This week Valve released the follow up to their 2007 hit first-person puzzle game ‘Portal’, with the highly anticipated ‘Portal 2’. I am a big fan of the original game and I have spent hours on Steam playing and replaying levels much to the chagrin of the processors on my Mac book Pro.
The first things I noticed with the PS3 version of ‘Portal 2’ is that you get Steam integrated into the game. What a great advantage for the PS3-Steam connected gamers as they will have the ability to make use of saved games on both Playstation 3 and PC/Mac versions of ‘Portal 2’ using the one save file. This can be done by simply making use of the Steam authorization code included with every PS3 copy.
The second thing I noticed was that the levels are much harder. Not because they made any real changes to the game play, because they didn’t. No, the major change to this game is that the environment is seriously dilapidated. After the events of the first game, you wake up from stasis to an environment in ruins. You are then instructed where to go to receive the first of your two portal guns. These scenes looked great and added to the excitement of the initial game play experience.
Something new to ‘Portal 2’ that I am looking forward to experiencing is the Co-op Online portion of the game. Unfortunately, the PlayStation Network was down at the time of this review, so my thoughts on that feature will have to be saved for another day.
You have to be asking yourself, why should I buy ‘Portal 2’ if I already have and love ‘Portal’? Well, for one it is the addition of the online play that seems like it will be worth the price of the game alone plus the Steam integration and you have one very mobile console game. The other big reason to add ‘Portal 2’ to your collection; the boards are way more interesting. The pristine testing boards are now gone, so players are forced to find the right section of walls to create portals to move on to the next section of the room. ‘Portal 2’ is a an excellent gaming experience. One that can be played over and over. Adding this game to your library is a must for any gamer.
