Portal

One third of the new content in the Orange Box, Portal is too short to be worth the price by itself, but it's one of the most inventive and enjoyable games in a long time for the few hours it lasts. It has a simple setup; you're a test subject being evaluated as you solve puzzles using an experimental weapon that can create a portal between two different places. At first you can only create one end of the link, but before long you can set both locations as you use them to redirect energy balls, cross pits and fling yourself over obstacles. It's a bit mind-twisting at first, but it doesn't take long for you to get familiar with the logic behind it and understand how it works as simply as any other game mechanic. As you go on, the environment gets more dangerous (including turrets that are both deadly yet cute) and the puzzles require more thought to navigate. It climaxes very well with a final encounter that tests everything you learned in a tense situation. It's cool how they were basically able to have a final "boss" without resorting to giving you actual weapons besides the portal gun. They do a good job of shifting between simple but pressurized puzzles and more cerebral ones, preventing your brain from getting tired with the same thing over and over.

You can't talk about Portal without mentioning GLaDOS. She's the artificial intelligence that monitors your progress and tells you what's happening as you work your way through the lab. She seems nice at first, but it isn't long before you realize something sinister's going on. Her voice acting and dialogue is hilarious, and the game's great writing and presentation is half of why it's so good. Few games are actually laugh-out-loud funny, but Portal is one of them. The fact that something horrible is happening becomes more and more obvious, and it's all dark in a very silly way. The line "The Cake is a Lie" is already embedded in the collective consciousness of everyone who's played it. There's also a very memorable and funny song in the end credits that keeps it going. The ending is a cliffhanger and they've already tied Aperture (the company whose laboratory you're running around in) into Half-Life's story, so I wonder how the future of Portal will pan out.

This was a triumph. I'm making a note here, huge success. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction. I'm a Mac user but I installed BootCamp and Windows XP (and Steam) just to try this out, based on word of mouth. It was completely worth it - the most fun I've had playing a game in ages. The story section (which has a number of beautiful twists in it) can be completed in an afternoon, so even if you don't normally have time to dedicate to games it's short enough that you can appreciate it without losing 40 hours of your time to it.

Portal isn't a very long game. In fact, after you know what you're doing you can probably beat it in 2 hours. I know this because i have played the game to completion more then a few times. This is a testament to how sweet those 2 hours are.

Portal is a first person puzzle game in which you play a test subject for Aperture Science. The game starts you out as you'd expect slowly going over simple puzzles but mid way through takes a very interesting turn and breathes story telling life into what could have just been a collection of puzzle levels.

The gameplay itself is like nothing you've ever played before (...or at least i haven't ) as you use your FPS skills to get yourself around puzzling levels. From simply teleporting yourself from one wall to another, teleporting objects to crush enemies, and teleporting off of high places to fling yourself through the air there are many different ways to approach some situations and later makes you feel like you're apart of something bigger then simple puzzle level progressions as you use the skills you've learned in "real world" situations..

After you're done with the Story more there are also time challenge levels and stand alone highly challenging levels for you to complete.

Portal is a must play game and if you haven't played it it's available in The Orange Box ( a collection of Valve software developed games ), a stand alone retail product, or even as a download via Valve's steam service.

Greatest game ending ever...EVER!

Portal is an amazing revolutionary game. It's a puzzle game which requires you to make portals to advance. You have to use the law of physics to guide you as you get through a set of 3-D levels. It's addictive, fun and well compelling. The game is with out doubt one of the funniest games ever. The robot in the game is hilarious and it combines intense puzzles with some hilariously brilliant dialougue. The gameplay for the game is really good and pushes the Havok engine to its' limits. However the game is short, you can beat the main game in about 3-4 hours and complete everything in about double that time. This does leave a massive blow to the value of the game, however it's cheaper on the PC and you can do some illegal things to get the game if you catch my drift ;)

Portal, though short at 5 hours, represents the best that gaming can achieve.  I do not make this claim lightly, as I believe Portal holds the spot with no more than a half-dozen other games as representative of the medium's best offerings.

Portal is a Sci-Fi puzzle game, The game is set around is Portal gun that can shoot two portal that you can sovle puzzles in away its base on the Gravity gun from Half-life the only drifferents is that you fire portal instead of pulling things apart. There are 19 puzzle in overall plus 6 advanced maps. The puzzles get your mind thinking and some times you don't know if your up or down, as you progess in the game the puzzles get longer and hard until your brain just gives in.

