Navigating through the crowded E3 showfloor, one expects to be assaulted by military shooters, big-budget crime games, and other flashy franchises both gratuitous and gory in nature. This truth makes it that much more impressive that the sequel to Valve’s surprise hit garnered our vote for Game of the Show.

“Portal 2” aims to intrigue players with new gameplay mechanics that challenge the way they approach games without defaulting to increasing the difficulty. In short, augmented gameplay should keep the game fresh, not frustrating. Valve provided us with the first extended look at “Portal 2” since our exclusive cover story, and gave us a chance to try out co-op for ourselves.

A new opening vignette stoked our already smoldering excitement. A flythrough of the Aperture Science facilities being rebuilt by GLaDOS illustrated firsthand the damage caused by Chell’s insolence. With such a large amount of time passing between installments, organic life has infiltrated the outermost structures, and most rooms are in a serious state of decay. Approaching reconstruction with the intensity only a dispassionate machine can muster, GLaDOS sloughs off old modular panels for shiny new ones and assembles a new army of turrets to recapture the facility’s former sterile sheen. Electronic music plays in the background featuring sampled vocals from GLaDOS herself.

The demo then moved onto the new gameplay mechanics. A tractor beam takes center stage to showcase how a series of quickly fired portals can transport a cube (or a turret, co-op bot, and more) across a room. Aerial Faith Plates prove an expedient method of transportation, allowing the player to chain together a series of jumps without stopping or slowing down.

In another room, Valve demonstrates the Thermal Discouragement Beam’s utility by using a refracting cube to redirect the laser to sweep across a throng of oblivious turrets, who sheepishly utter “ouch” as their components crackle. After clearing the room, the player then repositions the laser to connect with an awaiting receptacle, opening the door to the next chamber. A Pneumatic Diversity Vent provides another opportunity to clear a chamber. With a clever use of the portal gun, the player redirects the vacuum to create a swirling vortex that sucks turrets and debris out of the way.

Lastly, Valve highlights two types of gels (previously referred to as “paint”) that transfer properties to surfaces on which they are sprayed. Repulsion Gel bounces the player from surface to surface, which allows the player to ricochet to an otherwise unreachable alcove. Propulsion Gel rockets Chell to high speeds so she can avoid a nasty row of converging spiked plates.

The true treat came when we got our hands on the co-op bots and tested a few introductory levels. Communication is key to solving these puzzles, more so than any other game we’ve played before. Coordinating tactics and syncing up timed puzzles requires constant dialogue.

The puzzles often required us to divide and conquer:One player used a redirection cube to open doors or raise platforms while the other quickly traversed timed traps. At one point we decided to take the demo less seriously, using Repulsion Gel to ricochet off a wall and then each other midair. Our bots met an untimely death as a result, but Valve encourages horseplay with friends. Destroying the bots is significantly more fun than toying with the notably more fragile human protagonist. Co-op interactions also allow for emotes such as high-fives.

While we were disappointed in “Portal 2’s” delay to an undisclosed window in 2011, Valve made up for the news by announcing that the PlayStation 3 has been added to the platform roster. Original, innovative and massively entertaining, “Portal 2” is easily our most anticipated game of next year.

‘Portal 2’

No rating provided.

PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac

Valve

ESRB rating: Pending

Release date: 2011

New game releases

The following titles were scheduled for release the week of Aug. 8:

• “Monday Night Combat” (X360)

• “Madden NFL 11” (PS2, Wii, PSP, PS3, X360)

• “Galactic Taz Ball” (DS)

• “Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes of the Ring” (DS)

• “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” (PS3)

• “Absolute Chess” (DS)

• “Enjoy your massage!” (Wii)

— Gamespot.com

Top 10

ACROSS THE BOARD

The editors of Game Informer Magazine rank the top 10 games for August:

1. “Madden NFL 11” (PS3, X360)

2. “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” (X360)

3. “Limbo” (X360)

4. “NCAA Football 11” (PS3, X360)

5. “Singularity” (PS3, X360)

6. “Red Dead Redemption” (PS3, X360)

7. “Castlevania: Harmony of Despair” (X360)

8. “Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies” (DS)

9. “Transformers: War for Cybertron” (PS3, X360)

10. “Toy Story 3” (PS3, X360, Wii)

— McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Game snapshots

For a quick fix until “Halo: Reach” arrives Sept. 14, take a look at “Halo 2600” (www.codemystics .com/halo2600/) — a free online version of the game, as if it were released for the Atari 2600.

Ed Fries, the former head of Microsoft Game Studios, built the game as a hobby — partly to see if he could still build games on the platform that launched his career.

Back in his high school days, Fries was given an Atari console for Christmas. It inspired him to start programming, first in Basic and then assembly language.

As Fries explained on the “Halo 2600” Facebook page, the trick with Atari programming is that the machine only had “128 bytes of RAM and without bank switching the maximum program size is just over 4000 bytes.”

Fries said he thought it will appeal mostly to the small community of Atari programming enthusiasts who stay in touch through sites like Atariage.com. But “Halo 2600” is suddenly getting all sorts of attention, after being written up by most major gaming sites. So far there are no plans to commercialize the game. How about putting it in Xbox Live Arcade? “If they want to do it, they’re welcome,” Fries said. Fries isn’t too worried about being hassled by copyright lawyers from Microsoft or Bungie, the Kirkland studio that created the “Halo” franchise. He kept both in touch as the project evolved.

— Brier Dudley, McClatchy-Tribune News Service