I think about a world to come where the books were found by the golden ones, written in pain, written in awe by a puzzled man who questioned, "What are we here for?" All the strangers came today and it looks as though they're here to stay.

-David Bowie "Oh! You Pretty Things"

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Portal 2




Portal is one of the most respected video games of the last decade, created in relative obscurity for the Valve Corporation bundle pack called The Orange Box. Now, the name Portal is better known than The Orange Box and most of the video games it originally contained. Portal ascended quickly to the top of most peoples' favorite video games of the 2000s lists, and the rumored Portal 2 became one of the most highly awaited games of all time.

As the legend of Portal became getting more and more bloated, spreading by word of mouth, the idea that Portal 2 could be a satisfactory sequel to Portal began to seem impossible. Portal 2 finally came out in April of 2011, and it exceeded most of our expectations. Not only was GladOS back, but we found two more comedic characters to play with: Wheatley and Cave Johnson. The puzzles and physics of this game are fantastic, as are the graphic and music. And surprisingly, we dig deep into the Portal universe to find the origins of the actions of the original Portal as well as what the future holds.

I give Portal 2 all of this acclaim having only completed the single player campaign. Almost everyone I've talked to says that the two player challenges are the reason this is one of the best games they've played. Considering the fact that this is already one of my favorite video games ever, I fear that my heart may stop while playing the two player co-op. Luckily, there will be someone else on-line with me who can call the ambulance if I am AFK for too long and don't respond to stimuli.

Excelsior!

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