Ben's Faves: Part the Second

Y'all super excited for me to do this again?! "Yes! We are!" Daww, I'd hoped you would be!


Portal 2

If much of the excitement of Portal lay in escaping from enclosed chambers into a chaotic, behind-the-scenes inferno, then much of its sequel’s fun comes from learning just how small the first game really was. In Portal 2, Valve has expanded the scope of the Portal universe from several testing rooms to a laboratory the size of a metropolis. Each new level of Portal 2 has the player staring in amazement as they mentally reconfigure the magnitude of the ruins they’re trapped in. Unlike the dilapidated surroundings, protagonist/player stand-in Chell reawakens as silent and determined as ever, blasting her way through challenges we’ve seen before and new ones like blue, bouncy gel and platforms of light that must be manipulated to move across dangerous surfaces.

Portal 2 retains all of its predecessor’s wit, and in fact, is even funnier, with the addition of multiple new characters who allow for greater dialogue opportunities than were possible in the first game between the mute Chell and her constant critic GLaDOS (although there remains plenty of great interplay between those two as well).  Wheatley, a hilarious and not-so-helpful helper bot voiced by Stephen Merchant provides a running commentary on the player’s actions whenever GLaDOS isn’t around. J.K. Simmons also turns in a winning performance as the safety-be-damned founder of Aperture, whose booming commands accompany the player as they make their way through the game’s underground sections.

As the primary hook into both Portal and Portal 2, the portal gun is such a great gaming device that were the Portal games simply puzzles for the player to run around portal-ing through, they’d still be a ton of fun to play. Instead, Valve marries their amazing toy with an equally engaging storyline. Drawing as easily from 2001: A Space Odyssey as it does from Bioshock, Portal 2 slowly reveals a grand narrative at its center in which the mysterious circumstances behind Aperture Science’s fall must be rediscovered to prevent present disaster. Each new discovery leads to a new twist, and the game’s creators aren't hesitant to punish the player who rushes from level to level--a main character’s entire history is suggested by a piece of cardboard you might easily just walk by. Packed with excitement, humor, and a surprisingly moving ending, Portal 2 is as entertaining and fun as any movie or show I've seen this year. 

I'm sold! Pretty much as always, this item is available on Amazon, and you can get it for XBox or PS3. It's also a download available through Steam for either PC or Mac.