It’s incredibly difficult to actually criticize Portal 2. At its heart it’s a very simple game, its premise a basic exercise in navigating from A-B, yet everything it attempts, it does so perfectly. Its puzzles are always ingenious, and their difficulty always excellently balanced. What starts out as relatively basic, though still brain-bafflingly solid tests built around portal placement and spatial awareness, gradually evolves into multifaceted, momentum-based, time-sensitive tasks, something utterly intimidating in concept, yet surprisingly feasible when you reach that point in the game. Considering all the different layers often involved, some of the puzzle design here is unbelievably good, and quite how Valve conceived some of the more challenging levels on show here is completely beyond us. If you thought some of Portal 1’s tests were complex, you really ain’t seen nothing yet.

Yet despite the puzzles growing increasingly intricate throughout – particularly in the game’s co-op mode where two portal guns allow for some especially incomprehensible scenarios (and later on, when gels that modify your speed and jump height become introduced) they always avoid becoming overly frustrating; that breakthrough eureka moment somehow always hitting at just the right time.

It’s all thanks to Valve’s pitch-perfect pacing, natural difficulty progression, and the method in which the developer introduces new mechanics. Rather than throwing you in at the deep end, Valve does a brilliantly subtle job at teaching the player by doing, eventually to the point where using gels, manipulating lasers or directing tractor beams feels instinctive – as ridiculous as that may sound. Subtle tweaks, too, like switching Portal 1’s energy balls for lasers, makes the game feel more instantaneous, so that when you do finally figure out the answer to the puzzle, there’s no waiting around for the elements to fall into place.

Besides the puzzles themselves, it’s Portal 2’s frankly brilliant dialogue that will leave players hooked. Portal 2 is the funniest game of the year, with an award-worthy script that manages to put every other game to shame.

It’s arguable that TV funny man Stephen Merchant – who voices the game’s lovable bot Wheatley – is actually too good, regularly leaving us in fits of laughter with his hilarious quips and brilliant one-liners. Just like GLaDOS in the original, he’s what makes the game, astonishingly threatening to outshine J.K. Simmons’ show-stopping work as Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson, and even the cold-hearted, acutely funny robo-bitch herself, a character whose input in Portal 2 we want to avoid discussing completely for fear of revealing any spoilers.

The single-player campaign is stronger than the co-op though, with the total lack of story in the co-op game making it feel more like something tacked on later in development than a well-considered addition. It’s still utterly brilliant, mind, and though it’s restricted to a series of Portal 1-esque challenge rooms, some fantastic design decisions (like the ping tool, for example, which helps partners communicate where to place puzzles is genius), make it one of the better co-op experiences we’ve had to date.

After Valve’s ‘tainted’ history with Sony’s console, we had been expecting to see the PS3 version of Portal 2 suffer in comparison to its counterparts. But thankfully it doesn’t, running at a smooth 30fps and without barely a hiccup. The load times are perhaps too frequent and occasionally a little too lengthy (the 10-15 second load after some of the smaller test chambers can begin to grate), but other than that, there’s really nothing you can point the finger at. And with some excellent Steam features, the PS3 version is easily the better option when it comes to choosing between the console version on offer.

Portal 2 is one of those sequels that outdoes the original by such a margin that it makes its predecessor seem almost irrelevant. The tweaks, dialogue and structure put it on a level with Valve’s, heck, the medium’s very best, easily being the best game we’ve played so far this year, and deserving of being remembered alongside the Half-Lifes, GTAs and Icos of the world. This was a triumph.

“Time for another drop”

Taking over publisher duties this time around, TimeGate Studios are deadly serious about their successor to Section 8. Prejudice includes all of the revolutionary features from the original, including the super-power-enthusing armor, Dynamic Combat Missions and the ability to spawn wherever gamers wish, but our impressions gleamed from a recent session with the sequel was how everything is improved and much larger in scope.

