Portal 2 is one of the most perfect games ever created. GlaDOS, Wheatley, the propulsion gel, two-player co-op. Portals puzzles of absolute ingenuity, brilliant humorous narrative. Perfect score completely deserved.
Your verdict
Category
Puzzle2 players12+
Co-op
Split screen
Description
Valve sequel to the reference Portal, adding online cooperation and new puzzle elements. Published by EA, released in Europe in April 2011. Extended story mode with GLaDOS and Wheatley, two-player online cooperative mode with dedicated puzzles, new thermal propulsion elements, and reference humorous writing by Erik Wolpert. Puzzle reference.
Portal 2 review
MAX
Art direction
★★★★★
"Iconic"
MAX
Music
★★★★★
"Legendary"
MAX
Story
★★★★★
"Masterful"
An aesthetic of sterile laboratory contrasting with ruins overgrown with vegetation: the game plays the clean against the decayed with rare intelligence. The readability of the settings and the visual humour directly serve the puzzles. This art direction, pared-down and clever, stands as a model of design in service of gameplay.
Between chilling laboratory electro and ingenious sonic tinkering, Aperture Science's music accompanies the puzzles with a deadpan intelligence. Jonathan Coulton's brilliant "Want You Gone" crowns the adventure with a touch of cult humour. This sonic identity, minimal and brilliant, makes the whole singularity of the game.
Woken in an abandoned laboratory, a mute test subject must outwit the traps of artificial intelligences as funny as they are cruel. Beneath the spatial puzzle hides a black comedy of sparkling writing, carried by cult dialogue. A rare puzzle game that makes you laugh as much as it makes you think, it became a benchmark.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Punching two portals to reroute momentum and gravity turns every room into a spatial riddle of fearsome elegance. The gradual introduction of gels and beams constantly renews the thinking. A model of first-person puzzling, it preserves a crystal-clear logic and an inventiveness whose ingenuity hasn't aged a day.
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
Solving spatial puzzles with a portal gun that defies logic, in a world of irresistible dark humour: every solution delivers a gleeful flash of genius. The co-op mode, designed for two brains, multiplies the fun and the laughter. Brilliant, clever and superbly written, a puzzle game of rare intelligence that leaves a lasting mark on anyone who plays it.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Punching portals to defy gravity and solve ever-craftier test chambers delivers the thrill of the click you instantly want more of. Each puzzle cleared opens a fresh mechanism that renews the curiosity. Its length stays measured, but the ingenuity of its brainteasers and its hilarious writing grip you from start to finish, alone or in co-op.
A sequel to Valve's cult puzzle game, unanimously hailed as one of the best puzzle games ever made, with a memorable co-op mode. Printed widely, it stays accessible and lightly priced. Its desirability lies in its aura as a puzzle masterpiece on physical media, especially for a publisher gone fully digital, more than in manufacturing scarcity.
Better with friends
A first-person puzzler whose co-op mode, designed specially for two, rests entirely on communication and synchronizing portals. Mutual aid is mandatory and joyful: solving a puzzle with two brains, after a thousand tries, brings unmatched satisfaction. Playable in local split-screen, its deadpan humor and ingenious puzzles make it a high point of two-player gaming.
Is Portal 2 still worth playing in 2026?
Portal 2 ranks among the most accomplished games ever made, a peak of game design and comic writing. Its portal puzzles, of an ingenuity that keeps reinventing itself through propulsion gels and other mechanics, reach an exemplary elegance and fluidity of learning, never frustrating despite their demand. The humour, carried by GLaDOS and the irresistible Wheatley, ranks among the medium's most brilliant. The two-player co-op mode, entirely original, extends the campaign's genius. Nothing has aged here. For anyone who loves thinking tinged with the absurd, this timeless masterpiece is quite simply essential.
