Portal
After a wild Friday Morning that started out with The Dark Knight and a great afternoon/evening with people who shared my interest in drinking, shouting and staying up late I didn't go out at all Saturday. Sure, I had big plans Saturday morning when I woke up, took the brown line back towards Ogilvie station and finally the metra back to good ol' Glen El. The plans ended once I sat down and the four hours of sleep from the night before reminded me I was going to be incredibly lazy and would need something to do while sitting on my ass.
I went to the local dealer of electronic goods and picked up the Orange Box for the PS3. At $29.99 it was one hell of a deal. It included Half Life 2, HL2 Episode 1 & 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. I had played HL2 around sophomore year of college and enjoyed it, but never had a good enough computer to fully enjoy the other episodes as they arrived. I had only heard good things about TF2 and Portal.
I started up Portal and after 15 minutes everything I thought I knew about narrative and dialogue were completely gone. I'll put it like this: I've never laughed so hard at a game in my life. The mechanized female voice that comments on everything in the game whether it be how well you did in an area or quips about life and death manage to be hysterical at all times.
The actual gameplay looks like a first person shooter but deep down it's a puzzle game. One button makes you fire a portal you can go into. Another button on the controller makes you fire a portal you'll be coming out of. It sounds very basic at first but once you're in later portions of the game puzzles become rubix cube-like and require a load of thinking to finish.
I haven't gotten into TF2 or the other HL episodes yet because of Portal. It is one of the best games to come out in years, even if it is only about 5 hours of gameplay. Suddenly, I'm not ruling games out as frequently as before and I think in the next several years games are going to be taken as seriously as television or movies.
The cake is a lie and Portal is shifting everything we know about videogames.
I went to the local dealer of electronic goods and picked up the Orange Box for the PS3. At $29.99 it was one hell of a deal. It included Half Life 2, HL2 Episode 1 & 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. I had played HL2 around sophomore year of college and enjoyed it, but never had a good enough computer to fully enjoy the other episodes as they arrived. I had only heard good things about TF2 and Portal.
I started up Portal and after 15 minutes everything I thought I knew about narrative and dialogue were completely gone. I'll put it like this: I've never laughed so hard at a game in my life. The mechanized female voice that comments on everything in the game whether it be how well you did in an area or quips about life and death manage to be hysterical at all times.
The actual gameplay looks like a first person shooter but deep down it's a puzzle game. One button makes you fire a portal you can go into. Another button on the controller makes you fire a portal you'll be coming out of. It sounds very basic at first but once you're in later portions of the game puzzles become rubix cube-like and require a load of thinking to finish.
I haven't gotten into TF2 or the other HL episodes yet because of Portal. It is one of the best games to come out in years, even if it is only about 5 hours of gameplay. Suddenly, I'm not ruling games out as frequently as before and I think in the next several years games are going to be taken as seriously as television or movies.
The cake is a lie and Portal is shifting everything we know about videogames.