my own play-through of the game: there is a point wherein the tension between you and Wheatley becomes so great that he finally attempts to get rid of you – and of course, if you advance in the game after this point, it’s clear that his attempt fails. So at this point, naturally, I was escaping into the shadows, out of his reach. “Where’d you go??” He snapped after me with frantic fury, obviously realizing I was beyond where he could catch me. “Come back, come back!!” And it’s that second line that gets me every time I play through this point – Merchant infuses this brief, seemingly insignificant line with such broken desperation, with the realization that his failure to crush me will doubtlessly be his downfall, with such emotion that – like GLaDOS before him – Wheatley truly stirs something in me; something real, so much so that regardless of my knowledge that doing as he says would surely mean my death, for just a second, Wheatley’s plea tugs at me in a way that I always pause for a moment and fight the urge to go back for him. Even at his lowest, darkest point, the point where I should hate him most, the uniquely human emotion Merchant infuses his character with still manage to elicit a bit of pity and sympathy from me. And that is a mark of great character writing, great voice acting, and above all, a great character.

What about the others? Oh, don’t you worry, they deliver too. The next most important of the new characters we meet, interestingly enough, never actually physically appears in the game – after all, he’d passed on years before even the original Portal. All we see of him are old portraits hanging in the ruins from Aperture’s forgotten years, the only reason we get to know him being that his voice, booming over long-lost archive recordings, guides us through the second act of the game. This, boys and girls, is none other than Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture Science – and in what many referred to as Portal 2’s “surprise star turn”, the voice that is all we know of the character is provided by none other than J. K. Simmons.

Now, you may be wondering – how on earth are we supposed to get a well-rounded, compelling character only from a series of voice recordings? What you’re probably forgetting is that this was how GLaDOS became one of the greatest modern villains in the previous game, with only a voice communicating her character. Cave does the same, providing some of the game’s best twisted humor (one particular rant of his, the infamous “lemons” speech, quickly became one of the new memes Portal 2 sparked) and undergoing a dynamic character arc solely through the aged recordings we hear, with Simmons’ powerful voice and talented acting creating the most solid, intriguing, compelling character that you’ll never meet (you know, because he’s dead…). As I stated before, all the central Portal 2 characters undergo a personal arc over the course of the story; in Cave’s case, his arc illustrates how he went from a confident and successful, if incredibly eccentric, CEO to a raving madman on the brink of death, creating the one thing that would destroy his company and himself from the one thing that had kept him going all that time. Accompanying and illustrating his tragic tale is the ruins surrounding his voice recordings, different phases of Aperture that display how their founder dragged the company with him as he spiraled uncontrollably downwards – starting off as a fairly elegant site with carpeting, appetizer plates and elevator attendants, becoming increasingly dominated by tile and linoleum, cubicles, lessened or nonexistent rewards for test subjects, and automation in the workplace (in the most modern iteration of the Aperture offices one discovers, there are even propaganda posters threatening to replace employees with robots). With the aid of Simmons’ booming voice, the series of voice recordings from Cave and the surroundings that accompany them narrate the tale of an idealistic and successful man who commissioned development of ideas that turned out to be ludicrous, dangerous or incredibly expensive (or, often, all of the above), and as his actions began to ruin his company, gave in to jealousy and greed and madness that ultimately led to his crafting his own end. The Aperture history lesson gives just as much insight to the man behind the company as it does to the player’s surroundings, ultimately making Johnson a character that haunts the player even as they leave the ruins behind.

Walking hand in hand with the narration of Cave’s character arc is the story of another character who, as we learn more about the history of Aperture, turns out to be far more important than one would initially think: a young woman referred to only as Caroline. The secretary and assistant of Cave Johnson, she has only a handful of lines accompanying Cave’s old voice recordings, and like him, she is never seen in person during the game. But there’s one thing about her character that should instantly make players think there’s more to her than these facts would imply, and that little tidbit is this – she just so happens to be voiced by a certain Ms. Ellen McLain. And if you think Valve would dare waste her invaluable talent on a throwaway character, you’re crazy. Though she only has a grand total of four lines in the entirety of the game, McLain’s undeniable voice acting ability allows Caroline a subtle personal arc even then, aided by mentions of her by Cave in his recordings; she starts off as a chipper, dutiful secretary that could be expected of the time period, developing into more and more a part of Aperture’s backbone. Ultimately, she becomes so much a part of the company that she appears to take charge more than Cave himself – so much a part of Aperture that she, too, is dragged down with it in the midst of Cave’s downwards spiral.

