Portal Review

[tmeacham]

Review written by Travis Meacham

The excitement surrounding Valve's release of The Orange Box is mostly due to Half-Life: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2. However, the side project known as Portal may be the one to steal all the thunder.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2007/10/16/portal_review/

 

[chyort]

i would have loved to see some kind of a multi-player aspect to portal. be it racing a friend(i know you can compare your best times, but that just isn't the same) or some kind of a co-op. (one gun to each person or something)

not that the maps portal currently has are designed for that, but when people start making their own maps it would be an interesting twist.

 

[nukemaster]

Its all good to release orange box, but all the people who got HL2 and ep 1 already are getting screwed hardcore(was supposed to be black box with just epp2 tf2 and portal, but it was canceled)

Too bad how the once who support them and get the games when they come out are getting hit. i am not gonna pay $30 on steam for Epp2(come on part one was 19$) 10 for portal and 20 for TF2....and it seems like a waste to re-buy HL2 and ep 1 again, something gives me a feeling they will not let me transfer those games to a friends account...

[/Rant]

Either way it looks like a good play.

 

[Token_Z]

How can this get a better score then quakewars. This game isn't even a game that could be release on its own. What is going on with reviews.
Quake Wars is a away better game that will still be fun years from now.

 

[vertigo_2000]

I enjoyed Portal. I found it to be one of the more creative/fresh games out there. Quake Wars is a Battlefield 2142 set in the Quake universe (that's a simplfied explanation, but it's fair). Portal is something new.

I do hope they tie Portal and HL2 together a little more tightly, but keeping Portal all by itself wouldn't disappoint me one iota.

It kind of reminded me of the Canadian-made movie called "Cube". Where people wake up to find themselves in a very unusual place and no explanation of how or why they are there.

The song at the end was hilarious, the voice was comical/creepy.

Overall, 9 out of 10, to me, was a fair score for this refreshing gaming experience.

 

[warezme]

there is nothing that compares to this game....hmmm, lets see, puzzles to solve, mystery, portals to strange locations???..., can you say Prey!

I haven't played portal but screenshots and description sure sound like Prey to me and graphics not as good.

 

[theclintstone]

This game is not Prey... not even close. And the graphics are actually better, and the physics is well done. No screenshot can do it justice go get the movie from Steampower.com. This is one game I wanted to just go on and on. I have beaten the game, all the advanced, and some of the performance maps (timed, portals, and steps). Its one of those games that even a child could do it to start but it ramps up well, I just wish it went a little bit longer.

I hope Freeman gets a Portal gun in EP3. It would be a fitting merge of the 2 games and could lead to a never done before final battle pitting the gravity gun and the portal gun against your final foe. Think of the carnage.

 

[silentcoercion]

Um, contrary to the author's hypothesis, I actually did buy the orange box for portal. Admittedly the inclusion of the other games were what convinced me to buy the box, instead of downloading portal alone, but I would not have given it a second look if not for portal.

*shrug*

 

[frednitney]

I can remember downloading the first Portal video to come from VaLvE and thinking..
This is going to "revolutionize" the face of fps games!

The fact that you could blow a hole in a wall; and then another hole somewhere else which would spit you out seemed ike the "perfect" addition to an FPS ! (Absolutely unlike prey... You control the portals!)

After having played Portal and gotten to the end of level 19; not 20 lol
My thoughts are that the Portal Gun will be implemented into HL so seemlessly that it will feel as if you should have had one since the beginning !

Portal is a great game with "New and Awesome" possibilities.



frednitney

 

[Guest]

I was all over the original Halflife and TFC for a long time. After a while I lost interest in waiting for TF2 to come out so I found other games to play completely missing HL2 and the expansions. The Orange Box was a great way for me to get back into the Halflife scene. Being just a little bit biffed and disappointed in TF2 left me to click on this icon that I hadn't clicked on before called Portal. WOW.. What a ride.. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and have finished all the Advanced chambers and am left wanting more... Funny thing is I find Portal more enjoyable than the chore of playing through HL2's gauntlets which was the reason for buying TOB in the first place.. Good job on the review. I can't agree more and wish they would come out with more Portal stuff!

PS -- I was a fairly upset by the fact that TOB took almost 2 hours to install on my less than 6 month old PC. It seemed to be downloading everything from Steam regardless of having the DVD's. My only question was "why?"... Why go to the trouble of releasing a retail box if they are going to do a digital download anyway? *Boggle*

 

[jkflipflop98]

Because the only reason there is even a DVD sold in stores is because people fear change. How many times have your heard some meathead say "That digital download crap isn't for me! I NEED to have physical media and a box with MY games!"
Well there ya go. Now you have a chunk of physical media with the halflife symbol on it. Even though you're just gonna digitally download it anyways.