The has some funny lines from the main computer, and though out the game you are promise cake at the end of all the testing I will not spoil the ending but you will laugh, There are some refrences from Half-life and Half-life 2. The way you do some of these puzzles can be different from person to person, which makes the game fun to play.

Overall Portal will make you mind blow at the puzzles and at graphics, The game is so so fun and you will spend hours and hours trying to finish the game and then you spend month trying to beat the advanced maps. So if you want a great puzzle game then and come and buy the Onrange Box and play Portal and the other awsome games.

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SCORE: ((( 8.6 / 10 ))) => (in a scale of 0.2 increments, without a formula)
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Gameplay ---- ( 9 )
Graphics ----- ( 8 )
Sound --------- ( 9 )
Value ---------- ( 6 )
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THE GOOD:

• Accurate FPS controls;
• A groundbreaking and exciting new gameplay mechanic, the portal-gun;
• Innovative puzzles that use very well the portal-gun and the game's impressive physics engine;
• Effective sound effects and art design;
• Great new character, named GLaDOS, with some genuinely funny speech lines and a terrific voice acting;
• One of the best "End Credits" song ever made for a game.

THE BAD:

• Half the content you should get for 20$;
• Most puzzles are very easy;
• The bonus levels don't add much lasting appeal to the game.

FINAL WORDS:
Portal is a very innovative game indeed, but a lot of potential was left untapped. It's very fun while it lasts, but it ends too quickly. If you're not going to buy the "Orange Box" but want to play this game, wait until it costs near 10$, unless there aren't any other games with more value that you want to buy.

Portal, to me, is the pinnacle of game development.  It has everything that a great game needs, excellent gameplay, tight controls, great level design, a reason to want to keep playing, and great sound design and music.

But what sets this apart from all other games are the characters.  The three main characters are all incredibly memorable, even though two of the characters never utter a single word.  Portal manages to take gaming storytelling to the next level but taking it to an old school level of not needing endless dialogue to move the story along.  The dialogue that does exist, though, is some of the most humorous writing and delivery that I've heard in a game.

Then comes what I think is the most important part about this game.  The length.  It does NOT wear out it's welcome.  The second that you think it might be going on for another couple hours it ducks out the back and says "see ya later".  That was a brilliant move by Valve.  Ultimately, the length is the reason I've played the game more than any other game in recent memory.  It once again hearkens back to years past by saying "hey, I don't have to be 40 hours long to be fun!".  All those elements come together in a nice looking package that is the closest to gaming perfection that I've ever experienced.

No other game even comes close, old or new.

Portal is part of a new compilation put out by Valve Software called The Orange Box, which contains a few other games but none are as inventive as Portal. Portal is a first-person puzzle game in which the player embodies a test subject for a mysterious corporation called 'Aperture Labs'. Through a series of industrial gray and blue rooms, the player must navigate from Point A to Point B using only the tool provided.

But, oh, what a tool it is. Portal introduces the world to the Portal Gun, a simple, yet extremely fun gameplay mechanic that had me avoiding progression through the game for far too long as I tinkered with the various contraptions I could construct using its powers. The Portal Gun has two functions: make a blue portal, or make an orange portal. Portals can be made on any surface allowed, whether it's a wall, ceiling, or floor. Once the blue and orange portals are placed, they become doors to each other, so walking though the blue portal exits out of orange one and vice-versa. This can lead to some pretty trippy happenings, especially given that the game makes you place portals on all kinds of wacky places. For example, in some levels you have to make on portal on the floor, place the other on a slanted edge, then jump into the first one from a high altitude. The momentum is carried through the portal and you are then flung out across the room. Actually, this is one of the more normal uses. You can also make yourself fall forever, chase yourself though endless hallways, and walk through a door that comes out a floor.

Aside from the unique puzzle solving, Portal is one of the most legitimately funny games I've ever played. Many video games make attempts at humor, but most fail miserably, which is not surprising since most video game writers are not comedians. Portal is a wonderful exception. The comedy comes from the voice of the computer that guides you through each mission, and from the deadpan way in which the robotized female voice offers 'assistance'. It's a bit like HAL from 2001, but goofier. The same robot voice also sings an extremely catchy song about the company she works for at the end credits, which was written by the nerd-songmaster Jonathan Coulton, who has such tunes as "Re: Your Brains" and "Tom Cruise Crazy".

