Portal 2 - Xbox 360

If you're one of the few people who needs Portal 2 explaining: it's the follow-up to Valve's 2007 physics-based puzzler that was named, 100% appropriately, Portal. In both games, you're Chell, a test subject made to jump through an increasingly brain-scrambling array of hoops that also double up as holes in the fabric of space. Testing out a portal gun under the watchful (and double-demonic) eye of AI GLaDOS, you have to navigate various hazards and obstacles to get through test chambers and stay alive.

Completing the puzzles demands the creative use of the portals and the sometimes freaky effects they create. For example, a prominent feature of the first game were the puzzles that required you to jump from a great height to acquire momentum that would then fling you out on a horizontal axis over a gap blocking your way. See?

This time out, Valve has added length, scope and new gameplay features to create something that will stretch your brain in awkward directions in the best possible way. For example, you'll now find laser redirection cubes that you can combine with portals to hit eight different targets with one single death ray.

There's also plenty more plot for the sequel, centring around... nah, we're not actually about to tell you. But, needless to say, there's a bigger feel to this chunkier sequel.

The biggest advance in Portal 2, however, has to be the co-op play. This is a bespoke mode separate to the single-player levels that has most definitely been designed for two players. This is the complete opposite of campaign modes that you can find a skinny extra layer of depth in if you add a second player. This is a significant chunk of the game that you just could not do without a second player.

Portal 2 will give your brain a right old hammering, and you'll love every minute of it. more