I may be the dumbest genius ever. At least, that’s how I feel after playing Portal 2’s fantastic single-player campaign. Many puzzles in the last third of the eight to 10 hours (perhaps less, depending on how clever you are) of its brain-bending puzzle “test chambers” had me convinced at one point or another that they were completely unsolvable, and that some bug or sadist game designer placed the exit just out of reach. I’d let out exasperated sighs as every attempt met with a dead end. I’d grimace in disapproval as I plummeted to my death for the tenth time. I’d consider surrender.

Then, through either sudden revelation, divine inspiration, or total accident, it would come to me: use the orange Propulsion Gel to reach the energy bridge, then catapult across the chasm and shift my blue portal to the inclined surface (in mid-air, mind you) to launch me up to the ledge, grab the refraction cube and redirect the laser beam to wipe out the turrets and activate the switch! It’s so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now. One half of Portal 2’s brilliance is making me kick myself for not thinking of the impossible; the other is making me feel immensely satisfied with myself when I finally do, again and again.

Note: while we've made every effort to avoid spoilers in this review, you cannot review a game without discussing what it does well and what it doesn't. Be aware that reading any review is going to take some of the surprise out of it.


Test Subject: Dan-01


That achievement is made possible by the wondrous Portal Gun, the game’s sole piece of equipment. Unchanged from the first game (except for some subtle but slick texture work and portals that can be seen through walls, Left 4 Dead-style) the easy-to-use gun reliably casts one orange portal and one blue portal against certain walls, allowing you to magically, instantaneously pass from one to the other, regardless of distance, obstacles, or line of sight, while preserving momentum. It’s the ultimate non-weapon weapon, a sort of physics-based Judo-bazooka that redirects the strengths of energy and objects in motion toward its user’s goals—including the user herself. Wielding it makes me feel more powerful—and smarter—than nearly any other gun in gaming.



The third half of Portal 2’s brilliance is its story. (Yes, third half. If Valve can disregard the laws of physics in its game, I can disregard the laws of math in my review.) Its chambers are cohabitated by hilariously well-written and acted characters that exude personality, despite none of them being technically people. All three major roles rattle off absurd dark humor and petty insults at every turn. Evil robot GLaDOS is in top politely murderous form right from the moment she appears on screen (spoiler alert: she’s still alive!), but Portal’s show-stealing monotone antagonist is challenged for the spotlight by Wheatley, the bumbling, chattering robot who helps you escape.

Fantastically voiced by British actor Stephen Merchant (basically playing the same mind-bogglingly stupid character from the Ricky Gervais comedy Extras), Wheatley’s a doofus AI who makes you turn around while he hacks doors (he can’t do it while you’re watching). Also in the mix is actor JK Simmons, who lends his fittingly cantankerous voice to the founder of Aperture, Cave Johnson, whose comically sociopathic approach to science is second only to GLaDOS’.

Sure, I saw the plot twists coming, but still looked forward to witnessing exactly how the characters would react. Through death, resurrection, revenge, and reversal of fortune, their charm makes what would otherwise be an empty and lifeless world feel boisterous and alive—and more than makes up for the player character being a faceless mute.

It does all this and more while recycling very few of Portal’s greatest comedy hits—there’s nary a nod to dishonest cake, and the beloved Weighted Companion Cube makes only a cameo appearance. And the finale? Not challenging in the least, but a spectacular and extremely clever finish to the story, with extra points for those who’ve paid close attention to Mr. Johnson.

New dimensions

Without changing the nature of the established and celebrated gameplay, Portal 2’s gentle learning curve begins by reintroducing us to its basic concepts, then keeps on introducing new inventions to use with portals until around three quarters of the way through, and chambers become complex jungles of hazardous obstacles. Lasers emitting from walls combine with moveable Refractor Cubes to create the closest thing Portal 2 has to an offensive weapon—an aimable laser—but more often your job is to focus the beam on trigger switches through portals. Infinitely useful Excursion Funnels (levitation beams) and Light Bridges are more than just here-to-there movers—they can be applied to block or push away turrets, halt a catapulting jump before it throws you into oblivion, or help you climb a sheer wall.