And what of our returning characters – namely, GLaDOS? Though her fate seemed to have been sealed at the closure of Portal, as the ending credits implied, she is in actuality “Still Alive” – and in the gap between games, she’s been forced to relive her murder time and time again through a black box quick-save feature programmed to activate in the event of a catastrophic system failure. Subsequently, she returns more than ready to make the player’s life miserable, and McLain returns more than ready to do so in the most hilarious way possible. True to her character, rather than directly exact a violent revenge, GLaDOS instead decides to drag out the player’s suffering through more testing, increased vigilance, and a slow burn of passive-aggressive insults that will leave you laughing even as you realize your weight/appearance/intelligence/lack of parents is being ruthlessly mocked. And after the aforementioned dramatic twist that leaves Wheatley taking over the arc GLaDOS followed in the predecessor, our favorite malicious AI embarks on a new, deeper character arc that delves into her own personal history, with McLain’s excellent voice work leaving GLaDOS appearing increasingly humbled and vulnerable as she and the player alike learn of her past – and the effective emotional development is even more impressive considering, for the entirety of the character arc, GLaDOS takes on the form of a potato. (Yes, I’m serious. Yes, there’s an actual reason for it. No, I won’t explain it. Play the game. XD) In spite of the way she berates you, in spite of the memories of your dramatic confrontation in the previous game, you’ll find yourself becoming attached to GLaDOS all over again. I wish I could go into more detail on her character arc, as it’s perhaps one of the most intriguing pieces of character history I’ve seen in a long time, but because of the spoilers, I can’t. But the things that are revealed will make you understand the inner workings of this increasingly, oddly human example of a detached AI more than ever before.

Finally, though the minor characters understandably contain a bit less depth than the others, Portal 2 certainly contains some entertaining ones, with the new additions voiced by none other than Nolan North, best known for seriously being in every single video game ever made. (The other day, I looked up Batman: Arkham City out of curiosity, only to discover that North provides the voice of The Penguin in the game. SERIOUSLY, THE MAN IS EVERYWHERE. O_O) In particular, we have a new addition to the turret ranks, the hilarious Defective Turrets – blind, bullet-less, wisecracking unfinished versions of GLaDOS’ deadly toys, which play a surprisingly important role in a few portions of the game; I often found myself lingering much longer than I should have just to listen to the incredibly well-written lines these guys have. North also provides the voice for three new personality cores the player stumbles across towards the games ending, which also prove surprisingly valuable during the game’s gloriously chaotic final battle. The difference between these spheres and the ones from the previous game, however, is that these spheres are corrupted – wonderfully useless, malfunctioning little creations that each center around a different pointless obsession: one dubbed the Space Sphere, a frantically chipper and mildly-ADD-ish little thing who just can’t stop chattering about his desperate desire to go to space (his mumblings so catch and funny that they quickly became another new meme); a second called the Adventure Sphere (or as he dubs himself, Rick) who thinks of himself as an Indiana Jones-style adventurer and raves about his affinity for danger while making increasingly chauvinistic remarks towards Chell (especially funny considering Chell is far more capable than the immobile sphere); and finally, the Fact Sphere, who monotonously rambles about irrelevant, and often incorrect, “facts” (though a few of them are correct and rather interesting, as you can see here). Though not present quite long enough to have any dramatic arcs, the new additions are undeniably effective comic relief, and chances are you’ll find yourself giggling over their lines even after the game ends – something that, while often not as respected as an effective emotional/dramatic character, is just as respectable.

On the topic of the final battle, that’s another wonderful achievement worth mentioning – the story of Portal 2. While I won’t go into too much detail due to spoilers, even the basics are worth mentioning: as stated earlier, the game acts as a true sequel to the predecessor by picking up shortly after it; fifty days, to be exact. Chell has been brought back to the Enrichment Center, contained in a relaxation chamber (the story behind which is told in Portal 2: Lab Rat, an excellent companion comic released over the official blog) and awakened for a “mandatory physical and mental wellness exercise” before falling back to sleep. When she next awakens, an indeterminate but clearly significant period of time has passed, enough for the Enrichment Center to show significant signs of decay – fallout from the player’s victory over GLaDOS in the previous game.

