Portal...Is a 2 hour game really worth 20$??

Saw Portal at a friend's and must admit it looks pretty cool. Played Narbacular Drop (free download) the "prequel" to Portal and it was kinda cute.

I'll not be buying Portal or anything put out by Valve/Steam. The horrible time I had installing HL2 left a bad taste in my mouth.

I will play Portal for free at my friend's house!

LOL I support valve they always put out good games  so I pay for w.e game I want to play made by valve  sometimes ID soft 

i would consider portal 2 to have cost 10 or 5 bucks (5 if you got it early for 45). episode 1 was 20 bucks, so ep 2 should be worth 20 also. cs:s was 20 also, so tf2 is worth 20 also. that leaves 5 or 10 to portal. typical pricing, but of course they have to tell you how you saved $80 or whatever. typical pricing.

but yeah, portal was awesome.

I paid like 45.99 for HL2, HL2 ep 1, HL2 ep 2, Team F. 2, and Portal...Thats not bad...if you break it down...I actually paid like under 10$ per game which is a great deal for new releases 

I'm almost done the advanced bonus maps I still have under 4 hours on it though  But I would've liked a storyline that was more detailed and long. I think it might be uniting with the Half life series, just like blue shift and opposing forces is to half life 1

Portal may not be totaly worth $20 dollars but the game itself is fun and an interesting concept.

L1qu1d, you are right. Portal is going to tie into the Half Life series or already has if you played through Episode 2 yet. I have beaten both and see the ties there. I think Episode 3 should hold some interesting conclusions and maybe answer a few questions. My only question for Portal is the characters legs have the same metal extensions attatched to her as in HL2s stalkers.

lakedude, I feel sorry that you couldn't instal the game proberly. My suggestion is to just go buy the Orange box since it gives you all the HL2 series and TF2 and Portal. Plus this lets you install it from a disk instead of downloading it. I had to download HL2 since I bought a 9800XT and it came with it for free and it downloaded pretty nicely. Other than that you should buy the Orange Box. Its well eorth it and the story so far is one of the best in a game I have ever seen.

lmao you have an 9800XT? Thats how I got my account 2!!!....well my other 1....it got vac banned when I used the account on Windows Vista Beta and they said I hacked.....

So I dunno....
I'm not done episode 2 yet I literally played like 2.5 hours I'm just after the advisor 

So what is it dude? You think you had a good deal with Portal or a bad deal?

packaged good deal, individually not a good deal....

Our Portal review should be going up tomorrow.

Portal came with the Half-Life 2 Orange Box... Turns out that it's a neat game.. I have played it to the end and have gone through all the advanced levels and I still like replaying it. I have more fun playing it than HL2 LOL! Even though I thoroughly enjoy playing it, I'd probably not have purchased it separately.

I've yet to play it, but hopefully it's a taster of things to come. A coop mode where one player has a gravity gun, and another the portal gun would be interesting, with one making portals and the other pushing/pulling things through them. There's certainly a lot of potential in Valve's engine that gives them the ability to innovate and create new genres.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing this, as I spent a lot of time playing around with zone portals in the unreal editor (think stairs sequence from the film Labyrinth). Those were a pain to do as part of the map editing, so player creatable portals sound amazing.

I think thats why they packaged it all together.

The only game i would of paid $30.00 for in "The OrangeBox" is TF2.
Portal, HL2:EP1 HL2:EP2 were way too short, they knew people would be pissed if they had to pay $30-40 for each title.

I did eventually get HL2 to work but it took several days and hours of high speed internet time. First major problem was that I only installed the single player version of HL2 (since at the time I was on dial up and didn't need multiplayer). Turns out you need the multiplayer installed to get HL2 single player to work. Even using a friend's cable (high speed) internet it took hours to get the game to install and convert and update and unlock and whatever the heck it did. I had to drag my computer over to the friends several times to finally get HL2 working. It was a mini-nightmare. I'll not by buying Valve/Steam products unless they send me a personal apology and a stripper-gram.

Also I'm just not that big of a HL fan. It is an ok game/series but it is not my favorite and certainly not worth the trouble of the install. I found the Physics puzzles annoying (the one with the floating barrels lifting the jump ramp was really dumb/impossible) and I don't really care for the gravity-gun. FarCry, COD, and BioShock are all better games IMHO.

