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Portal

Posted on 03 March 2008

ReviewColumn's rating :
5 stars

Portal Personally, I've never been a fan of puzzle games. Most of the time, after a long day at school, I just want to come home and start playing a shooter or action game to relax instead of continuing to rack my brains over another puzzle. Thus, I was apprehensive about trying out Valve's new game, Portal, which is included in The Orange Box. Even after it began to receive rave reviews from practically every single gaming magazine and website out there, it still took awhile before I finally decided to try the game out for myself. Thank goodness I did or I'd be missing out on a lot.

For those who still don't know, The Orange Box is the latest product released by Valve which includes not only 1, but 3 games: Half-Life 2 (the original game as well as the 2 sequel episodes), Team Fortress 2 and Portal. I've never tried Half-Life 2, and I'll probably do a Team Fortress 2 review in the near future, but for now I'll focus on what's definitely one of the best games in recent (if not all) times.

Portal is played from a first-person perspective and you'll carry a single gun throughout the entire game. However, you'll never fire any bullets, because this gun doesn't carry any, instead, you'll shoot 2 different "portals" (as the name of the game implies) onto surfaces which you can then teleport in between by walking through them. Using this special gun, you then have to navigate through a series of 19 levels, all of which require you to "think with portals". While this gameplay concept sounds really simple, it actually makes Portal a highly addictive game. In fact, this gameplay mechanic originated from a freeware game, Narbacular Drop, which was actually a student project. However, the entire development team is now hired at Valve as they helped make Portal what it is today. For those of you who are interested in Portal but aren't ready to fork out cash to buy the game, I'd suggest you give Narbacular Drop a spin. It is quite short however (5 levels) and I've never personally played it before.

While it sounds simple, Portal is anything but an easy game. While I breezed through the first 15 levels in slightly under an hour, the last 4 levels (especially the last one) took me forever to complete. Even with such a seemingly simple gameplay mechanic to work with, the people behind these levels have created amazingly complex level designs that will positively confound you. As you progress, you'll meet sentry guns that you'll have to figure out how to take out using nothing but portals, and the final boss fight is unlike any other boss fight I've ever played, since this is the first time I'm not using bullets to kill it.

Speaking of the boss, I haven't touched on the best part of this game: its humour. Many game reviewers have called this the funniest game ever developed, and I'll have to agree. Throughout the game, GLaDOS' voice will guide you through the various levels, providing hints as to how to get past a certain obstacle. However, more often than not, she (it's a female voice) will throw in a few weird comments, suggesting that her motive is more sinister than it looks. I won't spoil anything for anyone who hasn't played this game yet, but be prepared for some pretty hilarious bits in Portal. Not to mention Portal has time and time again received the award for best end-game song ever, you'll have to play through the entire game to understand what it's about though (the cake is a lie!).

One thing to note however, Portal is a very short game. While the last 4 levels will take you some time to figure out, the entire game will at most last for 2 or at best 3 hours. Some reviewers have claimed it's a good thing, since Portal doesn't outstay it's welcome by having so few levels, but others feel that it contains too little content. Personally, I think I belong to the latter group, I would have thoroughly enjoyed more levels which were of similar difficulty to the last few levels in the game. Still, the game's content was more than worth my US$10 in my opinion, since it can be purchased individually over Amazon instead of having to buy the entire Orange Box.

All in all, "this was a triumph", and I'm hoping that a sequel to Portal will be released soon since I still haven't gotten enough of it. For those of you who are still wondering if you should get this game, stop hesitating and just go buy it already, I'm quite sure you'll find it worthwhile. Practically anyone will enjoy this game, with such a simple gameplay mechanic but yet such complex levels and plenty of humour to boot, what's not to love about this game?

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