Take the campaign for instance. The original was little more than a glorified tutorial which made little to no effort to explore the universe, but now gamers can expect a five-hour campaign chronicling the war between the USIF and renegade Orion faction. Alex Corde again stars, as the plot kicks off with the Orion faction trying to save a captured general from an enemy stronghold. The opening hour is all about chasing the fleeing prisoner while ensuring you eat as little enemy fire as possible. The campaign still feels like a bot skirmish retooled, with scripted events and higher enemy counts, a la Frontlines: Fuel of War, with cut-scenes to add color.

The developers recognize that the original let down a lot of people in the fiction department, and they’re looking to redeem themselves. That said, the campaign is still just one part of the equation, as players will get to experience new weapons, an enhanced loadout system with new skills which unlock per progression and new DCMs to add more flavor to the typical capture point style game mode. Best described as side missions to the main action, teams will have to complete objectives such as escorting a VIP or achieve a designated kill tally in a certain timeframe. On completion, these extra missions add further tickets to the match counter and grant each player more cash to spend on deployable turrets, tanks, mechs and an all-new anti-gravity speeder.

Section 8 was a shooter about choice and that hasn’t changed, with players still able to enter overdrive (sprint x10), use the jetpack and auto lock-on that allows gamers to track on their target automatically for a short time, charge permitting. Anti-air fire is still a massive headache, restricting your drops to neutral or friendly territory, but the effect of applying the air brakes too late during drops has been nullified. You can still glide to your location, rather than smashing metal-first into the rock, and carry out pitch perfect landings on high ground. Choosing where to spawn still feels as refreshingly different as it did in 2009.

40-player skirmishes will be supported on PC, with all-new maps set on more than just baron rockland and there’s also an expanded in-game stats portal catering for clans and fans alike. Apparently they want to over deliver on fans expectations and it seems Section 8 2 will do that in spades.

“Turning to the Dark side”

If there’s one universal principle, it really isn’t easy trying to describe what Darkspore ‘is’ to other people, at least, not without drawing comparisons. It was once described to us by a friend as a kind of ‘Diablo meets Spore’ setup, but it’s not until you finally get to grips with the game that you realise how apt that comparison really is. Throw some Halo and generic Sci-fi elements into the gaming mix, and you then have an experience that’s both oddly unique and riddled with déjà vu.

The official Action/RPG label works, although it’s definitely more action than RPG. The way the UI is set up, the way you leisurely plod from A to B, exploring every nook and cranny to make sure you haven’t missed anything, while making sure to blast any fools that get in your way is pure dungeon crawler – even if it is on a scientific platform orbiting a black hole.

The Darkspore themselves are very reminiscent of Halo’s Flood, although they lack that kind of nightmarish quality. And then of course you use the Creature Editor from Spore to upgrade, design and manipulate your genetic heroes.

There is a story to follow, but it’s more of a sideshow than anything else, as the experience is geared more towards loot and evolution. The player represents one of the last of a race of beings who were masters of genetics, however in experimenting with a special type of DNA called E-DNA, they inadvertently gave rise to the Darkspore. These inherently evil mutated beings wiped out most of the Crogenitors and ravaged the Galaxy, and it’s up to you and your squad to stop them.

You start off with a handful of ‘genetic heroes’, and venture from world to world wiping out Darkspore, as well as collecting parts to upgrade your squad. Those creatures have levels associated with them, just like your Crogenitor self, and you level up by collecting ‘DNA’ dropped by the enemies that you defeat. The higher your Crogenitor level, the more genetic heroes you can activate, but also certain unlocks in the Darkspore’s in-game store become available for you to purchase as well. For instance, players aren’t granted access to PvP until you get to level 10 and can purchase the unlock. We can see hero management getting tiresome over time, though.

There are several other elements to the game as well, including easy-to-use co-op facilitation. You can team up with buddies for the harder levels and special challenges dubbed Chaining, where you play several levels in succession – without being allowed to re-equip or re-arm – as a bit of a gamble to get rarer rewards.

Darkspore boasts a refreshingly unique approach, and a good evolution of the Spore engine. It’ll be misunderstood, and will probably only appeal to a niche audience at first, but we suspect there’s a good and solid game here that promises hours of fun in both single-player and online. With the added community support features, as well as a focus on collectables, this will be a neat little title for gamers to sink their teeth into, especially if they want something different.