 

[charles13]

I do prefer to have a physical copy of a game. It's not that I (or probably most others) fear change, it's a personal preference. I LIKE having the Orange Box on my game shelf, it's a great collectors item, which is great for game collectors, such as myself. YOU obviously have a different preference, which is great for YOU, so go download YOUR digital copy and I'LL have my cake and eat it too.

Oh, and Portal is a blast.

 

[Tsukasa]

Agree with Travis and Vertigo. I also bought the box mainly for portal, but TF2 kinda helped as well. The game was superb and I was actually happily surprised to find that there was a plot, and a good plot at that. It surpassed my expectations.

The easter eggs left throughout the game gave it a Doom-ish feel and "That one part" (if you've played then this should be a fairly obvious mention) completely flipped my portal world and scared the crap out of me. Definitely better then any puzzle game I've played yet. Go play it now if you own the Orange Box.

Song at the end was awesome as well, hilariously sadistic.

 

[Fett101]

something gives me a feeling thy will not let me transfer those games to a friends account...

But you can. If you have Half Life 2 and/or Ep 1 registered to your Steam account when you install the Orange box you can send those games to a friend. That's what the new menu item "Mange gifts and guest passes" is under the Games menu on steam.

Also, if anyone wishes to memorialize their dear departed Companion Cube, there's a papercraft avilable floating around the web. http://kotaku.com/gaming/papercraft/portal-papercraft-311187.php No cake yet, though

 

[L1qu1d]

I have those if any1 wants to buy em cheap LMAO

 

[nukemaster]

But you can. If you have Half Life 2 and/or Ep 1 registered to your Steam account when you install the Orange box you can send those games to a friend. That's what the new menu item "Mange gifts and guest passes" is under the Games menu on steam.

Also, if anyone wishes to memorialize their dear departed Companion Cube, there's a papercraft avilable floating around the web. http://kotaku.com/gaming/papercraft/portal-papercraft-311187.php No cake yet, though

In that case...
Orange box here I come.....

 

[jimmysmitty]

Portalwas very fun for me. I love the HL2 tie ins in both Episode 2 and Portal.

Only thing that concerned me is that it said at one point "We will kill you than eat cake". I know its nothing but what if the cake is some other test subject who died and got baked?

 

[Fett101]

Only thing that concerned me is that it said at one point "We will kill you than eat cake". I know its nothing but what if the cake is some other test subject who died and got baked?

Spoiler

Actually, the line GladOS says is "You will be baked, and then there will be cake." If you're not paying close attention you'll likely thing she said 'Thanked' like I did the first time I played through.

 

[Tsukasa]

Both of you might want to change the font color of your spoiler to make it harder to read against the background or, even better, just use the option to make it a spoiler text (it's right next to italics and bold) for the benefit of those who have not played the game but are reading the review for an idea; especially since its the major plot twist. But I thought she said "Thanked" to, lol.

 

[Rusmurf]

Prey does have a portal systm, that sorta does a few things similar to "Portal". Totally different game in every other aspect. Prey was in development for a bajillion years, because they were trying to make their portal system have real world physics or something. I guess they finally scrapped it, I think originally it was supposed to play a bigger part in the game.

Portal is fun, Valve is gonna do alot of stuff with this idea. I'm sure multiplayer mods, blending of games, etc etc. We are gonna see alot of fun stuff come from them.

 

[theoyfiend]

Well I for one will be purchasing the Orange Box simply for Portal, although I'm sure the bonus games that come with it will get a play too.

 

[stemnin]

The credits alone were worth 9/10!

 

[hell_spawn]

the cake is a lie, however the fact of portal being an awsome game is not.

I would of bought portal all by itself but being bundled in the orange box was perfect because now I have a spare Steam account that I set up for my spare pc for when friends, (who for some reason don't have hl2:dm), come over.

the storyline ties in hl2:ep2 and portal are great I can't wait for ep3 to come out to intigrate both of them.... perhaps a new name like... Half-Portal, or maybe Portal-Life, j/k

I highly recommend Narbacular Drop to anyone who really enjoyed portals puzzles, I played it for weeks when I first heard of portal being created

9.5/10 just because the game was short but still had very enjoyable playtime (to be honest it was actually longer then I expected)

 

[nukemaster]

WOW that ending(cake then song) is SOOOOO funny.....

2 hours well spent.....

EDIT

it was more like 3 hours maybe even 3.5...that how much time tends to fly.....its was a lot of fun....

I have also gone back to some of the maps thats have different challenges.