Portal 2: How to Make a Good Sequel

Written by Ryan Johnson (RyanDJ) Tuesday, 17 May 2011 09:00

This article contains plenty of spoilers. I wanted to write a review for Portal 2, but all of my points involve some major plot points, so by now, there's no excuse. SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!

I enjoyed the first Portal. Played it years after it was cool, at one of the recent moments where XBLA had it at half price. It was one of the few games that lately got my non-gaming family members to sit down and watch; the simple physics "first-person puzzler" was brand spanking new. Eventually, I finished it on my own, and enjoyed all of the witty banter and unique puzzle mechanics all the way through the final battle with GLaDOS.

When the second game came out, perhaps I wasn't as hyped as everyone else. I didn't have the "Cake is a Lie" shirt or anything like that. I hadn't been absorbed into the meme. Therefore, every twist and turn in the game was not only unexpected, I was thrown into it thinking I would get another simple story with puzzle elements.

Inside this game, however, I was AMAZINGLY surprised. I feel the developers went a long way to show me that not everyone out there is just looking to make a buck off of us gamers. Below, you will find what I feel that they did, and did amazingly well. If I'm lucky enough to have any developers read this, please take it to heart.

1) Keep what people love. Recognize what people remember, but don't beat a dead horse. A lot of games try to make the sequel bigger and better, and maybe don't pay attention to what people enjoyed. My big example would be Bushido Blade. I was so ticked when I got home with Bushido Blade 2 to find out the whole "get a limb cut and it is no longer useful" was GONE. I remember hobbling through the story mode on one arm before, and now it's all gone??? Portal recognized what people wanted: the simple puzzles. As for the other part of this point: I didn't have cake references hammered into my head, yet the little final cameo of the Companion Cube made me laugh out loud.

2) Ditch what people hate. There were two things that I did NOT like about the original Portal: the pixel-perfect midair shots, and the #&$*@ bouncing balls. Timing the shots, or ensuring the ball goes through the portal and gets the second portal fired before it fizzles out almost made me quit the game a few times. The replacement with the constant laser was wonderful. I couldn't imagine doing a particular puzzle involving jamming three separate lasers through a single portal set with those infernal balls. I also didn't recognize but one puzzle where I was REQUIRED to put a very difficult midair shot in.

3) Have purpose to plot twists, and keep customer loyalty. Wheatley's twist was amazingly perfect. The game had gotten to a point where I could see it ending. It was longer than its predecessor. It would have been disappointingly short at that point, but I could still see it ending. Seeing the elevator turn around, being dropped into nowhere....wow. And then the game had another two thirds to get through! The atmospheric change was a shock, but I enjoyed watching it slowly get more and more modern. Example I am thinking of is Metal Gear Solid 2. I feel that the whole Raiden situation was solely to cause a ruckus. The story could have been done with Snake in control...he was always just tantalizingly there, making you wish you could play as him. When a game is re-released with a sub game fixing a plot twist such as that, you KNOW it didn't go over well at all. As for the Wheatley/GLaDOS replacement? You end up with GLaDOS with you the entire rest of the game.