As a casual, female, would-rather-be-outdoors gamer, I suppose I represent a portion of the market that games companies really need to get their heads around, if they are going to sell more titles outside of the (admittedly large) pool of “serious” gamers who will buy anything where you either get to use lots of guns, or drive things very very fast. With this in mind, I’m writing a game review – despite not being the best person of the Shitrunstop team to do it – because I’m telling myself that my opinions are important. Also, no other bugger is writing anything for the site, so I’m all you’ve got.

I was bullied into buying Portal 1 by my boyfriend who I think was frustrated that – at the time – I refused to give any game that wasn’t the World of Warcraft any time at all. Generally I hate first person games. The narrow field of view constantly pisses me off and I crane my neck trying to see around the edge of the screen, moving the curser way too fast and spinning around in a frenzy trying to work out which way is up. I do love puzzles though, and in-game humour, and robots that want to kill people in unnecessarily elaborate ways.

Portal and I clicked instantly. I loved tearing though the easy levels, like I was some kind of super-brain. I loved the trial and error of the harder levels and that great feeling when you finally crack it. I loved throwing things into an infinite falling loop, and I loved listening to GLaDOS talk shit at you the whole way through.

For me, Portal was a breath of fresh air – finally a game you didn’t need to be able to point your mouse with insane accuracy to be good at. A game where you got to use your brain, and where the high moments didn’t just come from “Ha ha you’re dead” situations.

When Portal 2 came out I was well on board. Vince and I decided to play through the single player stuff individually, and then go on to the co-op. Straight away I could tell that this game was on a much larger scale than its younger brother, not least because they’d paid Stephen Merchant to witter on in an entertaining way as Wheatley. I think this was a good move, although I understand how some people got sick of him – especially if you’re well acquainted with his very similar TV personas. But for me it really helped pull Portal 2 away from Portal 1.

Portal 2, in my mind, has four stages. The first is the reorientation stage – all the puzzle mechanics are the same, it’s familiar – though not too familiar thanks to Wheatly’s company and the fantastic job the artists did at making the facility seem as if it’s falling apart – and it’s back to the same old fun. It reminds you why you loved Portal 1.

In stage 2 you find yourself behind the scenes of the facility. This is exciting – it’s new, it’s dark and it’s scary (lots of places you can just fall off into oblivion) and it’s showing you a side of Aperture Science you were wondering about whilst playing through Portal 1. And even though most of it is just running through looking at cool stuff, it’s a great part of the game for its heightened sense of danger, and anticipating what is coming next.

Stage 3 is back to testing. But now you’re being shown new puzzle mechanics. There are new ways of solving things. The cockiness you’ve built up re-playing Portal 1 and throughout stage 1 is all gone, and you are back to “how the fuck..?” You have to learn completely new ways of using your portals. Think outside the box indeed.

Stage 4 is the icing on the cake. You get to bust out of the normal testing areas and put all your old and new-found skills to the test in a completely different environment. You’ve no idea where you’re going throughout this stage. There is no nicely signed exit with arrows pointing the way and no handy signs at the door should you get completely stuck. There’s more cool stuff to look at, interesting back-story unfolding as you go, and - of course – a robot is trying to kill you.

There are negatives. In Portal 1 everything was new. By the time you are playing Portal 2 you kind of know how things are supposed to work and you find yourself just picking stuff up and using it, without having worked out how that will help you. You just pick up a cube and put it on the button because you know that if there’s a cube and a button, that’s what you’ll have to do. If there’s a non-portal wall between you and where you want to be, but a hole right in the middle, you know you have to shoot through the hole. Similarly in stage 4 you often end up with so few surfaces that will accept portals that, when you see one, you know that’s where your portal goes.

But the Portal 2 devs have done a great job in minimising this in adding new stuff and in giving the facility a new breath of life with the behind-the-scenes areas, broken puzzle rooms, overgrown areas etc. I was a bit sad to see the Companion Cube and the cake references disappear, but I can completely understand the developers’ needs to get shot of them after 4 years of memes.

Length-wise I remember thinking at one point in stage 3 that I was getting a bit tired, but as it turned out I was one puzzle away from the next stage of the game. I was sad when it was over, and launched pretty quickly into the co-op with Vince so that we could still get our fix.

I look forward to new DLC for Portal 2 as it’s always nice to have new puzzles to solve. However I don’t know if a Portal 3 is needed. Valve did a really good job with Portal 2, but unless they can come up with something else that is different enough to keep us all interested, but similar enough that we’ll all love it as much, I really don’t think it’s necessary, and I hope that it isn’t done just for a bit of cash. However I get the feeling that the makers of Portal aren’t those kinds of guys, so it’s all good.

As that casual, female, got-other-things-to-do gamer, Portal 2 was pretty much spot-on for me. The only thing I’ll say is that I don’t think the game was marketed enough. I know a lot of people who are also very casual gamers, who I know would love a game like Portal, but have never even heard of it. I don’t think I’d have heard of it if it weren’t for my boyfriend having Steam at the time of the Orange Box and Portal 1, and that would mean I would have missed out on two really awesome games.

 9.5/10