Portal 2 reviews are live

The first reviews of Valve’s Portal 2 have gone live online this morning and there’s every chance the space-bending sequel could become one of the highest rated games of all time.

The game is now available worldwide through Steam though won’t arrive at European retail until this Thursday.

It’s currently averaging 96 per cent on Metacritic.

"Portal is perfect. Portal 2 is not. It’s something better than that. It’s human: hot-blooded, silly, poignant, irreverent, base, ingenious and loving," Eurogamer’s 10/10 review says.

"It’s never less than a pure video game, but it’s often more, and it will no doubt stand as one of the best entertainments in any medium at the end of this year. It’s a masterpiece."

IGN scored the game 9.5/10, saying: "The original Portal benefitted from its brevity. Portal 2 makes the original look like the prototype it was.

"It’s filled with a larger cast of characters vividly brought to life through brilliant writing and some of the best voice acting in video games. Its puzzles are challenging without being unreasonable, and, once you’re finished with the single-player mode, one of the best co-operative experiences on the market awaits. From the beginning of the single-player story to the end of the co-op mode, Portal 2 is a novel, unforgettable experience."

NowGamer, which awarded a score of 9.6/10, added: "Sitting down to play Portal 2 is like crawling onto land after three years adrift in a sea of shit. The ills of the AAA big-budget games industry are washed effortlessly aside in one of the most refreshing gameplay experiences of the last decade."