Welcome everyone to Giff & Cox's Co-Op Review! This Blog is dedicated to co operative games and that is it. We do a simple review and give a letter grade for each game. The rubric used is quite simple consisting of 3 main parts, Story, Game Play, and how it fairs as an actual co-op game. We then give the dreaded grade. Without a further a due we will start with our first review on Valve’s newest installment of PORTAL dutifully entitled PORTAL 2. Since its release in April Valve has made just over $7 million dollars, selling well over 150,000 units in the states. This is only 20,000 less units then Call of Duty: Black Ops. With a distributer like EA I mean where can you go wrong. Honestly look at their founder Trip Hawkins.
This man screams business and with a name like that you would think he would look more like a ski instructor from the 80’s.
Go ahead and jump on the double black diamond. I dare you!
When Cox and I went to our local Wal-Mart it was a lively midnight gathering. There was your normal Wal-Mart crowd of morbidly obese red neck shemales with mullets, you know the usual. We scooped up the game and jetted back to pop it in the Xbox. I signed in as my usual tag (Pick It Up X2) and Cox (Zangoose) as we dove head first.
The first thing that must be mentioned here is that there are two different stories depending on what mode you play. As you can imagine we played the co op version. As we got dropped (literally) into our new characters we are greeted by the ever familiar GLADOS. Her voice has not change and neither has her hatred for humans which makes here more acceptable towards our characters. In co op mode you play as Atlas and P-Body.
These two are very interesting and were created by GLADOS to solve these test chambers. If you succeed you are rewarded by getting disassembled. The games story over all is pretty simple, you solve a level and get one step closer to more test subjects.
As far as the game play is concerned it is very simple but at the same time complex. There are not many buttons or controls but you need to understand the games mechanics in order to succeed. The level design was amazing and made the game challenging. There were moments of “ah-ha” made the each level flow. Valve incorporated three new elements to the game.Two types of “goo” which either made you go faster or made you bounce, a never ending laser bridge and a wind tunnel that moved you as you entered it.
As far as the cooperative experience was enjoyable as long as you played with someone you know. We liked how the robots were given humanoid traits. We also liked how GLADOS hated when you displayed these traits using your D-pad. There were moments in the game were the two robots were separated but still needed to work together to stay alive. Even though when you killed each other there was still an enjoyable moment attached. Over all Ryan and I played this game with a smile on our face and had no complains what so ever. This is why we gave the Portal 2 an A+. Valve really delivered on this one and if you haven’t played it yet we suggest you go out and buy a copy. Do not rent, buy this game. You will not be upset you did.
