Portal
Last night I completed Portal. The game itself is distributed as part of Valve's Orange Box, along with Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes One and Two, and Team Fortress 2. As I was also interested in Team Fortress 2 at the time of purchase, I picked up the entire Orange Box, which is an incredibly dense amount of value for a mere $49.95. You can however purchase Portal individually via Valve's Steam digital delivery service for $19.95.
The game has been both praised and criticized for it's short length, however with my consistently-full schedule I found it to be a comfortable investment in time as it took me about three sessions of an hour or two each to finish. There is a bit of replay ability as two additional modes are unlocked during the completion of the game. Challenge Chambers are unlocked at about half-way through the game and Advanced Chambers are unlocked when the game is completed. In Challenge mode the test chambers are revisited with the added goal of completing the test chamber in either the shortest time, with the smallest number of portals, or with the fewest footsteps possible. In Advanced mode some of the test chambers are made more challenging with the addition of new obstacles and hazards.
Portal is a single-player, first-person perspective, puzzle platformer. A lot of people have referred to it as a first-person shooter, but since the player doesn't really have a projectile weapon, and doesn't really deal any damage by shooting things like enemy players, monsters, aliens, the environment, or unreachable switches, it gave me much more of an impression as a platform game. The game consists primarily of a series of test chambers which are essentially puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the Player's character and other simple objects using portals created by the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device. To solve each puzzle the Player must get from the entrance of the area to the exit. Use and manipulation of the hand-held portal device and the portals it creates are the primary emphasis of the game.
The game has, arguably, only three characters: the player-controlled protagonist named Chell, the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS, a computer AI that monitors and directs Chell), and the Weighted Companion Cube, a short-lived companion for Chell during a particular test chamber. Very little context information is presented about Chell, the purpose of the testing, and the test environment, and most of it is provided by GLaDOS's commentary. The credibility of this information however is suspect as GLaDOS is, by its own admission, a liar. The remaining context information can be found displayed on projector screens in side rooms of the later test chambers.
The hand-held portal device can create an inter-spatial portal between any two flat surfaces. Not all surfaces are able to accommodate a portal though, and a moving surface will automatically close any portal placed on it. The portal device can create two types of portal endpoints, colored orange and blue. Only two portal ends, one of each color, can exist at any given time, and if a subsequent portal is created of either color, the previously created portal of the same color is closed, resulting in the Player only having use of one active portal between two points at any given time. The portals create both a visual and physical connection between two flat surfaces in 3D space. Disorienting twists in Chell's orientation and the environment's gravity can occur when portal ends are created on non-parallel surfaces and are oriented differently while on those surfaces. An object that goes through a portal will maintain it's momentum and speed, which allows Chell to launch herself or other objects over great distances, in any direction perpendicular to the portal endpoint through which it exits, by building up speed (such as falling off a high ledge) prior to entering the entrance portal endpoint.
The portal device can also be used to pick up and drop objects. There are various types of manipulatable objects throughout the game including Weighted Storage Cubes (i.e., crates), computer chairs, computers, clip-boards, barrels, water jugs, and so on. The heavier of these objects such as the cubes can be used to depress buttons found on the floor which open doors or activate platforms. At the end of each test chamber, and occasionally within a test chamber, there are barriers known as "Material Emancipation Grills" or "Fizzlers". Chell may traverse these barriers unaffected however they will prevent her from carrying objects beyond these barriers by disintegrating them. Any open portals will also be closed if the portal device that created them passes through one of these barriers.
The game begins with Chell waking up from a stasis bed and hearing GLaDOS instructing and warning her about her upcoming test experience. The earlier parts of the game involve distinct "test chambers" that introduce players to the game's tools, mechanics, and physics. GLaDOS's announcements during these areas instruct Chell and help her progress through the tests as well as create atmosphere and develop the AI as a character. I found most of these earlier testing chambers to be fairly trivial puzzles, but the complexity and difficulty ramped up fairly steeply toward the final test chambers, and some of the puzzles presented are truly mind-benders. Showcasing the portable portal as a game mechanic and it's myriad of possibilities is obviously the primary purpose for the game, and the developers really deliver. While playing I was never struck with a sense of deja-vu from an earlier puzzle and definitely didn't feel that any of the challenges were repetitive. Overall, the game-play using the portal mechanic and situations presented was very satisfying.
The game's audio is fairly minimal, consisting mostly of some minimal music, ambient sounds, and GLaDOS speaking to Chell. The minimalist nature of the audio helps add to the overall stark and clinical feel of the game environment, and the GLaDOS AI has a very dry sense of humor that very often made me chuckle out loud. The graphics are sharp overall and due to the restricted size of each area can be rendered smoothly and displayed very quickly with negligible slowdown in frame rate. Some of the wall textures, especially later in the game that include graffiti or posters, seem to be purposefully blurry which is quite aggravating when you really, really want to know what that poster says.
My biggest complaint with the game had to be the long load times when launching the game and between areas. At some points I thought I was playing a game console and it was having to load and buffer entire levels from optical disc. Such long periods of waiting due to load times are completely unwarranted when the game is installed to hard-disk on a PC with 2 gigs of RAM to buffer upcoming areas and objects to, especially when the areas are relatively small as they are in this game. Fortunately the game's few blemishes are far outweighed by it's triumphs. Even if you aren't interested in the Orange Box's other offerings, if you enjoy platform and/or puzzle games, I cannot recommend purchasing this game enough.