Portal 2

Let’s be clear: if you’re reading this column and haven’t played the original Portal, stop reading now. Go play it. I’ll wait.

Back? Best thing ever? Told you so. Portal is an enduringly brilliant game, the start of more memes than the Dramatic Chipmunk, and, hour for hour, one of the most rewarding experiences you can have with a video game. So it’s no surprise that any sequel would be, let’s say, anticipated.

Portal 2 expands on the whole trans-location puzzle madness by taking the story years after the first, exploring the long-overgrown and abandoned testing grounds of Aperture Science. The whole tone is darker, more menacing and complex, but never once sacrificing the bleak humour of the first. The individual challenges, however, involve more elements than the first, and while the solutions seem obvious once you figure them out, it can take a lot of aggravation before you get there.

The new elements include coloured gels that let you slip and slide down levels and bounce over obstacles, energy beams to be redirected with prisms, and transport beams to levitate you from one wall to another, and all of it can be redirected through the portals you set up. Each new element makes for a clever puzzle addition, but it’s when you start layering a half-dozen new mechanics at the same time that your brain can start to melt.

Portal’s charm has always been equal parts clever puzzle solving and black humour, and on that basis alone the sequel more than lives up to its promise. It’s not without flaws, the multiplayer is still a wait-and-see deal, and it can definitely get too clever for its own good, but ultimately, the cake is not a lie. [Alex Cole]