Chell wakes up in a crumbling Aperture Science facility after an unknown amount of time in stasis. A cheerful little robot named Wheatley offers to help her escape — and in doing so, accidentally wakes up GLaDOS, the passive-aggressive AI who tried to kill Chell in the first game.
Thinking with portals
The idea is simple: shoot one portal on a wall, another somewhere else, and walk through. Portal 2 builds on it with lasers, light bridges, tractor beams and colourful gels — blue to bounce, orange to run fast and white to make any surface portal-friendly. Every puzzle feels impossible for a minute and obvious once you see it.
A script that never stops
Ellen McLain's GLaDOS delivers insults so dry you'll replay rooms just to hear them again. Stephen Merchant's Wheatley is nervous, chatty and hopelessly out of his depth. And J.K. Simmons appears as Cave Johnson, Aperture's founder, whose recorded messages are some of the funniest lines in gaming.
Better together
A separate co-op campaign gives two players the robots Atlas and P-body, four portals and puzzles that require real teamwork — and a lot of friendly sabotage.
Timeless
Released in 2011, Portal 2 still looks clean and runs on almost anything. Its ending song, Want You Gone by Jonathan Coulton, is the perfect farewell. If you have never played it, this is the easiest recommendation on the list.