By comparison I purchased COD2 on DVD around the same time. It took 10-15 minutes to install and worked perfectly. In fact COD2 has worked perfect with both nVidia and ATI video cards and has worked fine on XP and Vista as well. I will be buying Infinity Ward/Activision products in the future, in fact I've got COD4 (and Crysis) pre-ordered.

There's a demo of COD 4 out apparently...public beta version u should try it out 

Thanks

Got it already from file front. I was not disappointed. COD is awesome. Too bad COD 3 never came out for PC. Anyhow this isn't a COD thread so I'll shutup now....

Open a COD thread then  you'll get alot of ppl msgin on it 

To recap, you're too dumb to buy broadband, and you're too dumb to figure out simple physics puzzles - so Half-Life 2 sucks.

However, you find Call of Duty to be a brilliant, inventive game.

   

lakedude, I'll agree that downloading the HL2 game sucks but having to have the multiplayer to play the single player cannot be true since right now I only have HL2, E1, E2 and Portal installed and not the multiplayer version of HL2. Your system must have just been very bitchy that day.

I also agree that the COD series is probably the best every war series out there but it seems to me that Activision has kinda looked away from the COD roots(PC) and gone after the major console market and that kinda makes me hate them. I wouldn't say the game series is inventive as much as they are just glorious WW2 shooters. Just a better version of Medal of Honor.

Crysis looks great but the system requirements are out of this world compared to HL2, Bioshock and many other games. I Know my system will be way above the recommended specs and the game seems very video-ram hungry(recommended needs a 8800 GTS 640, I have HD2900Pro 1GB) and multi core will be a hughe plus but still.

I remember they said they wanted to be able to run it on all kinds of systems but I doubt an old system with a 3.4EE P4, 2GB DDR and a X850XT GP will be able to play it even at 1024x768.

Anywho back to Portal. Replayed through the Developers commentary and enjoyed listening to what they did and how they did it. Was pretty amazing if you think about having to create new systems and calculator to perform how the portals themselves work. I still can't drop 30000 feet. Guess I'll make a roof portal and then a floor one right on top of eachother and let it fall for a few hours.

Well since you asked, I have broadband now. I live on a lake in the middle of nowhere so until they built more houses out my direction cheap broadband was not available.

I finished HL and HL2 no problem. The puzzles were not difficult to figure out. What I didn't like about the puzzles is the the need to repetitively do manual labor in game to move bricks or barrels around after you already know how to solve the puzzle. Sorry I didn't buy a FPS to act like a trained monkey balancing cinder blocks on a teeter-totter! The puzzles took forever because I kept picking my nose, rubbing my red butt on the ground and screeching.

HL2 is a good game, perhaps not my favorite but it is still a solid piece of work.

The install of HL2 is what sucks. I've got my own broadband now and I'd still rather have a sharp stick in the eye as ever install that stupid game again.

BioShock only took a few minutes online to "authenticate", Half Life 2 took hours.

I didn't download Half Life 2, I purchased it on optical disk. Somewhere around here is a record of what happed. I'll try to dig it up.....

I recall being chided at the time because the required multiplayer install was a "known issue".

EDIT

Here it is: ( from: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4307 )



Is this image showing up for you?

Well it turns out I'm a big fat liar.

After swearing to never, ever have anything to do with Valve again.....I got The Black Box free with a video card purchase. Knowing I was going to be dealing with Steam again I bit the bullet and logged into my Steam account for the first time in a long time. The Black Box has HL2 episode 2 and I've played HL2 so the only thing missing was HL2 ep1. When I saw ep1 for only $9.95 including several other programs (Includes: Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One) I couldn't help myself and I bought (from Steam) the ep1 package.

Somewhere in this process I noticed that I could download the original HL2 for free (since I already bought it on disk and it was already registered with Steam) onto my newest computer. This very cool! I don't even need the original install disks anymore!!

Now that I have broadband and now that Steam seems to have the original bugs worked out I must confess that Steam is pretty cool now. God that hurts me to say....

None of this excuses how horrible my first HL2 install from CDs was. It sucked no two ways about it. Man I didn't even hold out for a stripper gram or nothin....

