5) Portal 2
When the original Portal became a smash hit, it was inevitable that a sequel was inbound. The game quickly amassed a huge following that left people wanting much more, so Valve had no choice but to put out a follow-up. The story, set in Aperture Science and featuring the dry, sadistic humour of the facility’s AI computer GlaDOS, was too good to leave alone. Fans absolutely adored it and to not expand on the game’s universe and characters would have been foolish.
When Portal 2 was announced, however, there were two schools of thought. On the one hand, it meant the small puzzle game that piggy-backed on The Orange Box was getting its own, full-fledged sequel — allowing diehard fans to rejoice. However, as pleasing as that news was, we were left to wonder how Valve could possibly stretch a three hour game into something that would easily last four times that length without getting repetitive or being spread too thin.
Fortunately, Valve – being Valve – pulled it off and the end result was a critically acclaimed successor to the original Portal. With a fresh story, new characters, imaginative puzzle rooms and a triumphant return of the game’s protagonist and antagonist, it certainly made fans take a step back, stroke their chins in pleasant contemplation and think, “This. This is how you do sequels.”
