Portal

"Portal is an undoubtedly fun game, but don't give in to all the hype."

Portal was one of those games that looked really amazing when I first saw its trailer. It showcased some really detailed graphics, and a gameplay system which I thought was just amazing: using portals in order to solve puzzles and get through otherwise impossible tasks. Now, the game has been packaged together with a number of other Valve Games in the package known as “The Orange Box” which I gladly bought which gave me the chance to play it. The game was thankfully, not disappointing at first with its obvious polish and clever use of gameplay mechanics. However, the game ends a bit too quickly (which is, unfortunately, a good and bad thing) and still has a variety of minor flaws which kind of ruined the game a bit for me because of all the hype that was thrown at me.

When it comes to Portal, telling a lot of the story would be a bit of a spoiler as many of the key points in it are revealed along the way. Thus, I will simply give off the basic concept of the game. You are a woman trapped in some sort of laboratory full of testing rooms with a portal gun and you have to progress through these testing rooms looking for a way to get out. While this seems simple enough, things always aren't that simple. Throughout the game, a mysterious computerized female voice continuously gives hints to the overarching plot of the game which I found was very effective as she never gives away the whole story, but leaves your imagination to think of the reasons as to why you are where you are in the first place and just how you ended up being there.

While the game's story is nice although a bit thin in the end, the best part of this game is definitely its gameplay. Unlike many of Valve's other games which are first-person shooters, Portal is a hybrid. In the same way that Metroid Prime for the Gamecube was like a first-person adventure (it put more of a focus on exploration than combat), Portal is more like a first-person puzzle game. You have a gun, but it's never used in fast-paced action sequences where you shoot endless amounts of enemies.

Instead, you use the gun to create portals which you use in order to find an exit to the next test chamber. You can shoot a blue and an orange portal. One of the portals will acts as an entrance and another will act as an exit. If you shoot a blue portal at a far away wall, and you shoot the orange portal at a nearby floor, then you can go through the orange portal and emerge out of the blue one (and vice versa). While it sounds simple at first, the team at Valve was able to make a variety of clever puzzles through the portal system. Some examples being creating a portal under a block and creating another portal above a turret to knock it over, and using a portal to gain momentum by dropping through a portal you created on a floor several feet below you and coming out of the other one at a high speed. You'll really need to use your imagination in order to complete some of the puzzles and when you complete them, it'll feel so satisfying to the point where you might even start thinking about the ways portals could be used in real life.

It may seem a bit boring to some people who aren't puzzle fans to just keep solving puzzles through portals room after room, even if they are cleverly designed. Thankfully, this is where the game's audio comes in. While the music isn't really too memorable (and the music that does exist is the same generic techno that Valve has been making for their Half-Life games whenever intense situations pop up), this game specializes more on sound effects (turrets, the sound of the portal gun, etc.) and voice acting, particularly the computerized female voice known as GLaDOS who guides you through the test chambers. She always has something strange and witty to say in each level which gives you more incentive to keep going as you'll always be looking forward to what she says next since her lines are full of wit and reveal information about the game's plot. Strangely enough, some people I've met have exclaimed that her lines are extremely hilarious, but I never felt that she went overboard like that. She made me smile a bit with a few of her stranger and weirder lines but don't be expecting some over-the-top humor with this one.

In terms of graphics, Portal is very detailed and looks nice on the surface. The walls are very detailed, your portal gun looks nice, and the visual effects when you shoot the portal beam look nice. However, that's pretty much what the graphics have going for it. Unfortunately, the rest of the game looks extremely bland. If you like white tiles (and sometimes even black tiles) then you're lucky because you'll be seeing a lot of that in this game. For the rest of us who want a lot more variety in our gaming environments, you won't like the graphics too much because of how repetitive it gets. They only throw in a different environment close to the end of the game (which resembles some sort of industrial factory) and you don't get to see much of it as you discover that you're put in the same white-tiled laboratory design after a while.

One of my biggest complaints with Portal is the length and replay value. The problem with the overall design with this game is that it can be repetitive after a while since the developers decided to throw in repetitive level design which results in them having to use the same puzzles over and over (go through portal, come out of another one in a previously unreachable area) since you seem to be only restricted to shooting at white tiles and manipulating environments with identical cubes and fighting against identical turrets. That's why when this game ended after around 3 hours, the game still felt a bit fresh to me. However, the big problem is just that: it ends in 2-5 hours. Thus, even for the price of $20 (which some people would consider a bargain); I would not buy this game as a standalone product. Instead, I would instead highly recommend that you get “The Orange Box”, a package of some of the most anticipated First Person Shooters together with Portal. This is a much better deal and together with other hits like Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2, you feel that you're really getting your money's worth out of Portal.

Overall, Portal is a game that despite being enjoyable ended up disappointing me. All the hype from the Portal fans led me to believe this would be one of the greatest games I've ever played but that had a terrible effect on me. Instead, when I played through the game, all those minor and major flaws became all the more noticeable to me and I started getting this nagging feeling that I wasn't having as much enjoyment as everyone else. While I was disappointed, that doesn't mean Portal is just an average bad game. It's actually really fun and it's worth playing (as part of The Orange Box) for its unique and nice gameplay. In fact, if you had never heard of this game before and just learned about it by stumbling onto my review, then I highly recommend that you still get this game, but make sure that you cut off all connections with this game's fanbase as they hype this way too much. Instead, play this game and don't expect humorous dialogue, nice graphics, killer music, and a heartbreaking moment. Instead, play this game expecting a fun and cleverly designed FPS puzzle hybrid and make the most out of what it is.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/08

Game Release: Portal (US, 10/09/07)