They’re a step up from collecting text journals, but only one step.
We will admit to groaning a little bit when we realised he was going to appear in audio journals, which – in 2011 – were getting old, off the back of too many BioShock clones. Some way through Portal 2, we’re introduced to the late founder of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson. Portal 2 has the confidence to take the piss out of you, and make you do something stupid near immediately. Most games hold your hands tightly in tutorial sections, worried that you’ll do something stupid. Congratulations, you have learned what the A button does, and you’ve humiliated yourself into the package. He asks you to speak, with the classic ‘Press A to speak’ appearing as a prompt for Xbox players, and once you press it – pure genius – you jump. Arriving in your room, Wheatley questions whether you have brain damage, so quickly spins up a cognition test. Picking a best moment of his is difficult, so we included two, and this is the first. Few people could have captured the robot’s turn-on-a-penny character pivots, from buffoonery, to sarcasm to pure evil. Sure, he was just about stretching his long legs over the Atlantic, and was beginning to get American recognition, but he wasn’t what you’d call a name. He’d written The Office and Extras but barely appeared in them, had a semi-successful stand-up career and a role in the film Hall Pass. Back in 2011, Stephen Merchant was a bit of a punt.
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