I never had problems with play or installing on steam...but then again I only downloaded off the internet...  I also had all the games because of a special cd key that was given to me by ati when I bought the 9800XT like in 2003  

portal YAY! although the cake is a lie....

lakedude gald to hear you changed your point of view, I could understand your fustrations if you are not as big as a half life fanboy like me. but like I said I'm a HL fanboy (with HL tattoos and everything) I will always support Valve/steam/Half-Life

Portal is a great game, its more like 3 hours long unless you're a genius. And thats excluding the bonus maps.

valve games are the only games I basically purchase because I support their work and their programming

Portal is really fun and entertaining. I don't think you'll finish the storyline + bonus content in 3 hours. If you can... I salute you! The ending is GREAT - I give this game a 10/10 for Fun and Originality.

If $20 sounds a little steep, just go for the Orange Box ($40-$50 Buy from Fry's or Newegg) - you get HL:2, Ep1, Ep2, TF2, and Portal. If you own the original HL:2, you can give it to a friend for free. (Valve lets you give it as a gift!)



I used to just feel that Valve games were just like any other, but then I played a few games through with the "Commentary Mode" and it really made me feel like they want to make the best game possible. It also made me pay a lot more attention to all the little things they do for you but never notice. (That's another comment in their commentaries, "If we're doing our job, you won't even notice.." Funny, but so true)

yup exactly, you took the words right out of my mouth!  
I remember when doom 3 and Half life 2 were head to head. Doom 3 had so many optimization probs....constant lag...while half life 2 worked on virtually any video card 

Although Half life 2 seems to be really hardware demanding now a day if you wanna max everything out ...I have 2 8800 GTS and it still finds a chance to lag sometimes.
But they're storylines, game play and over all feeling of the games is beyond anything I've played 

Then again theres still time for something new.

Just to put it out there I think it would've been cooler if they named the episodics half life 3: episode 1 ....but meh!

Isn't your hardware a little bit of overkill for Valve games? Isn't that one of the things they are known for is making good looking games that run on lower spec hardware? Just asking.....

Anyhow you MUST (please) try my favorite game: FarCry

It should be dirt cheap by now and even though it was a system killer when new, your system should have no trouble running on high settings. Heck I got 2 copies, if you can't afford a copy I'll send you one of mine!

EDIT

WOW it looks like FC is a free download now:

http://www.fileplanet.com/180410/180000/fileinfo/Far-Cr...

Ad Supported far cry. I think i will keep playing the FREE one AMD gave out way back when  

Yeah man its full of spyware I'm assuming because of all the injected ads...I'd rather pay 10$ at Walmart and Have the full ad free game 

Yea valve is known to have the best looking games with low requirements. But ever since HDR came out for Half life games...thats the thing that kills the video card. Everything else You can max out...but the bloom just kills your machine  I have over 100 Fps but sometimes it dropper to like 24...well atleast in Episode 2...maybe they didn't fix all the kinks but we'll have to see!

By the way I did like far cry as a game but after I played Half life 2 and saw it's physics and beautiful effects I kinda didn't go back to it!

Like others have said only if you buy it in a package deal like the orangebox.
The game way too easy to beat but it is fun single player, not sure if the developers of it will release any new content for it.

Some people say this flash version http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/ , is harder then the game valve made lol.

I did have some issues with protal and HL2:EP2 not having any voices, it was funny the characters in HL2:EP mouths wouldn't move until i fixed the problem.
(had to change it to a different language and then back to English to fix the problem)

Yea the flash version is pretty hard lol I tried it...it was fun got to level like 39 or sumthing and then I had to go to work lol

I have to say that for $20 the game is definitely worth it. I got a lot of great laughs out of the game. I loved the game play. I found the commentary to be really cool, though I think you should be able to pass through walls/fly in this part as all I was interested in was the commentary. The advanced and challenge levels have taken a considerable amount of time and head scratching. I've paid more for far worse games in the past.

I feel the exact same way. I don't mind static ads as much as dynamic ads that gather cookies from you computer and display ads based on your tastes. That pisses me off. It would be like a stranger going through your trash... it's your trash, but stay the hell out. (I believe a SWAT game did this as well as a few other things.) I can only imagine telling your team - "I'm buy the big Pepsi billboard!" Team: "I only see a Martha Stewart Living billboard"... so lame.

Yea but just because there are other bad games that are worth more it doesn't justify its own pricing lol I mean it was an AMAZING GAME don't get me wrong but it felt more like how Blue Shift is to Half life 1....just an expansion pack and Blue Shift was longer too    

So I think if you bought the bundle You got an amazing deal its bascially the Half life trilogy from the start of half life 2 + Portal and Team fortress 2 haha