I’m a little less wowed by the three flavors of viscous gel, which flow with a hypnotic globular effect from spouts and coat the environment in bouncy, speedy, or portal-receptive ooze. Unlike most of Portal 2’s other devices, these have only a couple of uses at most, and can be difficult to control. It’s a hassle when you’re trying to paint an orange runway up to a blue bouncing patch that launches you through a portal cast on a white patch, only to have an errant blob of blue splash over everything. That’s not to say that it’s not great when your work of physics-defying impressionistic art comes together, of course.



Behind the science

Locations are amazingly varied, as they must be to support this extended-length puzzle-athon without becoming monotonous. Aperture Science has fallen into disrepair in the indeterminate length of time between the greatly exaggerated “death” of its caretaker overlord and now, and many of its once-spotless test chambers are now rusted, grimy, and overgrown with vegetation. Maps shatter in front of our eyes as Aperture collapses on itself, while GLaDOS’ hundreds of robot arms gradually repair and rearrange the chambers piece by piece. All of this scripted activity animates what would otherwise be still and samey-looking rooms due to Portal’s lack of foes other than stationary turrets.

The Aperture facility is far more vast than we could’ve imagined, and the quest to escape leads through its industrial bowels, a cavernous underground sewer-like area, and a long-forgotten retro 1960s version of Aperture, among others. Some areas are so dramatically different that even the basic button triggers and doors have unique looks to them, and everything is impressively modeled and textured, right down to the Easter-egg graffiti hidden throughout. Fine-brush touches extend to the sound, too, such as the wind wooshing in your ears during long drops, or tingly electric chimes that introduce themselves to the background music when you’re speeding on Propulsion Gel. Between puzzles, Portal 2 is full of thrilling showcase moments, such as a mad-dash escape from an angry intelligence that controls the very walls, followed by a surprising take on the boss battle that, without a shot fired, made me feel dangerously out-classed next to my adversary.



Size matters

Right around that time is when the test chambers become increasingly elaborate and intimidatingly huge—to a fault in some cases. These jumbo puzzles are so immense that, even using the handy camera zoom function, spotting the exit can take a few minutes of exploration. Setting out to solve a puzzle when you don’t know what objective you’re working toward is the wrong kind of challenge, and some will find it frustrating. Later levels have multiple contiguous puzzles that can seem like they might never end, and made me miss the pace of the early game where I’d get a refreshing break between challenges.

I always solved them, though. Even though a couple stumped me in a very serious way for up to a half hour, I couldn’t give up until I made it to the other side. If you like a challenge, it’s impossible to put this game aside until you’ve burned through all of it.

Portal 2’s story doesn’t end with the single-player campaign, however. Read on as my co-op buddy Evan takes you through the entirely separate and equally innovative and interesting multiplayer campaign.

Test Subject: Evan-02

Two heads > one

I played the first Portal cooperatively. I always had a backseat driver—a roommate or a girlfriend—hovering over my chair, feeding what-ifs on where to sling my colored ovals. In Portal 2, Valve has officially supported that functionality, allowing you to share the burden of crunching your spatial options with another human brain. With the right sidekick, Portal 2 co-op is some of the most social gaming you’ll have. The occasional headaches that you’d get when you’re stuck alone are alleviated by communication and dimensional horseplay.

You and your partner play as P-body and Atlas, a Pixar-esque Laurel and Hardy droid duo running the testing gauntlet at GLaDOS’s whims in a separate, sillier story. They’re not big talkers, only managing a few expressive squeaks and squeals of triumph and defeat, but their animations are lively and a joy to watch, and they’ve got some amusing celebratory co-op emotes.

Five different testing zones are accessible through a massive hub room, for a total of more than 40 chambers (many of which are multi-part puzzles). Next to the single-player tests these puzzles are doubly complex, but co-op wastes no time babying you with tutorials—it ratchets up the difficulty immediately. Just the second one had us scratching our heads for several minutes trying to wrap our brains around the idea of linking our two sets of portals to achieve even-more-impossible feats that couldn’t be navigated alone.



