4cr Preview – Portal 2

When Valve released the original Portal in 2007, they had no idea what kind of monster they were about to let loose into the world. They took an ambitious student project – Narbacular Drop – and turned it into a tight little game. It wasn’t exactly a long game, but it was more than enough to addict millions. It was a given that the developer would be given the greenlight to produce a sequel.

It would have been enough simply to expand the current set of mechanics into a fifteen-or-so-hour framework, but Valve has gone and put together an insanely ambitious sequel that dwarfs the original in every single way.

Tucker and I got to take a look at the game behind closed doors today – read on for all of the… science-y… details.

(Portal 2 E3 Trailer)

The concept behind Portal is so simple – object goes in one hole, comes out the other – but it allowed for some genuinely interesting situations. That singular idea is still the core of Portal 2, but the portal gun is merely a single tool in your expanded arsenal. We got to see a demonstration of a few others: the tractor beam, the aerial faith plate, the thermal discouragement beam, the pneumatic diversity vent, the repulsion gel, and the propulsion gel (yes, they are different – more on that in a second).

The tractor beam is probably the most straightforward concept. You deploy a portal and toss out a tractor beam; anything in its path, person or machine, will be pulled in the indicated direction. Keep in mind – tractor beams could be used to move objects towards or away from a portal. The uses of such a beam are pretty immediately obvious. You could grab a far-away companion cube, or you could force a robot to helplessly tumble into its compatriots.

The creatively-named “aerial faith plate” is a spring-loaded platform. Think Mario. You drop something heavy on it, and whatever it is launched forcefully away. This one gets pretty complicated when there’s a room full of plates, and something is bouncing off of every one of them. The “thermal discouragement beam” is another common gaming trope – the deadly laser beam laid across the floor. The interaction comes from mirrored blocks that you can pick up and stick in the laser’s path, diverting the beam into robots, switches, and (obviously) portals.

Pneumatic diversity vents are massive vacuums strewn around the crumbling Aperture ruins. Toss a portal at one end, open the other portal in a room, and watch chaos erupt. I’d like to place a special emphasis on the chaos. The tractor beam will calmly move objects around, the pneumatic tubes will wreck a room. Objects are sucked into the vacuum (or repulsed again) with the same force that the tube is sucking with, and the results are incredibly fun to watch. Entire rooms full of enemies are helplessly whirl-pooled in; in one room, an entire wall was ripped away. I can only imagine the result if Chell is thrust in a vacuum’s path.

The two types of gel also have fascinating gameplay implications. The repulsion gel can be spread across a surface, and will instantly push back anything thrown against it. In some ways, this is similar to the previously-mentioned aerial plate, but is seemingly a bit more versatile. The gel can be transported around, and can seemingly be applied at the player’s discretion. You can even toss a ball of gel through a portal, and then bounce that ball off of the gel previously spread in its path. The propulsion gel works in a similar way, but represents a different type of movement. Rather than bouncing away objects, the propulsion gel acts like a slip-and-slide. Step onto a gel-covered platform, and you’ll be blasted forward like a manic ice skater. You could spread it on a ramp to fly further, or.. Picture one of those rows of spikes that you’ve seen in a thousand games. You know the ones – they snap shut and reopen at regular intervals (or based on proximity, whatever).

Turns out that the timing is a lot easier when you can slide right on through, faster than the spikes can close on you.

Valve promises more gameplay-altering treats as development continues. If you think that all of these options sound a little daunting, well, I can’t really blame you. When asked about this, the studio representative promised that the emphasis is “bigger, not harder.”

Chell, the same mute avatar that you occupied in the original, awakens after hundreds of years of cryogenic sleep in the ruins of the original Aperture Science headquarters. You’ll have to trek through the massive labyrinth only hinted at in the first game – including crumbling test chambers, a forest, and the industrial infrastructure that forms the backbone of Aperture Science. The developers have hinted at a 20-hour campaign, which is plenty of time to experiment and grow familiar with your expanded arsenal.

“We can put our past behind us… For science.”

Of course, the appeal of Portal wasn’t entirely in the gameplay – it was also the charm. The game was hilarious, and the relationship between the zealously devoted GlaDOS and captive Chell was a fascinating one. You would do anything to survive, but tell me that you didn’t feel a little guilty as you cast the last bits of the sentient computer into the fire.

That relationship quickly comes to the forefront in Portal 2. As Jonathan Coulton’s anthem hints, GlaDOS is still alive, and an accident near the beginning of the sequel rouses her from her ages-long sleep. As you might expect, she is a bit resentful of your actions, but she is willing to put the past behind her… As long as you agree to resume the tester/testee relationship that you previously held. Still, things have changed quite a bit, and I expect the results to be quite amusing.

GlaDOS won’t be the only voice in your life this time around. You’ll be joined by an equally-amusing companion AI, Wheatley. This cockney-accented robot wants to leave Aperture just as much as you do, and will help you escape. He isn’t entirely competent, however, and accidentally awakens GlaDOS. Wheatley is a charming character, and every situation where he spoke up made me grin. When we entered a room where an automated turret was sitting, he warned me against “making eye contact” and muttered to the turret that we “simply weren’t interested.” At one point, we emerged into a forested room (which was actually an overgrown version of the room where GlaDOS lived in the first game). As pandemonium erupted, Wheatley tried to override the sequence of events by guessing the password. After two failed attempts, he excitedly pleaded that we try a new plan, “act natural.”

As the Valve rep reminded us, the third prong of Portal’s popularity (beyond the gameplay and the characters) was Coulton’s catchy anthem “Still Alive.” We were told to expect something equally awesome in Portal 2, but no specifics were given.

In addition to the massive single-player campaign, Portal 2 will also feature a separate co-op mode. We weren’t shown a demonstration, but we were given a few details. Yes, both players will be given portal guns (resulting in up to four portals at once), and yes, the results will be insane. You can even antagonize your friends a bit – shoot a portal over one of theirs, and you’ll take over their spot. To make cooperation easier, you can also press a button to switch into split-screen mode and see through their eyes.

Portal 2 is shaping up to be one of Valve’s best – and certainly smartest – games to date. My glimpse at it was all too short, but it was enough to make the wait all that much harder. It will launch for the PC, Mac, PS3, and Xbox 360 when it is ready, which is currently slated to be sometime next year.