I know I'm, oh, a year and a half behind everyone else, but I finally got around to playing Portal 2. I loved the first, having beaten it five or six times, and with the same creative team overseeing the sequel I had little doubt it would be of the same quality, if not better. But during my initial exhilarating (and occasionally frustrating) playthrough, it became my single favourite game of all time. I could talk about the new mechanics, or Mike Morasky's awesome glitchy score (available as a free download), or how well Valve's Source engine has held up nearly a decade after its release, but nearly everything this game has to offer pales in comparison to its quite frankly surprising level of character development.
The depth and nuance of Portal 2's characters isn't just the best in the video gaming medium, but some of the best I've ever encountered. The writers of the single player campaign, Erik Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton, have crafted a small ensemble of idiosyncratic characters, each of whom has well-defined and believable motivations. This week's analysis will look at the game's four major characters.