A handful of puzzles are wonderfully distinct from what you do in single-player: in one, I guided Dan through a contained rat maze of spiked walls that resembled GLaDOS’ grisly version of a Pachinko machine, carefully hopping on and off a pressure pad to reverse the direction of an Excursion Funnel to float him forward, juggling him back and forth to avoid death by giant stompy pile-driver while he cast new portals to change the path of the beam. Several times, Dan created a ceiling-and-floor loop that I’d fall through infinitely, until he re-cast one portal to launch me toward an objective at terminal velocity. Other rooms prompt careful timing: after many minutes pondering one, it finally dawned on Dan that we had to fling ourselves from opposite-facing portals and collide our bots in mid-air in order to safely land on a platform below. Gameplay-driven robot chest-bumps: Portal 2 has them.

On three

For the timing puzzles, there’s an awesomely simple, non-verbal tool for syncing with your partner: holding the F key initiates a three-second countdown timer visible to both players. Two other tools tremendously supplement your (totally necessary) voice communication: marking, which lets you tag any spot or gizmo in the environment with a temporary pointer that’s highlighted on your teammate’s screen, and a seamless picture-in-picture toggle that shows you exactly what your buddy sees in the corner of your screen. Both are effortless to use and completely unimposing to the UI and gameplay, and between the two of them there’s no confusion which acid pool he wants you to help him leap over.

I love the way that trust manifests as a gameplay mechanic, and the instant, painless respawning leaves room for antics: every few stages, I’d grief Dan a little bit by keeping him trapped in a levitation beam, moving a portal to remove the Light Bridge from under his feet, or overwriting his portal with mine at the last moment to steal a launch we’d set up.

These intangibles arise from the complex fun of moving and solving with another person, the most gratifying of which is having a gaming context where you can demonstrate your spark of awareness, creativity, or problem-solving knack. There’s a wonderful reflex when this is about to happen—your eyes widen, a corner of your mouth rises. You’re the only one in the class that knows the answer, and you are about to enlighten your teammate. It almost always starts with, “I have an idea.”



Eureka!

There’s also a fair amount of making fools of yourselves. In one of our prouder moments as a team, Dan and I spent 10 minutes trying to outsmart an Excursion Funnel/Faith Plate combo. We were so busy activating switches and scouting the room for new options that it was some time before I realized that we’d forgotten the most basic part of Portal science: you can walk through the portals, not just send things through them.

From beginning to end, the co-op puzzles are excellent but brief. Dan and I zipped through all 40 in around four hours, which means you’ll be able to finish both the single-player and co-op modes in a long weekend—partly because you won’t want to stop playing. It’s a minor shame that Valve didn’t use co-op as an opportunity for a handful of optional, brutal obstacle courses like Portal’s challenge chambers—some of those take a weekend to work out.

Glad we came

It makes us both a little sad that, having played through once, we can never look at these puzzles—in either single-player or co-op—with those same bewildered eyes again (barring, as Aperture would call it, “a very minor case of serious brain damage”). The included developer commentary, and of course an encore performance from the cast, would be the only things that might make us start playing again after Jonathan Coulton’s new song, “Glad You’re Gone” (which is good, but “Still Alive” is a really tough act to follow) rolls with the credits.

For that reason, our strongest words of caution are to choose your co-op partner carefully. You only really get one shot at these puzzles—don’t waste them with someone who’s already been through, as that would spoil the many surprises and the victory of discovering them for yourself.

We’ll definitely remember all of Portal 2 fondly, though, and as one of the best-written and finely polished gaming experiences in recent memory.

UPDATE: The evaluation is complete! Say congrats to our ten lucky test subjects: Foster Powell, Caleb Thompson, Harmony Michelle Hewitt, Nichole Andrianos, Sean Byron Campbell, Matthew Parrish, Trey Kreis, Jimmy Puente, Cory Monroe, and Vega Vaikyuko! Thanks to everyone who entered—may there be portals in all of your near futures.

The return of GLaDOS is upon us! The Portal 2 launch is tantalizingly close, and it's definitely worth getting excited about. While you watch the seconds tick away, you can pass the time by entering to win a free copy for yourself—if you haven’t already preordered and preloaded—or a prospective co-op buddy. We’ve got 10 to hand out, straight from Valve’s magical Steam code factory (which we assume is powered by pure liquefied unicorn). Hit Read More to find out how to enter, and tell your friends!



How do you enter to win? It's simple: you need only like us on Facebook, then comment on this Facebook post to throw your name in the hat for the random drawing.

Remember, winners will have to accept a Facebook friend request from our prize delivery account to collect your goodies (you can safely de-friend it afterward). Also, you may only enter once.

