Portal Review

Having just restarted my GameFly subscription I decided I should finally finish playing Portal, so the first game I rented was The Orange Box. Portal looks like a First Person Shooter but is really a puzzle game.

You're given what is called the Portal Gun which allows you to shoot a opening and an exit Portal one colored blue, the other orange. You're placed in various different rooms with obstacles that you must avoid and get around using the gun. For instance, there may be a projectile bouncing off of the walls in a certain pattern, and you need that projectile to hit a certain switch in the room that is not in it's pattern. You simply shoot one Portal on the wall that you know the projectile will hit, and place the other Portal on the wall facing the button. The projectile will go through the first Portal and come out the other heading straight for the button allowing you to continue. There are various other scenarios similar to this and a few of them caused me to scratch my head. But that is where the genius of Portal really starts to shine through. A puzzle may look really complicated and even impossible, but a few well placed Portals, some hops, skips, and jumps, and you're on your way to exit. Like most puzzle games it can be quite rewarding when you finish a particularly hard challenge.

One of the best features and uses of the Portals is momentum. This might be hard to understand through words but I'll give it a shot anyway. Picture a wall in front of you that goes up pretty high, with a small gap at the very top, behind you is a wall that goes straight to the ceiling. On the left and right are walls to the ceiling as well. You have to get out of that room. This is done by shooting a portal at the very top of the wall behind you, another at your feet. Fall through the one at your feet causing you to fall from the top of the wall that is behind you down towards the floor. Right before you hit the floor shoot another Portal, keeping the first one on the wall behind you. This will allow you to build up speed and momentum. Keep falling from the top of the wall behind you to the portal on the floor and you will eventually shoot straight from the back wall over that tiny gap in the wall that was blocking your way. Phew, I hope you got all that, I'm not even sure that I did.

Another great aspect of Portal is the story and commentary that is conveyed through your "captor" GlaDOS. She is a computer that is essentially provoking you and taunting you all throughout each room or puzzle. She can be quite funny and devious at times so pay attention to what she is saying.

Portal: 10/10

I gave Portal a 10/10 because for what is was (a short add on to the Half Life 2 Series that did not need to be included at all) it was perfect. To me it even surpasses the Half Life series as I have never really been into those games. It is a short, addictive, funny, and challenging puzzle game that is disguised as an FPS. There aren't too many games that can fit that mold and Portal seems to have nailed it out of the park. There is an expansion pack that was just released for the XBOX 360 but as the developer Valve is not a the biggest fan of the PS3 I don't see it coming to that big black box anytime soon, if ever.

Labels: Reviews, Sony