It's nice that you're back.

Now it's time to destroy you.



In 2007, Valve turned the gaming world on its head through the release of a strange side project called "Portal", wherein a player took part in an experiment conducted by an insane computer named GlaDOS to see if they could escape from a series of increasingly intricate and dangerous mazes while armed only with a teleportation gun that activated both an entry and exit portal.

Come April 18th, the nightmare continues, Valve releasing Portal 2, the most anticipated puzzle game of all time the game being simultaneously released on the Mac OS X, Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms via Valve's Steam digital storefront and conventional retailers.



In Portal 2, you'll return as Chell, the protagonist from the original title, only to find yourself trapped in the ruins of the Aperture Science testing facility after having inadvertently reawakened the GlaDOS supercomputer, which begins running you through additional test rooms while reassembling itself.

With every sequel, there's the question as to what's new and what's different. First, and probably the most apparent, is a combination of game environments. Where the first Portal placed you in the midst of a series of high-tech laboratory environments, Portal 2 takes place centuries after the original, title, the once-familiar laboratory environments now partially overrun with wild jungle growth and the testing rooms themselves regenerating after the explosions at the end of the first Portal.

The first Portal made you rethink the possibilities of movement. Portal 2 looks to continue this with the addition of the following devices:

- Repulsion Gel, which can be redirected to cover a surface like a paint, then dramatically boost your speed as you jump and bounce off a suffice. 



- Pneumatic Diversity Vents, which create a vacuum force to suck in otherwise-inaccessible objects through the portals you create.




- Redirection Cubes, which act as mirrored surfaces that help deflect oncoming laser beams.

- Hard Light Bridges, which function as tunnels that can be sent through portals and help you and other objects reach a destination.

- Aerial Faith Plates, which help fling your character or objects you may be carrying across the room.



If players remember one specific thing that made the original Portal great, it was the narrative elements, the voice of GlaDOS (performed by soprano and voice actress Ellen McLain) constantly taunting you, offering pseudo-encouragement and the promise of delicious cake amidst helpful tips as it tried to kill you. Portal 2 looks to up this, your character being assisted by a spherical floating robot named Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant, the UK actor/director/writer of "The Office" fame), who'll happily blather tips, his opinions regarding Aperture Science and anything that may happen to be on its mind throughout the game. This contrasts with the voice of GlaDOS, the title's antagonistic artificial intelligence, whose dialogue in current trailers seems to consist of seething bitterness and a desire for vengeance after being seemingly destroyed at your hands at the end of the first Portal.



After the release of the first Portal, players hankered for a multiplayer mode of any sort, Valve responding to this with a full co-operative campaign mode in addition to the single player mode, company representatives having claimed that both modes will offer about six hours of gameplay. The mode, which has the players take the role of two robots (P-Body and Atlas), generally features much more difficult puzzle rooms than the single player campaign and requires that players work together. Communication with the other player is possible via in-game voice chat and emotions that can be signaled to each other (such as a wave, etc.) while icons can be placed within puzzle rooms to indicate what your partner needs to do to help finish the level. For moments where players are truly stuck on an advanced puzzle, Portal 2 will allow you to activate a split-screen view to help coordinate actions and see where your partner might be and what they might be doing at any time.



Although there will be some familiar elements built into Portal 2, Valve has come forward to state that it won't retread old ground, the "cake is a lie" jokes having been done to death since 2007 and the company having moved on. While it's unsure as to whether the promise of cake won't be in Portal 2 at all and the Jonathan Coulton song "Still Alive" proved to be a breakout hit, representatives have stated that they'll be including geektastic new Coulton music, new jokes and new material into the sequel as opposed to rehashing old memes.

If you bought it for your PS3, you're getting a free copy for your Mac or Windows PC via Steam. Representatives have stated that as part of the PlayStation 3 release, players will be able top unlock the game via the Steam digital storefront, their game progress being saved by linking their PlayStation Network and Steam accounts. Beyond this, the game will support cross-platform gameplay and progress will be saved to the Steam network allowing you to pick up where you left off.

If there's a rule of software, it's this: there will always be patches and updates to come. This has proven apparent as Valve has confirmed that Portal 2 will not support the PlayStation Move controller or 3D television upon release. While this doesn't immediately affect the Mac OS X version of the title, there may be work that needs to be done, especially for upcoming technologies and it never hurts to let the games in your Steam library update upon launch…

Portal 2 is currently available for pre-order at a $44.99 price tag (down from $49.99) and will require an Intel-based Mac running a 2.0 GHz Core Duo or faster processor, Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later, 2 GB of RAM, 7.6 gigabytes of hard disk space and a GeForce 8600M or ATI Radeon HD 2400 or higher graphics card to install and run.

Come April 18th, there will be cake.

And love.