The Past Within

This is one of my favorites of the entire franchise. Like the white door it is one of the best places to start just be aware that the challenge here lies mostly in how well you communicate with your partner. If you want a spectacular puzzle Co op I strongly recommend Portal Two. Most of the rusty Lake games will let you deduce what you're supposed to do but this is the only of them so far That does not require you to get on their warped wavelength in order to do so. One of the players is in the past which looks very much like what we're used to from the series the other is in the future where they go for 3D and have a reasonably free rotation around a cube that has something on each of the sides. You don't have to worry about figuring out which of you gets to do which since about halfway through it swaps anyway. I love that they take these big swings and I think most of the time it really works for them. It was very cool to see some of the classic elements of this rendered in three dimensions and it looks great although I do think a little bit is lost in it not having the banal pastel style that we're used to has always been a wonderful contrast to the disturbing material and atmosphere. This one does let you do one of the most repulsive things so far. It was cool to get more about Albert and Rose. There is some new lore material and as usual you won't be lost just confused which you still will be if you play every single one of these. I was quite pleased to see the return of some familiar themes such as great exploration of the fact that what we do now can really affect how the future plays out. And doing so by literally having you separated chronologically is clever. If they make another one of these I think it would be good to have multiple difficulty settings. If you only play through this once which of course many will you might feel like there's not much content for the price. And once you have gone through it all that's left are alternate Ones. Three total.