Since we want to make sure that our winners can play tonight, this contest has a short fuse: we're drawing the winners at 10 PM (Pacific time) tonight. Don't delay - enter now!

City of Heroes launched the game's first series of large-scale raids, called Incarnate Trials, just two weeks ago. We sat down with Nate Birkholz, City of Heroes' Lead Producer at Paragon Studios to talk about what the dev team has learned so far, what's worked well and what hasn't, and how the players have responded to the new addition.



PCG: What was your experience like on day one? Were most players ready to go with full groups, or were they skeptical?
Nate Birkholz: Players were more than ready to go as soon as the servers came up. I hopped onto Virtue, my home server, and immediately started using the Team Up Teleporter to run Incarnate Trials. I spent much of the day playing along with pick-up groups (PUGs) and enjoying the enthusiasm that people displayed for tackling the challenges. I also defeated a couple of Behavioral Adjustment Facility runs back-to-back late in the day, which was very satisfying as a player as well as a developer.

PCG: What size groups have been the most popular in Incarnate Trials so far?
NB: No particular size seems to be more popular . The Behavioral Adjustment Facility requires a League of 12-24 players, and Lambda Sector requires 8-16 players, .

PCG: Are you happy with how the difficulty scaling has worked so far? Is one extreme of group size seeming to have an easier or more difficult time than the other?
NB: We’ve been very happy. The numbers, as well as our personal experiences in the game, indicate that the scaling is working very well. In fact, both the smallest groups and the largest groups have been able to earn the “Master of..” badges that we award for completing the Incarnate Trials as close to perfect as possible.



PCG: What’s your personal preference for raid size?
NB: I like about sixteen players. I feel like that size gives a great cross-section of archetypes and gives a lot of tactical flexibility. Fortunately, the endgame scaling is working well, as I noted, so it’s fun with any number of players, but that size just feels right to me.

PCG: What boss encounter design do you think has been the most successful so far? Are there any encounters that you feel need to be tweaked?
NB: Players were regularly defeating the Siege and Nightstar battle first, but we expected to see that. The Marauder battle is more integrated into how successful you are with the rest of the Lambda Sector Incarnate Trial, so we knew it would take a bit longer to get into the groove of his fight. We are seeing players defeat Marauder now that more and more people are familiar with how the event works.

PCG: What are the most popular Incarnate Powers so far?
NB: The Judgment and Lore powers are very visual, and players are really digging them a lot.



PCG: What are your personal favorite Incarnate Powers?
NB: As a tank, I really dig the Interface powers. The debuff proc I have been using reduces enemies’ chance to hit, and that quickly adds up to some real survivability for me and my team.

PCG: Looking back at the first week of the new endgame, what lessons have you learned already?
NB: We have had the Incarnate Trials in beta since last Autumn, so a lot of the really big lessons are well behind us. One lesson we learned during beta is that players are very determined to defeat any encounter, no matter how big the challenge. They will keep trying to win even after the tide of battle has clearly turned against them and they're no longer making headway. Players underestimate their power and skill at times, but that doesn’t affect their spirit.

PCG: How are you going to apply that lesson to future content?
NB: We learned that every stage of an Incarnate Trial has to have a way of ending , or players will just keep going--until server maintenance if they have to.

PCG: If you could summarize the average player’s feedback on the patch so far, what would it be?
NB: “We want more Incarnate Trials!”

What do you think, heroes and villains: Is everything peachy in the Incarnate Trials, or what would you like to see changed?

UPDATE: The Day 6 winners have been chosen! Give a cheer for Eric Lyon, Brandon Banks, Hunter Hill, Tom Lau, Genel Jumalon, Trevor O'Connor, Brad Botts, Kagami Sherleng, Richard Hall, and Victor Zhang. Thanks again to to those who entered during our week of contests and helped us reach 100,000 likes! Who knows...maybe we'll give away 200 games for 200k?

Our 100 Games Giveaway just got upgraded— say hello to the 110 Games Giveaway! That's right--we're a mere 500 likes away from hitting the big 100k, and we want to celebrate the only way we know how: by giving away more free loot! Want to win a Steam copy of Monday Night Combat or Homefront? What are you waiting for?! GOGOGOGOGOGO ONE-HUNDRED THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND! Click Read More to find out how to enter!



