Portal

I’ve primarily discussed board games here and I expect that to be a common topic, but I don’t intend for that to be my only topic. I want to discuss games and game-like activities in all forms, especially when they’re new and intriguing like Portal.

I received “The Orange Box” as a Christmas present and over the weekend I tried the new Valve game Portal. The game has the standard controls of a first-person shooter, but instead of shooting enemies you are in a testing area with certain objectives to complete.

All of the gameplay derives from one new concept: imagine you had a gun that could shoot portals. More specifically, imagine you had a gun that could create either side of a portal at a distance. You can only have one portal open at a time and you must create both sides of the portal to use it, but you can move either end of your very own wormhole almost at will by shooting somewhere else. For convenience, the game differentiates the sides of the portal by color (orange and blue) and each mouse button shoots a different color.

All of the objectives would be impossible without the portal gun, but many are quite easy with its use. For instance, if I need to get across a pit of deadly radioactive waste, I can just create a portal next to me, then place the exit across the pit and step through. There are instances where you must retrieve crates and place them on floor switches or get a bouncing energy ball (whose touch would be fatal) to go to a certain place or traverse a course filled with stationary (but armed) battle androids or use a combination of portals and gravity to propel yourself over barriers. The puzzles contained in each level’s physical layout are clever and force you to explore the new possibilities.

It’s surprising how disorienting the portal can be. When you first look through a portal and see yourself from another angle, your brain tells you that person couldn’t possibly be you (especially since, odds are, your portal avatar looks nothing like you). It gets even worse when you're falling through portals with different orientations (like one the wall and one on the ceiling). I guess travelling through a tear in the spacetime continuum is bound to cause some vertigo, at least.

Initially there doesn't appear to be any story at all as you progress through the game, just a series of "testing rooms" with excellent puzzles. You are often given instructions or commentary from the AI adminstering the test. The comments by the AI are often funny and sometimes a bit creepy. They set the narrative that you'll play out at the end of the game and keep you entertained along the way. The last level contains most of the story, and is one my most enjoyable gaming experiences in quite a while.

It's definitely shorter than most computer/video games that come out today. I liked this, since it meant I actually had time to finish it. There are bonus levels and harder versions of the original maps for those who are looking for more to do. More to the point, the ending of the game was great and I will remember it for years to come. I'd recommend this to anyone who owns a PC. If you don't want to buy the entire Orange Box package, you can download the game individually from Steam for $20.