14 DAY TRIAL // We highlighted the great Portal 2 single-player experience in the multiple gamer diaries released up until now, so it's time to talk about the brilliant cooperative mode included in the new title by Valve.
Like many gamers, when I first heard that Portal 2 will have a dedicated co-op mode, I thought that Valve is trying to follow the ongoing trend in the gaming industry to staple on some sort of multiplayer mode to prevent gamers from trading in the title after they're done with the regular campaign, and fail at it, like other companies before it.
As details started arriving before the game's release, I started to warm up to the idea, so, after completing the single-player campaign, I got a hold of a buddy and decided to see just what the Co-Op mode was all about.
While the single-player lives up to Valve's claim that it's one of the best experiences it has ever crafted, the cooperative mode isn't any slouch, managing to make the whole puzzle solving experience even more addictive.
While going through the story, you could only use two portals at a time, with the co-op mode, you can use four, and the possibilities increase exponentially.
The puzzles are a bit harder but going through them with a buddy is a much more rewarding experience, largely because you need to work together in order to figure out the exact solution.
The experience is even more addictive than the single-player and you'll often find yourselves trying to complete just one more test chamber, and then the other, and then the one after that, until you arrive at the end of the mode, wondering where the past five hours disappeared.
Valve also manages to squeeze in the signature Portal hilarity, with GLaDOS, the antagonist of the two games, communicating with the two robots, Atlas and P-Body, trying to make them jealous of one another or just criticizing previous human test subjects like Chell, from the single-player campaign.
After completing a few co-op puzzles in Portal 2, going back to the regular single-player seems a bit dull.
In case you're still not convinced of giving the Portal 2 co-op mode a try, check out a video of it below.