Phew—now that we got that out of our system, here's how to enter. All you have to do is to simply “like” PC Gamer on our Facebook page (if you haven’t already), then comment on this Facebook post, and you’re automatically entered in our random drawing! Remember, winners will have to accept a Facebook friend request from our prize delivery account to collect your goodies (you can safely de-friend it afterward). Also, you may only enter once per day.

Before we forget and/or hyperventilate from all the excitement, here are the lucky winners from Friday's leg of the giveaway:

Keegan Taber
Richard Almaraz
Ted Moke
Alavanh Chanthasaly
Va Du
James Marsh
Jesse Starkey
Tom Donoho
Justin Kayce
Cassandra Lynn Dail
Aaron Bartels
Steve Williams
Robert Ikola
Jillian Werner
Michael Martinez
Dennis Taylor
Annette Xiong
Jeff Krause
Connor McGuire
Daniel Schlachet

Let's face it: ninjas ought to be a part of our daily lives. With the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fading into nostalgic memory and Ninja Gaiden shunning the PC, gaming could definitely use more of the stealthy spies. MOBA games are no exception, and S2 Games is about to help fill the ninja-void with the latest addition to Heroes of Newerth. Pack your throwing stars, we've got the world-first look at this female footsoldier before she's patched in this Friday.

We've only been given a very rough framework of how Silhouette will play, as S2 Games wants to keep you on your toes in anticipation for Friday, Rebecca Black style. That means ability names without descriptions and no in-game screens. But what we have, we share freely with you!

S2 Games describes Silhouette
Role: Silhouette is a ranged Agility hero based around quick, unpredictable movements and attacks. She's definitely got carry potential, but also houses an array of early game action tools to let her get in the fray early on. Silhouette has the arsenal of any self-respecting ninja: she owns a vast collection of shiny throwing projectiles, and always has her trusty grappling hook with her. Ninjas are tricky, and Silhouette is no exception; even her Shadow is a weapon.



Abilities:

Death Lotus
Tree Grapple
Relentless Salvo
Shadow

 
Playstyle: Silhouette's combat style reflects her creative and resourceful nature. She uses her blades defensively and offensively, at both close quarters and long distance. Her grappling hook is a versatile tool for her to gain combat mobility or take advantage of the power of a nice, strong piece of wood. Silhouette's Shadow allows her to almost be in two places at once, and she prefers to execute her foes in a quick and painful flurry.



 
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present:
PC Gamer's 100% Pure Speculation Breakdown ®
Silhouette seems like she'll be the perfect "poke" hero, constantly tossing out spells at her opponents to both annoy them and whittle down their health bit by bit. Here's what we can gather for her abilities (with some bonus ninja-trivia): the Death Lotus is a weapon that looks like it's composed of four kunai, and will most likely be Silhouette's bread-and-butter skill, used to harass enemy heroes or ensure last hits on creeps. Tree Grapple, represented by a kusari-gama, sounds like a highly-skill-based ability, allowing Silhouette to pull herself to a nearby tree, enabling her to both escape ganks and catch up to her prey--if your micro is good enough. The mention of Tree Grapple giving the "power of a nice, strong piece of wood" (get your mind out of the gutter) suggests that successfully connecting with this ability may grant some bonus damage.

Relentless Salvo sounds like an AoE spell that rains down shuriken on the target area, letting you zone out your opponents or just pester them with constant damage. Lastly, Silhouette's ultimate, Shadow, evokes images of DotA's Spectre and her Haunt ultimate ability (perhaps better known as the Sand Wraith in HoN), only this seems like it'll be single target. Shadow might create a copy of yourself that will stalk the enemy; if it's anything like Spectre's ult, you'll be able to swap places with the copy on the fly to confuse enemies or rack up damage.

So that's our take on Silhouette based on the info released so far; how 'bout yours? Let the speculation run rampant until this shadowy shinobi goes live on Friday, April 22nd!

It's been a good day for great screenshots. We finally got a proper look at Prey 2's Blade Runner style environments, and saw even more of great shots of Skyrim. The Rage trailer also gave us a five minute dose of impressive mutant blasting from one of the game's ruined cities. It's to early to know just how good these games will be, but one thing's for sure, the future of PC gaming is looking very good indeed.

