Video Game Vintage Title: Portal 2

Portal 2

Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It is the sequel to Portal and was released on April 19, 2011 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The retail versions of the game are distributed by Electronic Arts, while online distribution of the Windows and OS X versions is handled by Valve's content delivery service, Steam. Portal 2 was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game. Before the game's release on Steam, the company released the Potato Sack, a second multi-week alternate reality game, involving 13 independently developed titles which culminated in a distributed computing spoof to release Portal 2 several hours early.

The game retains Portal's gameplay elements, and adds new features, including tractor beams, laser redirection, bridges made of light, and paint-like 'gels' accelerating the player's speed, allowing the player-character to jump higher or place portals on any surface. These gels were created by the team from the Independent Games Festival-winning DigiPen student project Tag: The Power of Paint. In the single-player campaign, the player controls protagonist Chell, awoken from suspended animation after many years, who must navigate the now-dilapidated Aperture Science Enrichment Center during its reconstruction by the reactivated GLaDOS, a powerful supercomputer. The storyline introduces new characters, including Wheatley and Cave Johnson . Ellen McLain reprised the role of GLaDOS. Jonathan Coulton and The National each produced a song for the game. Portal 2 also includes a two-player cooperative mode, in which the robotic player-characters Atlas and P-Body are each given a portal gun and are required to work together to solve puzzles. Valve provided post-release support for the game, including additional downloadable content and a simplified map editor to allow players to create and share test chambers with others.

Some reviewers expressed concern about the difficulty of expanding Portal into a full sequel but critics universally praised Portal 2. The game's writing, pacing, and dark humor were highlighted as stand-out elements, and critics applauded the voice work of McLain, Merchant, and Simmons. Reviews also highlighted the new gameplay elements, the game's challenging but surmountable learning curve, and the additional cooperative mode. Some gaming journalists ranked Portal 2 among the top games of 2011, and several named it their Game of the Year.

Portal 2 Plot

The Portal series takes place in the Half-Life universe. The events in Portal take place between the first and second Half-Life games; while Portal 2 is set "a long time after" the events in Portal and Half-Life 2.

Before Portal, Aperture Science conducted experiments to determine whether human subjects could safely navigate dangerous "test chambers", until the artificial intelligence GLaDOS, governing the laboratory, killed its inmates. At the end of the first game the protagonist Chell destroys GLaDOS and momentarily escapes the facility, but is dragged back inside by an unseen figure with a robotic voice, later identified by writer Erik Wolpaw as the "Party Escort Bot". A promotional comic shows estranged Aperture Science employee Doug Rattmann, who used graffiti to guide the player in Portal, placing Chell into suspended animation to save her life, until the beginning of Portal 2.

Portal 2 Gameplay

Portal 2 is a first-person perspective puzzle game. Players take the role of Chell in the single-player campaign, as one of two robots�Atlas and P-Body�in the cooperative campaign, or as a simplistic humanoid icon in community-developed puzzles. These four characters can explore and interact with the environment. Characters can withstand limited damage but will die after sustained injury. There is no penalty for falling onto a solid surface, but falling into bottomless pits or toxic pools kills the player character immediately. When Chell dies in the single-player game, the game restarts from a recent checkpoint; in the cooperative game, the robot respawns shortly afterwards without restarting the puzzle. The goal of both campaigns is to explore the Aperture Science Laboratory� a complicated, malleable mechanized maze. While most of the game takes place in modular test chambers with clearly defined entrances and exits, other parts occur in behind-the-scenes areas where the objectives are less clear.

The initial tutorial levels guide the player through the general movement controls and illustrate how to interact with the environment. The player must solve puzzles using the 'portal gun' or 'Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device', which can create two portals connecting two distant surfaces depicted as matte white, continuous, and flat. Characters can use these portals to move between rooms or to "fling" objects or themselves across a distance. Outlines of placed portals are visible through walls and other obstacles for easy location.

Game elements include Thermal Discouragement Beams (lasers), Excursion Funnels (tractor beams), and Hard Light Bridges, all of which can be transmitted through portals. Aerial Faith Plates launch the player or objects through the air and sometimes into portals. The player must disable turrets or avoid their line of sight. The Weighted Storage Cube has been redesigned, and there are new types: Redirection Cubes, which have prismatic lenses that redirect laser beams, and spherical Edgeless Safety Cubes. The heart-decorated Weighted Companion Cube reappears briefly. Early demonstrations included Pneumatic Diversity Vents, shown to transport objects and transfer suction power through portals, but these do not appear in the final game. All of these game elements open locked doors, or help or hamper the character from reaching the exit.

Paint-like gels impart certain properties to surfaces or objects coated with them, themselves dispensed from pipes and transported through portals. Players can use orange Propulsion Gel to cross surfaces more quickly, blue Repulsion Gel to bounce from a surface, and white Conversion Gel to allow surfaces to accept portals. Some surfaces, such as grilles, cannot be coated with a gel. Water can block or wash away gels, returning the surface or object to its normal state.

The game includes a two-player cooperative mode. Two players can use the same console with a split screen, or can use a separate computer or console; Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and PlayStation 3 users can play with each other regardless of platform; a patch provided in late 2012 added split-screen support for Windows and Mac OS X users under "Big Picture" mode. Both player-characters are robots that control separate portal guns and can use the other character's portals. Each player's portals are of a different color scheme, whereof one is blue and purple and the other is orange and red. A calibration chamber separates the characters to teach the players to use the communication tools and portals. Most later chambers are less structured and require players to use both sets of portals for laser or funnel redirection, launches, and other maneuvers. The game provides voice communication between players, and online players can temporarily enter a split-screen view to help coordinate actions. Players can "ping" to draw the other player's attention to walls or objects, start countdown timers for synchronized actions, and perform joint gestures such as waving or hugging. The game tracks which chambers each player has completed and allows players to replay chambers they have completed with new partners.

Portal 2's lead writer Erik Wolpaw estimates each campaign about six hours long. Portal 2 contains in-game commentary from the game developers, writers, and artists. The commentary, accessible after completing the game once, appears on node icons scattered through the chambers. According to Valve, each of the single-player and cooperative campaigns is 2 to 2.5 times as long as the campaign in Portal, with the overall game five times as long.

Reception
Portal 2 was a strong favorite of gaming journalists during closed-door previews at the E3 2010 convention. The Game Critics Awards, selected by journalists and critics, awarded Portal 2 the title of Best PC Game and Best Action/Adventure Game, and nominated the game for Best of Show and Best Console Game. IGN named Portal 2 as its Best of E3 for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 systems and Best Puzzle Game, and nominated it for Best Overall Game. Gamespy named Portal 2 the Best Overall Game and Best Puzzle Game of E3. Portal 2 won the 2010 Spike Video Game Award for "Most Anticipated Game for 2011".