Rating: 8
An odd mix of amusing and creepy would probably best define the first person puzzler that is Portal. The game revolves around the use of the portal gun. Using it, you shoot two portals, one red and one blue. Walking/jumping/or falling through one portal causes you to come out of the other one. Armed with just this you have to work your way through 19 incrementally harder levels. Each level will force you to come up with new ways to use the portals to get around. At first you will start off simply shooting a blue portal into a wall you can't get to, and then an orange on in front of you and stepping through. Later on you'll be shooting portals above sentry guns so you can push boxes through another portal, dropping the boxes on them and knocking the guns over. Eventually you get to the point where you have to shoot a portal high up on a wall, then shoot a portal at your feet, fall through the entrance to come flying out at high speeds from the exit and shooting through the air. All of this with the friendly yet very odd AI guiding you through the levels, occasionally saying things that catch you off guard like "you will be baked, and then there will be cake".
Portal is a very short game, an initial play through shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 hours as long as you don't get stumped by any of the rooms for too long. But it is part of the Orange Box, which combines Portal with Halflife 2, Episode 1 and 2, and Team Fortress. Portal could quite easily be a standalone game, but putting it in with all of these other titles for the same price as a regular game is a ridiculous value.
Besides the value, Portal offers a unique gaming experience. It's new and different, and doesn't feel like any puzzler you've played through before. It may be short, but it goes for just the right amount of time where it doesn't leave you feeling cheated, but also doesn't try to stretch itself thin by repeating the same puzzles with slight variations. The sense of humor in the game adds to it a lot as well. It's hard to get into without spoiling anything, but there are some incredibly funny moments through the various levels, especially some of the dialogue offered by the AI when you receive your companion cube, a box with a heart on it that you must carry through a level with you. At the same time as its being amusing, it sets up a very creepy atmosphere without having any visible enemies, other than some stationary sentry guns. The mix makes for some great gameplay that just adds onto the already impressive Orange Box.
An odd mix of amusing and creepy would probably best define the first person puzzler that is Portal. The game revolves around the use of the portal gun. Using it, you shoot two portals, one red and one blue. Walking/jumping/or falling through one portal causes you to come out of the other one. Armed with just this you have to work your way through 19 incrementally harder levels. Each level will force you to come up with new ways to use the portals to get around. At first you will start off simply shooting a blue portal into a wall you can't get to, and then an orange on in front of you and stepping through. Later on you'll be shooting portals above sentry guns so you can push boxes through another portal, dropping the boxes on them and knocking the guns over. Eventually you get to the point where you have to shoot a portal high up on a wall, then shoot a portal at your feet, fall through the entrance to come flying out at high speeds from the exit and shooting through the air. All of this with the friendly yet very odd AI guiding you through the levels, occasionally saying things that catch you off guard like "you will be baked, and then there will be cake".
Portal is a very short game, an initial play through shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 hours as long as you don't get stumped by any of the rooms for too long. But it is part of the Orange Box, which combines Portal with Halflife 2, Episode 1 and 2, and Team Fortress. Portal could quite easily be a standalone game, but putting it in with all of these other titles for the same price as a regular game is a ridiculous value.
Besides the value, Portal offers a unique gaming experience. It's new and different, and doesn't feel like any puzzler you've played through before. It may be short, but it goes for just the right amount of time where it doesn't leave you feeling cheated, but also doesn't try to stretch itself thin by repeating the same puzzles with slight variations. The sense of humor in the game adds to it a lot as well. It's hard to get into without spoiling anything, but there are some incredibly funny moments through the various levels, especially some of the dialogue offered by the AI when you receive your companion cube, a box with a heart on it that you must carry through a level with you. At the same time as its being amusing, it sets up a very creepy atmosphere without having any visible enemies, other than some stationary sentry guns. The mix makes for some great gameplay that just adds onto the already impressive Orange Box.
1 comments:
The AI cracks me the hell up. But it's a really lonely game experience and I was more interested in watching Chris play it than doing it myself. It would have been a really bleak game in general without the AI voice. "If at first you don't succeed... you fail." You're really right about how it manages to be totally creepy without any threat being present.
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