Portal 2 impressions

So eventually a full story will hit the homepage, but for now I'll give you my quick impressions here.

I had an opportunity to sit down behind closed doors at E3 to check out Portal 2.  I'll just say the game is definitely one of my most anticipated titles of next year.  The single player campaign builds off of the update that Valve patched portal with 4 months ago to remove the "ending" of the game. 

What makes Portal 2 different are a bunch of new gameplay dynamics that have been added to the traditional 2 portal types.  Additions include:

Tractor Beam - It is like an aerial tramway for people or items or enemies, and can travel through portals itself.

Aerial Faith Plate - These are basically spring-loaded plates on the ground or walls that launch anything that hits them off at a 45 degree angle

Thermal Discouragement Beams - A new powerful laser that can be focused and redirected using special prism cubes

Pneumatic Diversity Vent - These are basically like a big-ass vacuum.  You can use it to force things into a portal by harnessing it's suction power

Repulsion Gel - There are basically 2 types of this stuff, blue and orange, and it's like a big spew of paint.  Using the blue gel you can paint a surface that was previously un-portal-able to make it portal friendly.  Painting the surface with orange makes the ground "fast" which increases your speed exponentially, making long jumps and other things possible.

Their goal was not to make the game harder, but to increase the diversity of puzzles, and when you hit a level that requires all of these things it's just insane... It will also feature robust 2 player online co-op play.

Since Steamworks is coming to the PS3, Portal 2 will launch on the PC, 360, PS3 and Mac.  The game is in the polish phase now, and will continue until launch...

-Derek "DSmooth" Nolan