Portal 2 gets Move support and level pack with new DLC
Down the right-hand side of Sony's E3 booth were waves of wrist-flapping and bicep-jerking while E3 attendees tested Portal 2's motion controls.
This is the new iteration of the game as imagined by developer Sixense, which results in one of the better uses of the Move controller as a whole - a literal interpretation of the Portal gun that begins to break down the divide between the controller and the game's puzzle solving weapon.
We learned one week before E3 hit that Portal 2 would be getting Move support and a level pack later on in the year. The Move DLC, which was christened Portal 2 In Motion is ostensibly a second look at the content available to PC users as part of Razer's exclusive Hydra DLC made available last year. The result is 20 levels of content, letting the player slip into the role of one of the robots from the original Valve game, Atlas or P-body.
Portal 2 in Motion is a marriage of Move motion controller and navigation controller, the first used to aim your portals and to turn the character by pointing toward the edge of the screen, the second used to walk, jump, and manipulate your portals by rotating them from horizontal to vertical. Once created you can move them around across the room in what's being called Portal Surfing. Using the controller you can also manipulate your companion cube through three-dimensional space: pushing your arm forward pushes the cube forward, and so on. This is being called 1-to-1 mode, which lets users extend the portal gun's object carrying beam by entire meters.
Stretch it, squash it, scale it, toss it
In Motion also introduces the ability to scale your companion cube, changing its size and its mass so it fits through tight corridors or into areas that require particularly large or heavy cubes. You scale the cube by angling the Move controller left or right when pressing the shoulder button on the navigation control, stretching it into long rectangular shapes or tight blocks. To help with depth perception in-game buttons highlight when the cube is placed above them.
When challenged by a puzzle featuring two pressure pads and only one cube for its solution, you have to rely on scaling. Stretching the companion cube horizontally until it reaches almost absurdly across the room is the answer in these cases. Other times you will use stretched cubes to create makeshift bridges between platforms or alternatively use a scaled block whose mass has increased to break through glass to a room below.
Sixense, a tech company founded in 2007 is probably best known for its work on motion control peripherals. The team previously worked in partnership with manufacturer Razer to create the Razer Hydra that was later bundled with the PC version's Hydra DLC. The company is currently in the process of implementing PlayStation Move for the full Portal 2 campaign, edging out further into the territory of motion control application, which suggests In Motion is just one small step into what users can expect from this tech.