Craig's Portal Review

Just to mention two things to start off. Firstly, very first Valve game to be reviewed on the site, Yay!! Secondly, trying for a relatively short review, Shock! Horror! So... Short review time! Go!

First ish single player Valve game without the mute Gordon Freeman, in a Freeman related game; instead we have a mute un-named test subject. Go Go Valve. But don’t be let down by the no talking, because the robotic testing voice throughout gives the greatest dark humour in any game. Ever. Still jumping up on down excitedly over its physics engine (even though portal seems to look like they break all known physics) I do love the Valve physics engine, I mean they sum up the most serious of terms in amazing ways, for example, “Momentum: Fast thing goes in, fast thing comes out.”

The game is set out in a fun set of almost tutorial style challenges, and then sets you off into the real world. The challenges start fairly simple, “move across the room”, and then steadily increases to, “do everything, dodgy bullets and don’t touch a thing.2 which is good as it’s quite an easy difficulty curve, and with enough practise and help from the beginning levels, everything can be done, even if it seems impossible at first, and if you disregard the negative talk from the computer.

The game’s end is quite interesting, still have the dark humour throughout and then some, so it felt more like a comedy sketch as opposed to an end “boss” (sorry for spoilers, but if you’ve ever played a Half-life game it isn’t much of one) the end videos further this funny element disproving the “Cake = lie” hypothesis and then there is the end song. Which I have to say is absolutely amazing. Then again if I could sum up the game it would be with the words “absolutely amazing”, or with “buy-now-else-you’ll-die-due-to-serious-amounts-of-me-stabbing-you” or with “equivalent to pizza.” The end also leaves a cliff-hanger, which might mean Portal 2!!! Yay!!!!! (How-ever I have no idea how Portal 2 could equal or surpass Portal since Portal is sooo amazing and new, something similar would be boring)

Achievements have been implemented, which is similar to everything and it’s dog these days, how-ever some are interesting and have to be done by actually thinking (Jesus Christ No!!!) such as “Fall 30,000 feet) does take thinking, since nothing in the game has that much of a drop. Then, just in case you found the game easy, they implemented “advanced challenges”, which are pretty damn hard. Such as do this level, without touching the floor. Then they have challenges like, have the least footsteps, and use the least portals, which can boarder on ridiculous.

The game has, in my opinion, the most emotional moment and best supporting character in any game. The companion Cube. Killing that cube was the hardest thing, emotionally speaking, that I have ever had to do. The cube also has its own parallel humour, like a picture of a family, with all the faces replaced with the cube, which made me chuckle some. Remember my friends, the cake is a lie, but the cube is forever. *Cries.* Portal has a good game time, it takes a couple of hours (dependant on how quickly you solve and pick up the physics and puzzles, and if you go through the advanced maps etc.) and it’s a good enough time for you to enjoy it to its full potential and not get bored rigid of it.

Now for the summing up paragraph. Excellent game, fun, both for game-play puzzles and the dark humour, and keeps you interested for enough time to stop you being bored from real-life. No real problems with the game. I have no clue, as I’ve stated before, how they will actually top this game, if they make a next one. (by the way, cannot wait for Half-life 2, Episode 3) No clue what to review next, possibly go for an old epic game, not Epic as in the company though.
Craig Signing off. By the way in the time it took to read this, you would of possibly completed half of portal by now. Congratulations. Achievement Unlocked.