Reviews » Portal [PC]
Reviewed by inpheaux
Last summer we got our first look at Portal, and it was astounding. We were shown a complex physics-based puzzle game that requires you to think about first person shooters, space, physics, and how you move in general in completely new ways. Sure, Prey was right around the corner, and Prey had been talking about portals since 1995, but Portal was different. This wasn't an FPS, it was a first-person puzzle game. And these portals weren't static, and just magically connected two points in space, they were dynamic, you could place and replace them at will.
And then it was delayed five or six times. But that's ok because it's out now.
Portal is the follow-up to a senior project by some students at DigiPen called Narbacular Drop. It was much the same concept, taking a portal gun through a series of trials where you get thing A to point B to get the powerup and win the game. When they showed it off to Valve they all immediately found themselves with jobs working on bringing that game concept to the Source engine.
Along with all the physics goodies available to them from using the Source engine, working at Valve got the team access to writers, specifically Chet and Erik of Old Man Murray fame, and the result was brilliant. The game takes place deep within the "Aperture Science Enrichment Facility", where the protagonist has been living in some form of suspended animation for what appears to be some time. In the game you are directed through a series of tasks by the synthetic voice of GLaDOS, a cheery (or not) Artificial Intelligence who continually promises that you just have to make it through a few more tests before you reach your eventual reward of cake.
Just like any good Valve game, the majority of the story is told in a passive manner. You're not beaten over the head with lengthy cutscenes, stuff is just there, and it's up to you to find it and make sense of what's really going on. As you progress through the game you'll occasionally see "broken" areas in the otherwise bright and shiny testing environment, which lead you to unauthorized "behind the scenes" areas, filled with graffiti that repeatedly states "THE CAKE IS A LIE" and other similar ramblings, along with crude drawings of your friend the Weighted Companion Cube and the cameras that appear throughout the game.
I really need to gush about the dialogue for a moment. Chet and Erik deserve an award for the dialogue in Portal. If they don't give out awards for dialogue in video games they need to, and they need to name it after them or Portal or both. The Chet and Erik Portal Award for Outstanding Dialogue in a Video Game, possibly. The game itself is outstanding, but it just wouldn't be the same without the wonderful mix of creepy, bizarre and hilarious dialogue from GLaDOS, or the things scrawled on the walls, or the PowerPoint presentation found late in the game. It's rare and wonderful to have comedy mixed into a game where turrets are launching rockets at you, let alone while they're lobbing those rockets at you, and you're busy trying to redirect them through holes in time and space. And now that I've played a game where the turrets say "Hello? Are you there?" / "I see you!" before opening fire, and calmly state "It's ok, I don't blame you" when you knock them over, I'm not sure I ever want to go back. Additionally, things like the extensive backstory of Aperture Science, available at their website (once you figure out how to log in, mind), is one of the best backstories for any game ever, and the origin of GLaDOS is fully understandable for anyone who has worked in any sort of research & development. Sometimes projects just get out of hand like that.
It should be noted, unfortunately, that there are a couple downsides to Portal. The most notable is the game's length. The average time it took for members of the Directional Pad staff to beat the game is around 2.5 hours. That's pretty lame for any game that isn't Flash-based. But hear me out, it's a really good 2.5 hours, and luckily there's more to do than just the "story" mode, and considering how much it costs that's a pretty good deal. ($20 if you buy it alone or $10 if you buy it as part of The Orange Box, or even less depending on how much you'd value the other outstanding contents of The Orange Box.)
Let's discuss the extras, because there are quite a few of them. The largest chunk of time (~2.5 hours) goes to your first run through the main game. Once you've beaten a chapter, just like most other recent Valve games, you unlock a commentary mode, where throughout the levels there will be little word balloons which you can activate to hear an audio snippet from one of the developers explaining something about the game. It might be about why the protagonist's legs are all weird, or why they designed a certain puzzle a certain way, or it could be some incredibly obtuse explanation of how the portal rendering engine and physics collision system works through portals. If you choose to go through it, the commentary mode will probably take less time, since you know how the puzzles work, so probably 1.5-2 hours here. Then there's the bonus maps: six "advanced" maps and six "challenge" maps.
Advanced maps are maps from the original game but with new restrictions to make things worse. Things like "Oh it's map 13 but now the floor is toxic and there's only one crate to work with" or "Hey! What if we put all the turrets in cages so you can't knock them over!?!". These maps can range from "That took slightly more-than-average thought to complete" to "AUGGHGHGFFGGHG WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!!"
Challenge maps are exact replicas of maps from the original game, but you have three modes of playing them with alternate goals: Least Portals, Least Steps, Least Time. Challenge maps are where Portal really turns into a hardcore puzzle game. You'll find yourself wondering if there really is a way to skip entire rooms, and more often than not, you'll find that there is. Portal's maps were designed in such a way that there is generally a wide variety of methods to complete them, depending on how creative you want to get.
And then there's hope for the future. Portal maps are shockingly easy to design, and right now there aren't even proper developer tools. Once Valve releases an updated SDK, I fully expect Portal to have one of the most active single-player map communities out there. Similarly, I can see Valve putting-off the development of "Portal 2" in favor of having their devs work on endless Portal map packs. Hell, I know I'd pay $5 for a set of 10 new "official" maps with accompanying Advanced and Challenge versions.
The only other real downside I can think of for Portal apart from its current brevity is the fact that if you are in any way susceptible to FPS-induced motion-sickness, this is probably not the game for you. Portal frequently involves puzzles that have you bouncing up and down through space at high velocities, all while twisting and turning to automatically right yourself. So if you're the kind of person who has to stay away from FPS's to keep your lunch down, it would be an extra-good idea to stay away from Portal. But that's pretty depressing because you'll be depriving yourself of one of the best single-player gaming experiences ever. Perhaps you should invest in some Dramamine.
In summation, this was a triumph. I'm making a note here: huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Portal - PC
Presentation
It's the Source engine, that means it's pretty, but not so pretty you're constantly reminded "YOU ARE PLAYING A PRETTY VIDEOGAME"
Gameplay
Innovative, different, hilarious, wonderful, moist, delicious.
Replayability
Despite the game's brevity, commentary and challenge levels provide a reason to come back, and hopefully level packs (whether official or not) will extend that even more.
Value
It's either $20 (on its own via Steam) or $10 (as 1/5 of The Orange Box) or even less depending on how you value the other parts of The Orange Box.
Overall
You need this game. You need it now.