Of course, there's much more going on than the choice videos and shots listed above. As always, read on for your daily bucket of sloppy, newsy goodness.


Time for a misty-eyed trip down memory lane with rose tinted spectacles on. A database of old issues of Computer Gaming World.
Gamespot have a look at The Sims 3: Generations.
UK group Gamer's Voice attack a channel 5 program for blaming a killing spree on video games, and showing footage of 18 rated Call of Duty at 11am in the morning.
Interstellar Marines has managed to raise $125,000 through fan funding.
IncGamers interview Dirt 3's lead designer about the upgraded car handling of the sequel.
Battlestar Galactica Online gets a free update
Bigpoint announce that the free-to-play Battlestar Galactica MMO has recruited 1 million people in the first six weeks.
Crytek say they feel restricted by the"crippling" limitations of current console generation.
A Settler's 7 co-op patch is set to hit today alongside a new DLC pack.
Here's a trailer for the new Green Lantern game.

 
Today in the PC Gamer office, Owen and Rich have been facing off in Nidhogg, a game about stabbing your friend and running over his corpse to victory. It's hilarious. Here's a video of Tom fighting Graham.

Skyrim was shown off at a secret location in Utah last week, which has given rise to some fantastic new screens for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Venture below for cat men, dragons, undead warriors and some lovely scenery.

Skyrim's due out on November 11, for more info check out the official Skyrim site or LOOK OUT A GIANT SPIDER!

Dead City isn't as dead as you'd think. in fact, it's swarming with mutants, but it looks oh-so-pretty, if a little grey. The five minutes of footage above is longest look at the game we've had yet. See more of the desert wasteland in the previous Rage trailer, or visit the Rage site for more on the game. Rage is coming out on September 13 in the UK, and September 16 in Europe.

Here are five new Prey 2 screens, arriving hot on the heels of the two first images, which showed a futuristic bar fight and some fantastic concept art. The screens below show how that concept art will translate into the game, and give us a look at some of the weird looking aliens that will populate Prey 2's futuristic city. Is the alien at gunpoint happy or frightened? You decide.

Blizzard have been talking about how the huge amounts of randomisation will help Diablo 3 to stand out from the crowd of action RPGs. Diablo 3's randomly generated dungeons will host randomly assigned quests, and monsters you fight in these dungeons will have changing power sets, meaning you can run the same dungeon over and over again, and still encounter plenty of variety. On top of that, Diablo 3's runes system is set to bring an enormous amount of customisation to the game's skill trees, meaning character development will be even more complex and addictive than it was in Diablo 2.



Speaking to Atomic Gamer, Lead Content Designer Kevin Martens gave his thoughts on how randomisation will keep Diablo 3 fresh. "So the fact that we have random dungeons, random monsters, random loops, pretty much random everything. Every time you go around a corner in a dungeon, you don’t know if you’re going to see a brand new quest that you’ve never seen before. You might see the same monster, but with totally new powers. You might see a totally different monster."

"We’ve added way more quests, more variety of quests. We’ve randomized the quests, and have these sort of quests that are self contained. For example, if you enter a dungeon in Diablo III, there might be somebody standing at the entrance, like a treasure hunter, saying, “Hey, I heard stories about the Idol of Rygnar is hidden somewhere in this dungeon. Help me find it and you can share in the reward.” Then you go through the dungeon and protect this guy. Then you’ll find the idol and you’ll get the reward. People will turn on you…you’re never quite sure what is going to happen. We’re adding all those random elements all over the world. There is way more quest content overall than Diablo 2, period.

"That aspect of it is one of the things that Diablo is most well-known for, and I think that we do that better than anyone. I think that’s the feather in our cap."



Martens went on to talk about the levels of customisation the runes system will allow. Runes can be applied to the game's abilities to give them wildly different effects.

"You can take a witchdoctor power called “Plague of Toads“, and turn you into a giant toad. It literally swallows the enemy and spits out the gold inside of them and so on. So the customization is extraordinarily huge. It’s astonishingly re-playable."

Sadly there's still no release date for Diablo 3, though Blizzard are aiming to get it out this year. Hopefully we'll learn more about the game at E3. Until then, there's plenty of screens and info on the official Diablo 3 site.