One of the best “surprises” of E3 came during the Sony press conference. When it looked like things were winding down, the hyper passive aggressive voice of GLaDOS sounded through the arena. With GLaDOS’s voice came the trailer for Portal 2.
Seen below, years have passed since the escape from Aperture Science where players thought they had killed GLaDOS. Even though there was no cake at the end of the road as promised, players were thrilled to make it out alive.
Now, player’s return to Aperture Science and find themselves in wholly new uncovered and converted sections of the facility. Still using the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device (or simply the portal gun), players must endure an ever increasingly difficult series of puzzles based on physics, timing and sometimes plain luck to make it back out alive… and hopefully finally get the cake.
As you will see in the videos below, they have introduced a series of new physics items to help and hinder the progress through the levels of the game. All of these objects can be sent through the portals created by the portal gun as well. The Excursion Funnel acts as a tractor beam to push and pull objects and people through a level. Ariel Faith Plate is a fancy name for a trampoline which launches players in predetermined directions.
The Thermal Discouragement Beam is a bright red laser that can be used both as a weapon through the use of reflective blocks and as a key to open exits to levels. Pneumatic Diversity Vent is kind of like the tubes you see at drive up banks and pharmacies that suck everything up and spit them out at the other end.
Repulsion Gel, for lack of a better term, is Flubber. Other than being blue instead of green, it takes on all the properties of the super bouncy gel. Propulsion Gel acts as an oil slick to help players speed through areas where making a portal to the other side isn’t an option.
It’ll be great to see what other new items get put into Portal 2 before its 2011 release date on PlayStation 3, PC and XBox 360. Those already in are exciting and have shown how a game with a portal gun “gimmick” has been able to continue to evolve and be thought provoking and creative instead of just revisiting the same format over and over again.
Get a first look at the gameplay of Portal 2 below and keep it here as we bring you more information on the upcoming sequel as we get it.
