Portal 2 (2011)

When I started playing games on PC on a fossil of a computer we lovingly called the Washing Machine back in the early '10s, this was one of the games that I enjoyed playing the most. At the time I was much too young (think 12) to understand GLaDOS' snark and she came off as some evil woman robot hybrid without much thought behind her. The ability to walk between places through portals, the tricks you could pull and the puzzles you had to solve were enough to have me hooked, though. I played through the campaign a few times on my own and even played the co-op mode with friends a few times through- which is rare for me as I hardly finish a game once, let alone a few times (the only other games I beat repeatedly are Pokémon games.)

Having recently replayed it after a few years away has been fun if not a little underwhelming. The game I held in such high regard as a kid was now just another game to me. The mechanics of the portal gun and the world you navigate are still cool, but the humor I now am old enough to get and the story that I actually paid attention to this time were just sorta... alright. The fun was primarily had with trying to cheese puzzles and remembering where I was in life last time I played through certain levels.

I no longer saw the game as the forefront of gaming (because it came out in 2011, after all) which might not be such a bad thing; I reckon it allows me to see the game as it is, rather than this larger-than-life entity. (Maybe if I ignored the hype around/lowered my expectations of Ocarina of Time I'd enjoy that game more, too....)

Portal 2 is like Portal 1, just more of the same. But they included a co-op, and honestly, there's not a single better coop game in this world. My gf loves it because it's not stressful. It enforces real cooperation and teamwork, not just parallely doing the same thing. The level selection is a bit confusing and little practical, but anyway, this game of couse is outstanding. Even more so the community maps. Thanks to Valve for allowing this in their in-game client without mods.

I think it's the best game ever made imo

I went back to experience this gem of a game on my xbox one x. I had heard the game would benefit from a resolution boost and would run natively at 4k. I came for improved visuals and stayed for what is arguably the best game of the 2010s--at least in my most humble and correct opinion.

The campaign that was crafted to take you back into the world of Chell and Aperture Science is wonderful. I once heard that the 'cabals' that were in vogue at Valve Software, developers of this and the original game, would design the game room by room, moment by moment only to tie everything together with a story later. This game was no exception. As I understand it, one of the main writers Erik Wolpaw was still writing until very late into production. However, the cohesion of the final product would have convinced me otherwise. The final product convinced me story was priority and there from the outset.

All in all, if you're a fan of Portal and haven't played this one, do yourself a favour and make it happen. You know already if you like this brand of humour and light puzzle solving.

Great puzzles, great atmosphere, great dialogue and characters.

Can't really find any flaws in this game. It has secrets to find, dark and funny dialogue, challanging puzzles (obviously this experience will vary depending on how used you are to puzzles and FPS mechanics).

The game does a good job of "going back in time" without any time-travel mechanics.

Overall i love this game, and i come back to it every now and then. These days i just take a day and blow through Portal 1 and 2 in a few hours just to get the dialogue and have some bouncy fun with a portal gun.

Highly recommended if you haven't played it yet.

The puzzle design has been picked apart and analyzed to death, and the story has been painfully quoted across the internet.

Even still, Portal 2 still holds itself up as a landmark in puzzle design with good story elements that manages to bring it up even stronger. And retrospectively it goes without saying that the Aperture Perpetual Testing Initiative has added an even more thorough execution of the gameplay mechanics Portal 2 brings in.

It's brought me joy between each of the comedic chapter moments, and it's brought me satisfaction going through each intricate co-op puzzle. My only real huge complaint is that both the campaign and the co-op never really get an opportunity to squeeze its mechanics dry in terms of really hard-hitting puzzles. It's too easy, really. Even the co-op puzzles never make adequate use of what it's capable of, of which I do acknowledge that the Perpetual testing can.

It's a great puzzle game, I don't really know who hasn't played it at this point but do so if you haven't! (8/10)

Unique, Old, Very inspirational, Valve.

I haven't finished yet, but I obviously recommend to anybody to check it! From the perspective of the time of it's release:

• Unique environments, gun, the gameplay is genial honestly
• With being a puzzle game, puzzle solving not too complicated, its more of a focus - and you got it, I finished around 12 levels the first session of an hour or so..
• Good, unintrusive sound feedback
• Good story deliverance, good voice acting
• It's Valve - you know that it's very well polished / optimized
• One of a kind at the time of its release.