The genesis of Portal was a student-project game called Narbacular Drop, developed as a senior thesis by Digipen students. When the school had its career fair and developers from across the country came to take a look at the games, Gabe Newell from Bellevue-based Valve loved Narbacular Drop and offered the kids a job basically on the spot, developing their game using the Half-Life 2 engine. I would imagine the kids were happy about that.

I should also point out that two of the most critically acclaimed and popular game series ever, Halo and Half-Life, were both developed in the greater Seattle area. Apparently, we like games that let you kill aliens.

Portal is an experience, and then blah, blah, blah, please insert here another canned phrase for an awesome game.

Really. Now.

Those crazy Valve guys take time in what they do, and so should every reviewer of this game.

Portal is a "just-long-enough" take on the FPS formulae, only it's not apparently formulaic at all. Scenario after scenario, Portal is a puzzle you solve with the greatest invention ever since popcorn and that thing they use for car tires nobody cares about: the portal gun. Instead of drafting through hordes of generic and boring enemies, you create portals through walls, and cakes, and beheaded wolves, and maybe just certain walls to get to the exit.

That's the end of it.

Except. It's plagued by wit (You've never known wit this way). Dialogue and plot-twists and...stuff? That battle-hardened Gamers have come to like but have never seen in this way. There are very few ways to convey an opinion that won't spoil you the entire game. I know you won't care anyways! So I won't even try. Too hard.

It's got sounds and...uh....3D environments? Andreallyit'sgot the best story evar.

Etc.

I found it increasingly funny, addictive. And.

The hell just go and buy this game, it's worth more than reading through pages and pages of generic reviews.

Yeah, I just did this for the kicks.

And free publicity to that Empire I love -which is Valve-.

Need a reason to buy the orange box this is one of five(just so you know there are five games in the orange box). Awsome music,puzzles,characters pretty much every aspect of Portal is perfect the controls are smooth and give a nice feel to the game.The game in general looks nice (the pc version however in my opinion looks the best) there are just so many reasons to adore this gaming masterpiece only one issue with portal I WANT MORE!!

Before beginning Portal, I had heard a lot of great things about the game. The introduction in the game was fluent going straight to learning the basic mechanics. Each level contained a specific task to do and once that task was completed, the player would be told to go into an elevator by a women over the loud speaker. Once in the elevator, a long loading screen would appear and once loaded the next level would start. Even though there were flaws with Portal, the overall game is great.

A new take on the puzzle game genre where the player uses portals to try and navigate their way through various levels full of hazards and problem solving moments. Players assume the role of Chell, a test subject in the Aperture Science facility and the game picks up slowly introducing the player to how the game works in a very tutorial like manner and gradually becomes more difficult as they progress. Which ties in well to the very "mouse in a maze" style of gameplay.

Throughout the entire game the player gets to listen to the ramblings of an AI computer by the name of GLaDoS who gives taunts, goads and insults the player as they progress. The pitch black humour and briliant voice acting have made GLaDoS almost a cult like figure within the gaming world and the dialogue itself is some of the best in a game i've ever come across.

Gameplay length clocks in at around 3 hours or there about depending on how fast you are at solving the puzzles on each level. While it might seem short its the perfect length for a puzzle game and most definately means the game doesn't drag on with more endless puzzles than you'd like.

Other than the single player campaign there are bonus puzzles to solve if you want more of a challenge and like many of Valves games there are achievements available for Portal aswell which add some extra fun to the game if thats your thing.

Overall Portal is an excellent game that achieves what it hopes to set out. Deliver a solid puzzle game thats not only challenging but also fun and unique. And i definately suggest sticking around to the credits, quite possibly the funniest ending song to any game ever.