And that, folks, is the central idea behind the entire story: yes, GLaDOS might have deserved her comeuppance (at least in our minds), and yes, her methods of running the Enrichment Center might have been unsound… but what happens now that she’s no longer in power? Well, what happens is that automated messages/programs and a large collection of personality spheres take over for her – and are unable to maintain the center as she did. The cores begin malfunctioning and shutting down, the lab begins to decay and be overtaken by dust and foliage, the facility’s nuclear core advances towards meltdown, the relaxation chambers stop working and leave the humans contained within falling into irreversible vegetative states or dying off completely. Everything is falling apart, and all because we sought to remove GLaDOS from her unjust position of power – but now it’s clear that, while she may have seemed dangerous and unfair, she was a necessity for keeping the facility from collapsing in on itself and destroying everything (and everyone) within. As GLaDOS is returned to power (I won’t say how – it’s a surprise ;) ), things become stable again, the test chambers begin to return to their former glory… but then a new face is placed in the position of power, and with that, things begin to spiral rapidly out of control, in ways that you simply have to see to believe (a hint: the third act’s test chambers are very fun and very, very, very insane). Ultimately, the whole game is a twisted mirror image of its predecessor; in Portal, you sought your own salvation by taking GLaDOS out of power, and in Portal 2, you realize just how much more destruction your actions have caused and must fight to return GLaDOS to power. The ending battle is a glorious illustration of this game of opposites: in the original, you defeated GLaDOS by detaching her personality cores, and in this new game, you must help dethrone the new face of Aperture by attaching cores – resulting in a conclusion that brings everything full circle with an absolutely genius continuous narrative, starting with a cold, lonely atmosphere that gradually spins more out of control, and continuing into Portal 2 into events that become more frantic, more unstable, more chaotic until you’re forced to return things right back to the way they were before you got there. A wonderful way to conclude a wonderful duo of games.

Speaking of wonderful ways to end a wonderful game, remember that music I mentioned earlier? Well, Portal 2 is full of incredible music; while its predecessor had a somewhat more subtle sound that increased the melancholy air of the game, the sequel has a bolder, more attention-grabbing soundtrack that, honestly, is even fun to listen to on its own (and you can – the official Portal 2 blog allows one to download three volumes’ worth of the game’s music for absolutely free). Described by Valve as “music created by robots”, several of the tracks (especially from earlier parts of the game) truly sound like a robotic orchestra, while later tracks emphasize the instability of your surroundings with frantic electronic compositions, searing buzzes and bleeps that simply scream “danger, chaos, escape”. Furthermore, Portal 2 builds on the success of its predecessor’s “Still Alive” with not one, but three excellent vocal inclusions. The first, contributed from outside, is the wonderfully melancholy tune “Exile Vilify”; created for the game by indie band The National, the song is a wonderful composition of piano and strings and sighing vocals, included in the game as a song that plays on a radio one can find hidden in one of the “Rat Man’s” dens – and if only for the sake of hearing this lovely song (the only one not included on the aforementioned soundtrack, sadly), I suggest you find that den. (A hint: it’s in a chamber a few tests after you’re first introduced to the Discouragement Beam.) The second, as mentioned earlier, is the lovely “Cara Mia Addio”, a short but soaring operatic tune led by the gorgeous voice of Ms. McLain (who, you may remember, is primarily an opera singer, a classically trained operatic soprano). Though brief – the song is less than two minutes long – the song, done in beautifully trilling Italian, and McLain’s absolutely gorgeous voice will stick with you, and it provides a wonderful accompaniment for the emotional scene in which it is used. Finally, over the ending credits, Jonathan Coulton provides us with another comedic gem – “Want You Gone”, where GLaDOS, returned to her former glory, sings an elegant and catchy ode to the test subject who, as she put it, “tried to kill [her] twice” – in short, perhaps the best and funniest breakup song you’ll ever hear. I can’t discuss it too much – it’s full of spoilers – but I will say that, while I personally believe “Still Alive” remains on top, the song is a worthy companion to its predecessor and a great way to end the game.

