I had vaguely heard of Portal over the years; I knew the saying "the cake is a lie", had seen gamers on the internet doing things in real life to resemble the portals in the game and knew that it was part of a pack of smaller games (or something). The sequel coming out recently to universal praise made me decide to download the original off the Xbox Live Arcade and I was quite pleased with what I found. Having been a massive fan of recent game Limbo, I enjoyed seeing that Portal was somewhat of an inspiration for it since the concept of the game is that in each area you are presented with the situation as it is, the tools you have at your disposal and it should be simple logic to get through the room and out the other side.
In principle it is a great game although it does show its age with the loading times and the basic graphics. I enjoyed the game play and I enjoyed applying logic to come up with my ideas and then executing them. The puzzles are all well designed but they are perhaps a bit too easy to get through – it is only some of the later rooms that gave me pause for thought while mostly I was able to move through room after room with relative ease and at times it was a little disappointing to identify the solutions within a few seconds of entering the area. Although quite easy to solve, the puzzles are well designed and do require skill and timing to pull it off – getting the solution is the first bit, pulling it off is the next! The challenge rooms put into the Arcade version are welcome (the story mode took me just under two hours) and these do provide a bit more of a challenge – but the game is still surprisingly short even with these and, as I found it a bit easy, I will say I didn't have any of the "oh that's evil" moments that I had with Limbo, where 20 minutes of staring at the screen found me rewarded with a brainwave of the solution. The only time the game suddenly got hard was in those last few "advanced" maps – and this was a frustrating "hard" where everything had to be timed perfectly, in terms of "puzzles" they were still pretty obvious, just doing them was harder.
The humour of it all helps immensely and even my girlfriend (who simply doesn't see any point to gaming) appreciated this aspect of it. The song over the end credits is the perfect example but throughout we have some great lines from the computer behind the tests and I really got a kick out of some of the things she said. When you find yourself loving the turrets that are trying to kill you, you know that the game has done something right in terms of making characters! Visually the game is solid and effective even if the last few years have dated it quite quickly. The simple controls are easy to pick up and master so that mostly it comes down to how logical the player is in regards whether they can spot what to do. I think once in the story mode I was tempted to look the solution up but I resisted and I advise others to do the same at all costs because the whole point of the game is the puzzles, looking them up leaves nothing so why do it? I'll happily spend however long trying to work out the puzzle because this thought process is as much playing the game as using the controller is.
Portal is a bit too easy to be the classic and short that everyone claims it as when approached as a standalone game but it is no doubt a great game that has been influential. The puzzles are logical and quite rewarding on the whole even if some of them are annoyingly obvious (eg a room with a floor far below you and a wall above you is clearly a "momentum" solution waiting for you to do it). The humour to the game makes it that little bit more special and I did appreciate it for making me chuckle frequently as I played. I may have been years behind in terms of playing this game, but one thing is for certain – I will be picking up Portal 2 very soon.
In principle it is a great game although it does show its age with the loading times and the basic graphics. I enjoyed the game play and I enjoyed applying logic to come up with my ideas and then executing them. The puzzles are all well designed but they are perhaps a bit too easy to get through – it is only some of the later rooms that gave me pause for thought while mostly I was able to move through room after room with relative ease and at times it was a little disappointing to identify the solutions within a few seconds of entering the area. Although quite easy to solve, the puzzles are well designed and do require skill and timing to pull it off – getting the solution is the first bit, pulling it off is the next! The challenge rooms put into the Arcade version are welcome (the story mode took me just under two hours) and these do provide a bit more of a challenge – but the game is still surprisingly short even with these and, as I found it a bit easy, I will say I didn't have any of the "oh that's evil" moments that I had with Limbo, where 20 minutes of staring at the screen found me rewarded with a brainwave of the solution. The only time the game suddenly got hard was in those last few "advanced" maps – and this was a frustrating "hard" where everything had to be timed perfectly, in terms of "puzzles" they were still pretty obvious, just doing them was harder.
The humour of it all helps immensely and even my girlfriend (who simply doesn't see any point to gaming) appreciated this aspect of it. The song over the end credits is the perfect example but throughout we have some great lines from the computer behind the tests and I really got a kick out of some of the things she said. When you find yourself loving the turrets that are trying to kill you, you know that the game has done something right in terms of making characters! Visually the game is solid and effective even if the last few years have dated it quite quickly. The simple controls are easy to pick up and master so that mostly it comes down to how logical the player is in regards whether they can spot what to do. I think once in the story mode I was tempted to look the solution up but I resisted and I advise others to do the same at all costs because the whole point of the game is the puzzles, looking them up leaves nothing so why do it? I'll happily spend however long trying to work out the puzzle because this thought process is as much playing the game as using the controller is.
Portal is a bit too easy to be the classic and short that everyone claims it as when approached as a standalone game but it is no doubt a great game that has been influential. The puzzles are logical and quite rewarding on the whole even if some of them are annoyingly obvious (eg a room with a floor far below you and a wall above you is clearly a "momentum" solution waiting for you to do it). The humour to the game makes it that little bit more special and I did appreciate it for making me chuckle frequently as I played. I may have been years behind in terms of playing this game, but one thing is for certain – I will be picking up Portal 2 very soon.