Potal is a very challenging game full of secrets scary  rooms intimidating puzzles and enemys.It's a great way to loss your mind lol the game at time is like wtf i was here and were is the ledge that i can portal to,It drove me bonkers because i ethier kept dying or i was stuck but the achvments are fun and the apature science incorperated has the funniest live system ever (the machin that talks to you) she may be funning and helpfull but closer to the ending of the game she goes bad.But it's fun to mess around in the game and i love the chocalate peanut cake,the handhelp portal device is loadsssss of fun its always fun to just take a break and mess around but the problem is their is no people and you charecter is a very anti social person i eman the only thing to talk to is the live system but still every once and awhile she could possibly say something very random.And the fact that no one knows about apature is awazing, and the fact that in portal/apeture since co they talk about how bad black mesa is and how much better they are than black mesa i mean thats funny but black mesa kicks sciences ass except for the lazy ass scintist and the morad figure named g-man who is still to this day very cool but mystreious but that is my portal review.Good day

Portal is a brilliant puzzle type FPS that uses some sweet gameplay mechanics to keep you thinking. Also, GLaDOS, the computer voice that talks you through your tests, kept me laughing most of the game. It has a surprisingly awesome story shoved into a game that really didn't need one, and I think the story is what makes the game excellent instead of good. The Weighted Companion Cube is another "character" that I have to mention as well. While I am not completely attached to it, I find it very amusing when you mix the box with a heart on it with GLaDOS telling you that it will never stab you.

I wanted to play Portal for a while, and I felt that, if I could sit down and beat it, I could wait a longer time to buy the Orange Box for myself. However, since playing Portal I want to buy the game more than ever. It is a weird sensation wanting to buy a game even after beating virtually ever puzzle in it. I did not do the extra challenges that extend the difficulty of Portal by limiting what you can use in each stage.

If you have not yet played Portal, I highly recommend buying it and enjoying it. It is available apart from the Orange Box right now on Steam, but it will also hit retail shelves on April 9th. While twenty dollars is a bit steep for a shorter game like this, Portal is not your normal game. Portal is completely worth the twenty dollars if you do not want to buy the whole box. Unless you want to buy the Orange Box, which you can do now, and get Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2: Episode 2 as well. I however will wait to get the Orange Box on sale somewhere for my 360.

Portal gets a 5 out of 5 with value taken into account. It is truly a great game, though I would really be excited if they planned to release a much longer game for a stand-alone package. I would easily pay sixty dollars for a Portal 2 type game with 12-15 hours of play time for one play through. Though playing it would risk melting my mind. There is nothing wrong with that.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, Portal is one of the five games included in Valve's Orange Box. At first glance, it looks like a bare-bones puzzler in the vein of IQ (PS), with splashes of color being the exception rather than the norm. At the game's onset, you wake up in a lifeless, sterile room, encased in a glass box with little idea of what to do or where to go. However, you are quickly brought up to speed by an omniscient computer-like voice with a wry sense of humor.

The game progresses from there in a logical fashion. You are introduced to the ins and outs of portals, in addition to the rules governing the test chambers. Eventually you'll gain control of the portal gun itself and be free to place entrances and exits throughout the levels. Taking into account momentum and portal placement becomes integral as you advance. Puzzles get progressively harder, but never feel unfair or overly difficult. The solution is always just a logical step away and the payoff is a real sense of accomplishment. In fact, beating the game rewards the player with one of the greatest set of end credits in gaming history; you won't be able to hold back a grin.

While the game initially presents itself as a series of "get from point A to point B" mazes, it actually houses an incredibly entertaining storyline. It treads that oh-so-familiar artificial intelligence-gone-awry ground, but the writing is so clever and the voice acting so spot-on, the game still manages to feel fresh. If there is one downfall to Portal, it is its length; experienced gamers can warp their way through in about 3 hours. This problem is somewhat alleviated by the advanced puzzles and challenge modes that are made available upon beating the game, but one can't help yearning for more sci-fi puzzle solving.

As games go, Portal offers a unique take on the puzzle genre. It adds a great story to some simple mechanics that will make your head spin. If you haven't played it yet, I suggest you go to Steam and download it on its own or, better yet, pick up the complete Orange Box. Either way, you'll get a great value for a game that you'll be playing for years to come.

If Portal was released on it's own then I don't think it would have gotten the praise it got. However because it was a great deal packaged in with Four or so other games then you see it as a bonus mini game thats quite good! My problem with Portal however is that, the game felt like a tutorial for the last level and it was really the last level where everything started to come together and just as you were getting started, it ended. The thing is it ended with the death of GlaDOS and me thinking.... where can Portal go from here? Really I just think it was a tutorial game for people to get used to the Portal gun, a new concept  before they put it into the next Half-Life game. It makes sense that they would try and merge them two games together seeing as they made Portal blend in with the Half-Life universe, that the place was being funded by Black Mesa

The gameplay itself is very easy and simple which makes it feel more like a tutorial and the only time it throws any challenge at you is on the last level. It does offer a new gameplay element I for one have never see in a game before, thats the portal gun and a first person puzzle game is quite rare too. Theres really only one thing you do throughout the whole game which is only about 2 hours long and thats shoot portals to get through the puzzle and to the next stage so it's very Doom 3 like where at the end of each level you stand in a chamber and it loads up the next one.

