Yves Guillemot should resign from Ubisoft for overseeing a culture of abuse that spanned decades and seemingly still continues on at least in some Ubisoft subsidiaries.

This game is pretty cool, more large studios should take on smaller, more creative projects like this, the industry would be better for it.

But mainly Yves Guillemot should resign.

Something I don't think enough people give Portal 2 credit for is it's construction of Aperture Science as an almost mythological space. An endless labyrinth of structures built one on top of the other, stretching down into the depths of the earth, slowly decaying more and more. Futuristic chambers that endlessly deconstruct and reconstruct themselves sat next to retrofuturistic 1960s kitsch from the company's early days.

The Aperture Science of Portal was a shabby, abandoned science lab run by a mad AI. In Portal 2, it was an entire world. Huge caves full of industrial pipes and girders stretching out seemingly forever into the mist. Shifting mazes of gantries and rooms that seem designed to trap you within the facility.

Portal: Revolution gets this, and builds upon it, taking you through yet more parts of Aperture Science, learning new nuggets of information about this place that fit seemlessly into the pre-existing lore and in places fill in some questions about what happened between the two games.

This is far and away the best story mod for Portal 2 that I have played. It may be as close to another Portal game as we'll ever get (it took me around 7.5hrs to complete and packs that time with plenty of story). From the atmosphere to the humour to the puzzle design. There's little that this mod doesn't get right about the Portal universe, even if at times the jokes don't quite land or the puzzles feel a litte bit too hard for anyone who hasn't put as much time into this franchise as me. But then again, who's going to be playing this other than people like me?

But the name Portal: Revolution suggests something grander than the ambitions of this mod. A revolution this is not. For all of this team's fantastic work replicating what Valve has done in the past, they fail to replicate what Valve always does in the future: Revolutionise their games.

There has never been a Valve sequel that wasn't swinging for the fences. It's probably the reason why they make games so infrequently. If you can't truly reinvent a franchise, why bother?

But Portal: Revolution does not reinvent Portal, it simply iterates on the ideas that Valve laid down in Portal 2, pushing some mechanics further and introducing some new ones that fit seemlessly into the puzzle-solving ecosystem of the portal games. There are some really smart spins on the puzzle design of Portal 2 here and I don't want to diminish the fantastic work this team has done by suggesting that they should have done more. What they achieved here is truly work they should be proud of. But why they called this mod Portal: Revolution remains a mystery to me. For my money, they should have dropped the "R" (the one at the start of "Revolution" not the one in the middle of "Portal".)

Perhaps my biggest gripe with this mod is how slow it is to start. The first few hours of the game are spent on puzzle chambers where the player only controls one portal. This makes for some interesting puzzles but wears out its welcome some time before the second portal is finally introduced. Perhaps worse than this is that the few new mechanics that this mod has to offer are not introduced until hours into the experience and others not until the third act. As a result, many feel like they don't quite reach their full potential even if the puzzle design is generally great.

The narrative as well doesn't fully pick up steam until the end of the first act, but once it does it is a pretty engaging story that fleshes out the mythos of Aperture Science in interesting ways and introduces you to some fun new characters. While it is a tad predictable, there are some twists and turns which feel in keeping with the franchises themes and sense of humour. Meanwhile, the voice cast - while not reaching the heights of Stephen Merchant, Ellen McLain and J.K. Simmons (an unbelievably high bar) - hold their own well and deliver lines with some not bad comedic timing.

Portal: Revolution is the kind of modding success story that only comes around every once in a blue moon. The convergence of talent and genuine passion that really only a mod can give you. A game that deserves to stand alongside the game it was built upon, if not on equal footing then at least in the same limelight. If you're a fan of Portal, you owe it to yourself and the Aperture Science Enrichment Center to play this Interactive Experience.