Portal 2

On March 5, 2010 Lead designer for Portal, Kimberly Swift, announced the sequel to Portal, created by Valve Software and one of the included games with 2007's The Orange Box. The original Portal is a hybridpuzzle/first-person shooter.

It is expected to be released during the 2010 holiday season for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Xbox 360 platforms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_2

Portal 2 will continue to challenge the player by solving puzzles in test chambers within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the "portal gun", a device that can create two portals connecting two surfaces across space. Players solve puzzles by using these portals to move unconventionally between rooms or to use the ability to "fling" objects or themselves across a distance.

The single-player portion of Portal 2 introduces a cast of dynamic new characters, a host of fresh puzzle elements, and a much larger set of devious test chambers. Players will explore never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs and be reunited with GLaDOS, the occasionally murderous computer companion who guided them through the original game.

The game’s two-player cooperative mode features its own entirely separate campaign with a unique story, test chambers, and two new player characters. This new mode forces players to reconsider everything they thought they knew about portals. Success will require them to not just act cooperatively, but to think cooperatively.

Portal 2 takes place hundreds of years after the first game. Despite her apparent destruction at the end of Portal, GLaDOS remains functional. The player controls Chell, the same from Portal.

The game will take place in the Aperture Science Labs, untouched by human hands but overrun by decay and nature. The player will interact with many of the numerous personality cores, which have become active in the intervening years, using the automated systems of Aperture Science to create their own microcosms within the facility. The cores themselves are unable to move save through overhead rail systems which is what awakens Chell from placement in stasis.

Wheatley acts as the player's guide during the tutorial and initial stages. Wheatley has become concerned for the state of decay and seeks to correct it. Soon, the two are introduced to GLaDOS, who is quick to accuse Chell of murdering her years ago.

Two new characters will be introduced for the two player cooperative mode, which will have its own unique plot and setting. These two yet-to-be-named characters include a modified turret gun and a personality core. Though once part of the networked facility, they have become separate entities, and are treated to similar abuse by GLaDOS as Chell is, being put through a series of complicated test chambers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_2#cite_ref-gi_reveal_2-9

After receiving high praise and proving its gameplay, Valve determined that Portal 2 should be its own product, and are committing more resources to the development than they did for the first game to its release.

Portal 2 was designed to give the player incremental steps in understanding portals and their use within the game. This led to two basic types of chambers. The first type, which Valve calls "checklisting", provides a relatively safe environment for the player to experiment with a fundamental aspect of a new gameplay concept. The second type of chamber is one that combines these elements in new ways to make the player think laterally, giving the player a rewarding experience for completing the chamber http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/03/17/thinking-with-portals-making-a-test-chamber.aspx

The artists, for Portal 2, gave Chell a more utilitarian outfit, a hat, envisioned by the artists to help keep Chell's appearance as a test subject similar to test pilots, and adorned hat with the number 6 to serve as a tracking means for the facilities' computers. They also designed Chell to appear physically capable of completing the test chambers, but with some vulnerability. The two robotic characters created for the co-operative mode were original based on designs similar to the movie Westworld, looking more human and less robotic.

New to Portal 2 is a gameplay feature that includes a paint mechanic which can alter the physics of surfaces coated with paint. Designers found that this gave players more control over the game world. But due to the various possibilities of the paint mechanics the chamber designer had to be more devious with their solutions.