Portal 2 draws from the award-winning formula of innovative gameplay, story, and music that earned the original Portal over 70 industry accolades and created a cult following. The single-player portion of Portal 2 PC introduces a cast of dynamic new characters, a host of fresh puzzle elements, and a much larger set of devious test chambers. Players will explore never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs and be reunited with GLaDOS, the occasionally murderous computer companion who guided them through the original game.
The game’s two-player cooperative mode features its own entirely separate campaign with a unique story, test chambers, and two new player characters. This new mode forces players to reconsider everything they thought they knew about portals. Success will require them to not just act cooperatively, but to think cooperatively.
Portal 2 is a masterpiece, a work of art that you will love for its ingenious story pop-culture, references to logical puzzles and co-op multiplayer. Definitely a candidate for game of the year. [Issue#204]
Portal is perfect. Portal 2 is not. It's something better than that. It's human: hot-blooded, silly, poignant, irreverent, base, ingenious and loving. It's never less than a pure video game, but it's often more, and it will no doubt stand as one of the best entertainments in any medium at the end of this year. It's a masterpiece.
Sporting some of the best writing and voice work in years (as well as some deviously designed puzzles), Portal 2's single-player campaign is superior to its predecessor in every way. It's the co-op mode, however, that makes this 2011's first must-play game -- even for those gamers that don't like first-person or puzzle games.
The game's quality stays consistently outstanding throughout; there isn't a minute of filler content to be found anywhere in single-player or co-op.
Portal 2 is the best game I had the opportunity to play this year. It interests the player from the beginning and stays like that to its final minutes. It entertains with great, humorous dialogue, intrigues with compelling puzzles - as a result you keep staring at the screen and forget about the world around you. Valve's newest game is also a well-written product with great attention to detail.
A hilarious slice of gaming glory. [July 2011, p.92]
Emancipation complete for Portal, which gets rid of his "bonus game" condition with a second episode that is certainly no revolution but still manages to justify its new status.
