GAME REVIEW - Portal 2 (Spoiler-free)

Developer: Valve Corporation
Publisher: Valve Corporation
Director: Joshua Weier
Writers: Erik Wolpaw, Jay Pinkerton, Chet Falisek
Platforms: PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox 360
Genre: Puzzle-Platform
Age Rating: 12
Release Year: 2011

One of the most anticipated games of 2011! The best puzzle game I have ever played.

If I had a moan it would be: Why is this a 12, what?, how? if this were rated by movie ratings it would be below a U, it is that child friendly.

Now where to begin. The gameplay is: You are, in single player, a human who wakes up in aperture science, a testing place run by robots. Only you have over slept by a long time and the place is now falling apart. You and your robot sphere thing try to escape with the help of a portal gun. So the portals work so that when you shoot your portal on to a wall and the other on to another you then teleport between the portals when you go through it. This muddles with physics a little but you get used to it. In the game you get sent through many individual tests or puzzles which are sometimes difficult, I would say perfect. In each test there are many other obstacles and guff but I won't tell you what they are, that would spoil the surprise. They are very clever and well used. It is the simplicity and uniqueness of the gameplay the idea of the game that makes it such a hit.

Stephan Merchant

The game does have a story behind it. The writers have got the perfect balance of voice acting to gameplay and story adds lots of engagement to the game. Thumbs up, well done.
Now the voice acting. This game has won awards for its well scripted and incredible voice acting. All the characters are very funny. The three main characters for voice over are: Wheatly (your robot friend) voiced by Stephan Merchant, GLaDOS who is voiced by Ellen McLain and Cave Johnson voiced by J.K Simmons. Here is some voice acting from the start of the game when GLaDOS awakens. It has Wheatly and GLaDOS voice acting. It has no puzzle answers in it. Very funny watch it :D. J.K Simmons also has some top notch quotes, but I wont spoil them.

The game also has a Co-Op mode. This is very good and online is via steam and cross platform. Thumbs up valve. However you do have to connect with friends and using the network of that platform would mean we could play with anyone, which I would prefer. So in mode you play are robots, I love the characterising if them they are very likable and you can make them do cool stuff like high 5 or hug. This mode also has the added advantage of being able to be reassembled, so dying doesn't mean you have to start the level again, and I die allot. It has commentary from GLaDOS and is set after the single player ends. You work your way through levels in set chapters all cleverly reachable from the main hub in a fancy way and you can choose what level you want to repeat in each chapter. It is indeed double the portals double the fun.


This game has won many awards and it is defiantly the best puzzle game ever made, well maybe sudoku but shh that's not a computer game.


10/10


Now watch the credits and the amazing GLaDOS song, it is spoiler free (well ish):

Kieron :O

GAME NEWS - Next Generation Consoles and Skyrim DLC

These are storeys from the end of E3 and some tiny little bits from after.

Short Stories
PS Move update for portal 2. Cool :D.

Diablo 3 real money auction house went live yesterday. Good way to rip people off in my opinion. Diablo 3 are also are banning cheaters, hackers and modders for ever!

Assassins Creed 3 Liberation will have more of a stealth theme. The main character Aveline is attacking Spanish Invaders who also happen to be templars it is using the same engine as AC3.

Halo 4 has lots of Multilayer changes: Melee are more brutal, more armour upgrades such as the hard light shield have been added and a kill strike system for more bangs and you can customize your persona. Sounds fun. But I don't have an x-box.

Skyrim Dawn Guard DLC

This is about vampires. In this DLC you can choose to become a vampire or part of the dawn guard which is trying to stop them. If you do join the vampires in blocking out the sun you get a new vampire abilities, you turn into a well that thing in the picture then you can fly and  do a short distance teleport thing to name just a few new perks. If you join the Dawn Guard you get cross bows and can summon armoured trolls into help you. You get a whole new perk trees for werewolf's and vampires the cross bows use the same tree as bows and arrows however they are more powerful and has a change to stagger enemies but it takes longer to load. A new dragon shout where you suck your enemies souls out and they become undead and fight for you. There is new dragon bone weapons and a new undead dragon in the realm of trapped souls ( its new and in oblivion ), the keeper of souls is added you will meat him while on the search for an ender scroll. Haha get it play on words because I said meat and I meant meet .. ok don't worry. The new dragons are much stronger. Added mounted combat as a free update, you can use all one handed weapons on horse back, but not magic. There is allot more creatures in the game including hounds which the vampires fight with. It is about 20 hours long not including side quests. Well I became a vampire while playing skyrim and to be honest I just found it really annoying so I got my soul back so I will probably ply on dawn guard it looks incredible. This will come out on X-Box next week. We have to wait for play station. Watch the trailer here.


Next Generation Console News :D
Square Exix showed off their Agni's Philosophy demo at E3 using their next generation Luminous Studio engine:

Watch it is 1080p to get the full potential. Other examples are Unreal 4 first and second demo. Ahhh my brain is actually struggling to realise it isn't real; well the dragons and magic cinda give it away. Its amazing.
Rumours say the WiiU will have a £279.99 RRP with games the same as all other consoles. I would say that is right providing it comes with a gamepad.  Project P100 for WiiU looks good: It is about aliens are attacking earth you have to stop them using group abilities and attacks with pickman like creatures. The new WiiU friend finder will make it easier to find friends then using friend codes for the miiverse good call nintendo. WiiU is coming out in November ... probably.

PS4 will be last new console and probably the most expensive. But they say it will be the best!

So which next generation console are you most looking forward to? please say in the comments.
Kieron :O