There is one major highlight to the game however and that is GlaDOS and much like System Shock 2 (Shodan) she makes the game what it is and really if she wasn't there then It woulda just come off as a generic game. The scripts for GlaDOS and the way she delivers the lines is just so funny with it's dry dark humour. Not everyone will understand it and find it funny, specially the younger peeps but the older crowd will love it. Theres also just lots of hidden jokes like the whole "the cake is a lie" thing that I'm sure you've seen going round the itnernet for awhile. Valve have seent he success of things like that and put it in Left 4 Dead with all the writing on the walls and hidden easter eggs like a TF2 ceral Box that gives a clue out that there might be a 10th class coming.

Theres one other thing that made Portal for me and that was the ending where it wraps things up nicely, you discover where you are and theres a joke with the cake. Also theres this great song that plays on the credits which everyone seems to enjoy and while it's not the greatest song ever made, it fits in well with the game and has some funny lines to it. You can also play it in Guitar Hero or Rockband (I forgot which one) and in audiosurf too which is great fun.

So Portal is a charmer of a game and with The Orange Box is great for the money but it isn't the gameplay that makes the game for me, it feels like a tutorial for a future title. However what saves it from being a generic disaster is the humour of the game and how it doesn't out stay it's welcome because I'd feel like if it was any longer than 2 or so hours then I would have become bored.

Everyone should play this game and if you really liked it then download Portal Prelude, it's a very well made mod that has the same humour to it made by a mod group, it feels like it could have been made by Valve. It really steps up the difficulty however, so you've been warned that IT IS HELLA HARD!

http://www.portalprelude.com/


+ Does Mirror's Edge remind anyone else of Portal?



Edit: I have to add that I just played through this game again and it's just so charming that I can look through all it's short comings and take the game on it's own merits. I loved the touches like the dark humour and the song at the end credits just pushed it to a 4/5 for me. I just feel like it falls short of a 5/5 because of the faults I pointed out. What made it sooo special to me is when I completed it I felt happy and sad at the same time that it ended so soon but it's a nice experience to have that a game can be so charming it brightens up your day.

Ok, so last Christmas I got the Orange Box, mainly for Portal and HL2.
When I played Portal, I was confronted with some pretty good puzzles and a pretty funny game.
Then I completed it.

"Ok" I said, "that was alright".
I played it a couple of times after that, but once you've gone through it once, it isn't really challenging anymore, and the jokes don't have that much of an effect.

Sure it's a pretty and well made game, but there's nothing really to do other than complete it and then uninstall it.
Sure there are some time trails and blah blah blah, but it's still the same levels, just a bit harder.
Not something I'd exactly keep the game for.
If it wasn't bundled with  the Orange Box, I'd have sold it by now to get something a bit more.. well.. fun.

Sure it was fun to start with, 'Oh haha, "the cake is a lie"'.

But then 2 weeks later, 'Hey dude, the cake is a lie, LOL!!!' 'Shut up.'
Then again, that's really me complaining about the players of Portal who can't let go of something so simple, which isn't even that funny.

Back to portal.
So sure the levels are well made and it's well scripted, but there's no replayability and, like most puzzle games, once you've completed it, it's not challenging anymore.

This game is not only original, but a great reminder of the potential of video games. Portal is a game in which you generate portals (wormholes) in order to solve puzzles and get from one area to another. It is a simple concept, go in one portal come out another, without any loss in momentum. When this is implemented using Valve's excellent physics engine, the results are spectacular.

Portal has tons of things going for it, but I have three favorites:
- The game is very original, not a new version of a tired genre (like pretty much every shooter made)
- It is incredibly fun to play (what a novel idea)
- It joins the short list of games that are genuinely funny (the game's narrator is perhaps the best written, best voiced character in a game I have ever played)

The only real drawback of Portal is that it can be completed in under 4 hours, but I didn't really mind the length. Too many games feel the need to have an epic story and quest and end up tacking on meaningless content to pad their length. I much more enjoy a game that plays to its strengths and doesn't overstay its welcome; plus for only $20 this game is a bargain.