HomeFeaturesPortal 2

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Valve

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Valve

The chapter 9 title screen for Portal 2, showing Wheatley and a potato GLaDOS attached to your Portal gun, with the RPS 100 logo in the top right corner

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Valve

An excursion funnel drags the player towards a mashy spike plate in Portal 2.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Valve

Wheatley appears on a screen while the player solves a puzzle in Portal 2.

In other words, it’s hardly a dumb action sequence, and there’s thought behind those spike plates. Wheatley’s murder attempts contrast nicely with those of GLaDOS, in the similarly climactic breakout portion of the originalPortal. Whereas her efforts centered around strategic turret ambushes, only resorting to less surgical methods during the final battle, Wheatley is throwing shit at the wall to see what knocks it over and crushes you.

It’s funny, and stupid, but also smart. For two games, you’ve been risking your life inside Aperture Science – with Wheatley in charge, it’s as if the walls and ceilings of Aperture Science itself want you dead. It is that part, I suppose.