Players can use portals to redirect lasers and light bridges, two of the new mechanics from Valve’s ‘Portal 2.’

I had Portal 2 spoiled for me by a man who posted the major plot twist in the title of a thread on the game’s official forums­—an instant permanent ban. Now, I usually don’t mind if something is spoiled for me, so as disappointed as I was, I didn’t get too angry. Then I reached the twist. The twist that would have been that so much more powerful if I hadn’t seen it coming. Suffice to say that there now exists a person whose day I’d like to ruin.

It takes a special game to drive me to retribution, but Portal 2 awakes my bloodlust in a quiet, convincing fashion. It is not a perfect game, however. I’d go so far as to say that it’s not the best portal-based puzzler Valve could have made, even after eons in development. It may sound odd, but you heard it here first: Portal 2’s single player is a masterpiece due to its story and presentation, and not the portals.

But let’s begin with the portals anyway. There’s still a portal gun, and it does nothing different­—but then again, it didn’t need to. Valve opted for simplicity, instead introducing additions in the form of new things that go through portals. The fanciest additions are colorful blobs of gel that have different effects when splashed on surfaces.

It may seem like too many variables to juggle at once, but Valve has carefully introduced each new mechanic before combining it with other elements. The puzzles are nothing short of sublime. Thanks to endless playtesting, each chamber is built so that it is immediately clear what must be done, while leaving the player to figure out how to do it. As any Portal veteran will attest to, the feeling of sheer cleverness that comes from solving each chamber is so satisfying it should be bottled and sold in stores.

There’s no mistaking the ingenuity of the puzzles on display in Portal 2, but I can’t help but feel that Valve went a bit too far in easing players into each addition. There’s a shortage of larger puzzles that combine all the different elements, and this is true even toward the end of the game. Perhaps it would have been a bit too messy, but I would have liked to see crazier, multifaceted chambers that take advantage of all the new mechanics.

My other complaint is that the first half of the second act focuses on exposition. Without spoiling much, it is the most tedious part of the game, at times almost reducing Portal 2 to a hidden object game. I understand what Valve was trying to do, but unfortunately it drags down the middle section of a game marked by otherwise flawless pacing.

Portal 2 might have the finest writing to come out of the games industry in recent memory. Writers Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek are masters of dark humor, using dialogue to shift the tone from twisted to facetious at the flick of a switch. The narrative is so excellent that I’m actually running out of superlatives to describe it. Case in point: the potato. You’ll get it when you play it.

The ending, a point where so many games fall to pieces, is handled particularly well. It feels appropriate and satisfying, but more than that, it feels right. And the voice acting sets an industry standard—Ellen McLain as GlaDOS, Stephen Merchant as Wheatley and J.K. Simmons as Cave Johnson made me stop and pause for minutes on end just to hear more dialogue. Then there are the incidental details, like the Rat Man’s secret hideouts and the defective turrets, which make the game that much more charming.

Portal 2 is beyond special. It may lack the brevity of the first, but what it lacks in focus it makes up for in vision and scope, while still delivering an immensely personal story. If you have any affection for Chell or GlaDOS, the seven or eight hours that comprise Portal 2 single player will be among your best this year.