So there you have it – Portal 2. An absolutely, impossibly incredible game with an excellent story, creative gameplay, deep and compelling and hilarious characters, fantastically clever writing, and awesome music to boot. It shatters everything we expect from a sequel. It’s not just a worthy follow-up. It’s a great game on its own, and a fantastic one in conjunction with Portal. It not only maintains the creativity and wittiness and success we had with its predecessor, it improves on it. Portal was bloody close to perfect. Portal 2 is not. It’s something far greater than that.

But wait – there’s more?! Oh, you dear, dear Valve. You not only gave us the most incredible, fun, intelligent, funny, well-written game in a long, long time, perhaps the greatest game of our generation, but you gave us all that in a cooperative mode as well.

That’s right; in addition to the heart-stopping singer-player campaign, Valve has also managed to create an additional two-player mode just as innovative, if not more so, than the main story. And it’s not just fun gameplay, either – the co-op mode features visuals, writing and story just as deep and impressive as the main campaign, featuring GLaDOS testing on a pair of bipedal robot buddies she constructed for the sole purpose of testing – the stout, headstrong Atlas, and tall, jittery, finicky P-Body. The bots have fantastic designs that make their origins and construction believable (Atlas is clearly a personality core, while P-Body is the ovular body of a turret, each with haphazardly attached limbs), and while neither speaks per se, they make wonderful and fun “expressive noises” done by Dee Bradley Baker, who has done similar work for everything from bots on Star Wars: The Clone Wars to the animals, including Momo and Appa, on Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout the wonderfully innovative cooperative testing chambers, where each player has a dual portal gun and all puzzles require the creative use of four portals to solve, GLaDOS faces the issues of running tests on the eternally cheerful, endlessly cooperative and inherently immortal bots (whenever one is destroyed, an assembly machine will reconstruct them and send them back at a set checkpoint, and in fact the bots are transported between test chambers by being disassembled and reassembled at the next chamber). The writing is smart and the gameplay is fun, and the player interactions work beautifully (you can seamlessly hand off a cube to your partner, or play with a number of “gestures” that include high-fives, dancing or stealing your partner’s core, all of which are guaranteed to entertain you and annoy GLaDOS). It’s an absolute joy, and indisputable proof of Valve’s continued creativity, ingenuity, and awareness of what will make its fans happy without sacrificing any of the game’s overall quality.

So let me reiterate my points – Portal 2 is a rare quality sequel in a world of effortless cash-cow series, with smart writing, fun and innovative gameplay, creative new testing elements, deep and engaging characters, an absolutely fantastic story, and an incredible cooperative mode to boot. If Portal was a triumph – and it was – then Portal 2 absolutely dominates. Seriously, if this is not a perfect game, then nothing is.

Portal 2 took four years of development to be released to the world. I don’t know if Valve is working on plans for a Portal 3 – as much business sense as it makes, this game seemed to wrap up the story pretty well, so I don’t know what’s left to tell – but if it takes them that much time or longer, I won’t care. Because even if that game is only half as good as this one, it’ll still be worth the wait. That’s the amount of talent Valve has. Let’s hope they never lose it, and never forget it.

Thanks for all of your support and discussion for my little venture into the Portal series! I apologize for the massive length of both articles; due to just how deep both games are, cutting anything out made me feel as if I were leaving out a major point for discussion, so both reviews became quite lengthy. Future articles should be a bit more consise. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed this, and I'll see you next week on "Stuff Sunshine Likes"!

Overall Score: An easy 10/10

The Good Points, in Sum: Smart, witty writing, a fantastic and engaging storyline, deep and realistic characters, fun, innovative gameplay, less focus on complex portal maneuvers than predecessor, an absolutely stellar cast of voice actors, a wild and wonderful uncontrollable experience, excellent soundtrack, visually stunning, massive attention to little details one can search for, Valve’s increasingly trademark twisted humor, an incredible and innovative cooperative mode with just as much effort put into it as the main story, if not more

The Bad Points, in Sum: Somewhat easier than its predecessor, slight confusion on how to advance during certain outside-the-testing track portions of the game

Consider Before Playing…: Portal 2 contains some mild violence, mostly from the turrets, though unlike its predecessor it is rated E 10+ and contains no blood. There is also some mild language. As with Portal, the platform on which one plays it is up to player preference, though keep in mind the frame rate requirements if playing on a PC or Mac, as the game can render sluggishly otherwise.