While at PAX East 2011 Valve treated gamers to a first look at the single player aspect of Portal 2. Everything till now has been focused on the co-op and what it entails. While it was actually not playable and video at that, it did however give us insight on what we can expect when the game drops this April.
The opening starts us off with Chell awaking in a standard looking room. She is then run through some movement tutorials to make sure everything is functioning properly. She then needs to return to bed but when awoken it seems that you’ve been out alot longer then expected. Wheatly is the labs core that looks over everything and pops in to explain a couple of key things that Chell should know. The amount of time passed that she had been asleep for can only be described in a way in which she should be a vegetable by now.
Wheatly then runs another set of tests to make sure that Chell can do basic functions because she may have a mild case of Major brian damage. The tests don’t go exactly as planned but none the less she is escorted out of there because that area is going to have a power outage soon. The room itself is then manually piloted by Wheatly to be taken to another part of the facility. You can already tell that things are unstable at best as the room starts to fall apart once in motion. He then does a “manual override” on the docking station (which is plowing the entire room into it) to get you on your way. The once great aperture science center is now in ruins but that doesn’t leave you without experiencing this place new. This is only some of what we experienced while getting to see the play through in action.
We also got a bit of one on one time with one of the games developers at Valve and gave us a quick briefing of things regarding Portal 2. The games single player length is about 3-4 times bigger then the original Portal. While the games co-op campaign is about two times the size of Portal in length. The two will also intertwine with each other in terms of story. Steam will also work on all platforms that support it as cross platform play, which means that the PS3, PC and Mac versions can get in on the co-op action together.
Portal 2 looks to be a great ride and from what we’ve witnessed it’ll have plenty of laughs and challenging puzzles to keep you and friends busy when it comes out April 19th 2011 for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Mac.
