On the whole, the Aperture Science facility, though in a state of disrepair - with nature now creeping through its brick-work - is a more pleasant place to explore with splashes of color brightening up the grey/blue chambers.Įach chapter in Portal 2 is usually made up of test chambers that get increasingly difficult to solve. Furthermore, Valve uses impressive light and shadow effects to give the environments depth and life. Nonetheless, there’s a real sense of scale to some of the locations as you get to visit new parts of the facility. Once again, Valve has used its Source engine to power Portal 2, so graphically there’s also little difference between the two games. The way that you smoothly move around the test chambers from the first-person perspective is identical to the first game. As such, once you get into the Portal mind-set, you’ll find it hard to leave. It’s the buzz you get from completing these tough challenges that fuels your passion for more. When you do manage to escape a test chamber, however, you get a real feeling of achievement and satisfaction. With new game mechanics and more elaborately designed chambers, Portal 2 can occasionally push your brain into overdrive and cause it to over-heat. There are also a number of new mechanics to compliment the laying of portals, as well as an increased the variety of ways in which you can escape a chamber. This is in addition to a captivating co-op mode with tougher puzzles designed to be solved with a friend. Valve has made its sequel into a fully-fledged game this time around (the original lasted only a few hours), complete with a ten chapter single player campaign that will take you ten hours or more to complete. Though Valve’s portal-popping formula hasn’t changed drastically in Portal 2, it’s still as compelling as ever and even more challenging. Though the concept of environment-based puzzles - where you simply have to try to work your way out of an enclosed location - is fairly uncomplicated, the execution was anything but. You could then move objects, such as blocks, through the portals and use momentum to generate speed and height. These portals basically created a visual and physical connection between two different locations in a three-dimensional space and added a completely unique game mechanic. Blasting portals into walls, floors and ceilings – and scratching our heads rigorously trying to work out ways to teleport across the environment to escape from the test chambers – was both challenging and totally absorbing. Portal was way ahead of its genre in 2007 when it introduced the portal gun. And, the further you venture into the Aperture Science facility, the more crazy and ingenious the level design gets as you face a wide range of immersive physics and momentum-based puzzles that never fail to challenge and entertain. Despite the initial familiarity of some of the test chamber puzzles, the sequel to the 2007 bite-sized hit offers a master class in level design and script-writing. Granted, Portal’s developer lied about rewarding us with cake for completing its puzzle-platformer, but with the likes of Left 4 Dead and the genre-defining Half-Life series already under its belt, you can guarantee that the studio will always try to inject something a little extra special into every project it undertakes. You always know where you stand with Valve - well, most of the time.
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