PC game great moments: Shooting the moon on Portal 2
The epic moments in PC games are small-scale celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Gate 2
Year: 2011
Developer: Valve
Years later, I still couldn’t get Portal 2 out of my head. I remember my first playing during my first year of high school, browsing through innovative puzzles and constantly thinking to myself, “How does this game start so well and never stop?” I wanted to keep hitting my head forever in the latest test room as GladOS reconciles with the look of its potato and Whitt does its best to look like it is a threat. It was my little paradise that cracks the riddles.
As much as I feared the end, it was for the better. The heyday of Portal 2 takes the great game to a near perfect level. The final chapter of Portal 2 is a bombardment of time-sensitive puzzles designed to showcase the part of the brain that you have been growing in for the past 10 hours. Light bridges, tractor beams, turrets, bombs, gels – nothing is forbidden as Wheatley tries and fails to smash the chill between the serrated steel panels he is so proud of.
Then you reach Wheatley’s humble lair in the final showdown. Is fighting too easy? Yeah. Were telegraphed solutions made to simplify bomb throwing from a mile away? Sure, but that’s Wheatley we’re talking about, so it’s a good fit. What really cemented the battle was the moment when Chill wore out, wriggled over an open gate, and cracks open the roof to reveal a very stupid idea that might work. shoot. The. the moon.
I knew instantly what the game suggested I do and was still hesitating when I lifted my jaw off the ground. After spending two games in cramped underground test rooms, throwing a portal through * math checks * 238,000 miles to the surface of the moon was a big step forward. I prepared for the worst as I finally pulled the trigger and sucked the entire room into space. Wheatley was not pleased with his new digs, but at least Rotten Space got his wish.
Remembering us about Portal is as sad as it is fun nowadays. In 2011, we didn’t know Valve would put new game development on the backburner while keeping the multi-money makers and keep Steam growing. Half-Life: Alyx has given me some new hope that we might return to Portal someday, but we’ll see