A puzzle game with a great story. Better than the original in every way.
It's difficult to describe the appeal of Portal 2. Just saying that it's a clever puzzler with beautiful graphics, witty humour and good story doesn't seem to convey the work of art that all these elements combine to create. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts so to speak. For those totally unfamiliar with the game it's a puzzle game played from a first person perspective. Your character is a test subject imprisoned by a psychotic computer in a laboratory and forced to undergo dangerous experiments. That would have summed up the plot of the original Portal but Portal 2 expands on the concept by introducing other characters and a somewhat twisty plot. The original had you plodding through test after test using your Portal gun and the engines physics to navigate obstacle course like tests whereas Portal 2 mixes up the test chambers with sequences which take place outside the lab. These sequences are still set up to test your puzzle solving skills but the change of setting and pace helps mix things up a bit.
Additional mechanics are introduced to mix up the nature of the puzzles also. The original required you to use a portal gun which you use to place two portals. Entering one portal causes you to immediately exit the other making for some interesting physical paradoxes, such as exiting a portal on the ceiling and falling through a portal in the floor causing you to be in a constant free fall loop. The sequel adds to this by introducing various gels which can be painted on surfaces to change the nature of the surface. These combines with the use of portals to move the gels around which makes for some interesting puzzles.
The single player is great, it draws you in, teaches you the various tricks of portaling at just the right pace and leaves you constantly wanting to do 'one more test'. The Co-op is also great fun, requiring you to combine your two portals with that of a friend to solve even more complicated puzzles. You can play with someone from your friends list or a random partner. It's great fun trying to work out the solution before your buddy and even more fun trying to communicate it to him/her. There are various methods of communicating including voice chat/, text chat (for PC) and a ping tools which lets you place markers in the world.
The free copy of the game for PC when purchasing the PS3 version and the interconnected PC Steam and PSN really bumps up this games score for me.The one thing that stops this game getting a perfect score for me is that the game doesn't quite deliver enough content for £30. I completed the single player in about 9 hours and the co-op in about 5.