TSA’s Top 100 of 2011 – #6 Portal 2

If Valve’s The Orange Box was the gaming equivalent of Voltron, Portal was its giant robotic heart. Sardonically humourous and possessing some of the best puzzle-based gameplay to ever grace gaming, the success of Portal was both unexpected and unprecedented. Portal is such a milestone in its field that if you consider yourself a connoisseur of the medium, and you have yet to play the game, you are literally missing a core ingredient in your répertoire.

Spatially astounding, Portal appealed to the more cerebral of gamers; fans of gameplay that was simultaneously smart and fun. Controlling Chell, the player must solve ingenious puzzles with the use of the portal gun or Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, invoking dimension doorways through which Chell and objects can be transported. The game presented a starkly basic yet ultimately multifaceted premise. The idea is simple, its execution, however, proffered a myriad of possibilities and non-linear lateral thinking. It may be short, but Portal is a triumph; a gem of gaming that any self-respecting fan of this industry simply must play. Still waiting for trophy support? You’re not only missing out, you’re missing the point entirely of what it means to play a great game.

Portal 2 was announced back in March at the end of an ARG (alternate reality game) via patches released for the original game. Such a creative endeavour is just another one of a multitude of ways of how Valve expresses themselves and interacts with their fans. When it comes to dealing with us, the press, Valve are probably the only developer on the planet who can issue a release about a delay to one of their highly sought-after products and actually make it a pleasurable experience. Such an announcement was made back in June, pushing Portal 2’s release fractionally forward to April 22nd 2011 in Europe.

As a sequel, Portal 2 promises to be bigger, longer and more spectacular that its experimental predecessor. Set hundreds of years after the first game, Chell is awoken by one of GLaDOS’ cores. Unhappy at Chell’s reappearance, GLaDOS proceeds to test her again in what is now a dilapidated facility. The title introduces new elements such as gels that can increase momentum, as well as two-player co-op using self-aware robots who must team up together to free themselves from GLaDOS’ control.

Not only looking like a deftly created masterclass of game design and smart gameplay, punctuated along the way with dark humour (and probably more cake recipes), Valve’s ex-resident PS3 disparager Gabe Newell has said that Portal 2 on the PS3 will be its “definitive version”. Whether such a bombastic claim turns out to be true remains to be seen, but what can’t be disputed is Portal 2’s own immense, and unique, gravitational pull. And that is not a lie.