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I See You See Me See Me See You
By bukkhead | January 23, 2008
VIDEO GAME REVIEW: ‘PORTAL’
Developed by Valve Corporation
Distributed by EA
Platforms: Xbox 360, Pc
Genre: 1ST Person Platform Puzzle
Portal is only one fifth of The Orange Box, along with Half Life 2, HL2:L Episode One, HL2: Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2. So maybe I should only write one fifth of a review, just 100 words. But that would be a disservice, because Valve could have gotten away with packaging Portal all by itself. Maybe. I played through it to my hearts content through half a day, and usually games last a little bit longer than that. But it was a complete experience, from training to mastering, and so I feel it deserves the whole 500.
In Portal you are a test subject making your way through a series of rooms, each of which is designed around solving puzzles using a device that creates portals. (Hence the title). Your device creates orange and blue-hued holes, which lead into one another. A large chasm sits between you and the exit? Create a blue portal in the wall next to you, an orange portal in the wall next to the exit, and step through. Easy.
But it gets complicated, fast, which is where the fun in the game lies. Momentum is preserved, no matter what orientation the portals are sitting in, so you can fall from a height into a portal hole in the floor, and emerge at high velOcity from the other strategically placed hole. In this way, you make your way through a variety of obstacles. There’s other elements in the game, such as weighted boxes and pulsing energy balls, which you use, with your portals, to solve the puzzles.
In all there are only about 19 “rooms,” each one more complex than then last, and from there, the story develops further, challenging you to escape from the lab. And when I say story, I do mean story—Valve was not content to just have you play with their toy, they wanted to give you a reason to play. Or at least, give your character a reason to play.
Along your journey you will be spoken too by a feminized computer voice that gives you instructions or epxlains your role in the lab’s testing. This voice is the difference between exploitng a cool physics engine and actually making a compelling gaming experience. Its so rare, so very rare, to actually find good writing in a video game. That it happened in a game that didn’t even require a story is so satisfying, I’m ready to pick up the next Valve offering sight unseen.
And after you’re done with all that, if you like, go back and beat the extra challenges in six of the rooms. These challenges have you finish the room in the least amount of time, using the least amount of portals, or even the least amount of steps. There’s even a set of challenges that simply make the rooms harder, with acidic floors or extra obstacles. This is where the game transitions from one fifth of a title to a title in its own right.
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