Customer Reviews

Portal

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The game is a blast to play, if you are into physics-based puzzles. I'm not going to describe it, because it's well-described elsewhere (Wikipedia, for instance). So the question comes down to, "Is it worth buying?" And the answer is a qualified yes.

The game is short. Yes, really short. Compared to the typical puzzle game ("Myst", etc.), you blast through this in half the time (or less). But what is cut out is all the "envirnoment exploration". It has just as many puzzles as the typical puzzle game, but none of that walking around and looking at the scenery stuff. No bits where you have to go to island A to get the key that opens a lock in island B, which gives you the answer to a puzzle back on island A again, etc.

But it's not sudoku, either. GLaDOS is hilarious and menacing at the same time. Even with no other visible characters to interact with, the plot is a surprisingly important part of the experience. You start to get emotionally attached to the idea that you are a lab rat trying to get out of the maze before you get euthanized.

So, yes, it's worth the money. It's short, but intense. In the same way that an hour-long movie might be better than that same movie stretched out to three hours, I'm not sure the game would have worked if it was much longer than it is. In fact, I bought the whole "Orange Box" just to try this game, and I'm happy with the purchase. (That doesn't mean I'm not also going to play Half-Life, eventually.)

If I want to just kill hours on the computer, I can play solitaire. What I wanted was what I got -- an exciting and challenging set of puzzles with a surprisingly compelling plot as a bonus.

Portal is a good puzzle game. I like the concept of the wormhole. It is fun. It took me a couple of days to complete it, and then I did the whole thing in two hours non-stop.

I hated Steam. Before installing Portal, you have to install Steam, then download Portal and then install it, and then activate. It took me close to two hours to get it running.

I loved the game, hated the way it gets installed.

UPDATE: After several years, and using it repeatedly, I have come to like Steam. I used it to get Portal II on its release date. So I have upgraded my rating from 3 to 5 stars. It's the best 3D maze game ever.

Portal is one of the best games I've played in a long time. When you first start the game it opens up with you waking in a small room with walls of blue glass and strange (happy) music playing and you really do wonder where am I?

...that was just to get you started, but here's the real review.
Now you have to understand that unlike other puzzle games portal is not frustrating, what do I mean by that? Well let's take a game like mist for example. When you play mist, unless you're a super genius you're going to be throwing down your mouse every couple seconds. But now with portal, Valve makes the chambers just easy enough for you to not get frustrated. (don't get me wrong they take some skill to learn. But if you think they're too easy then play the advanced chambers that you unlock at the end.)

For the first 15 chambers the game seems to have no other story then that you're some lady participating in a test at a laboratory. But then we come to the 16'th chamber (your training for turrets) now I'm not going to spoil what happens but the game suddenly takes a humorous and somewhat disturbing turn in the story. Also you may have heard about some references to the Half-Life games and curiously wondered what they were. It's not really a big deal in this game though, but Valve has stated that in the future Portal games there will be more hints at Half-life.
Sadly portal is a somewhat short game and even though Valve has achievements, advanced maps, (which I will tell about later) and even challenges (which I couldn't complete) the game just falls short of replay value. So I would suggest that you purchase Portal in The Orange Box as you'll be playing a series if games (not just portal) like Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and of course the long awaited Half-life 2: Episode 2.

Now I've almost finished my review, (my second shortest yet) I come to one of the most important parts of my review (I stress that.) *drum roll* THE HORRIBLE INSTALLATION!!!! Now if you have played other valve games you will understand that you must both install portal and the program (that we hate for the first few months) called Steam. Now Steam isn't bad software(no spyware no spam...nothing) it's just that being forced to install steam them download the game and finally play it while connected to the internet is somewhat frustrating to some people. But when you start to realize the potential steam has you slowly change your mind. You might ask "what the heck is "steam"??" well it's a program where you download games off the internet, like Call of Duty and Crisis. (NOTE: That's only a few of the games available on Steam.) There's so many things to do on Steam that your head will spin. For instance, the Steam Community and Free mods to download. So all though you'll be frustrated for a while you'll soon realize that Steam is great.

-Have fun playing
Blackout<twm> (that's my steam community name)

If any one reading this remembers the tv show from the 70's called "The Bionic Woman," there is an episode in this show called "Doomsday is Tomorrow" (you can watch it on youtube) where the Bionic Woman is trapped in a building and has to outsmart and fight against a super computer named Alex 700. As I played Portal, it gave me the sense of being placed in this kind of deadly situation just as the Bionic Woman was in. Portal is a very cool gaming experience, and once you figure out what you can do to advance through the game while creating portals, you will feel really smart and good about yourself. A brilliantly funny head trip that is short and sweet. When Valve finally come out with Half Life 2 episode 3, I hope that they surprise me by incorporating the portal gun along with the gravity gun. I can't imagine what kind of creative mayhem I could get away with by using both technology together, but I can imagine that it would be fun. Which is what games are meant to be.... fun. Just as Portal is. Kudos to the team that put this one together. Well done.

By the time you read this review, you will have already learned that Portal is a very short game. However, I can tell you that you should invest the modest price for the game and play it. It's a very fun and fresh concept. The game is entertaining; both in terms of actual gameplay and the undercurrent of humor. I haven't had this much fun with the non-play portion of the game since the No One Lives Forever franchise.

As for the shortness of the game. I actually found this to be fine. Had I paid $50 for Portal, I would have been disappointed... but of course, I did not. Had the game been priced higher with 3x the amount of game play, it would have become tiresome, but as it was, I was left wanting more at the end. In comparison, another game I liked a lot was the massive Oblivion (a game which also featured portals, but of a different variety). However, that game was so big, that I actually was getting tired of the game before I completed it. It has had no replay value and I've avoided the add-on/expansion packs. Portal, by comparison, never grew old at all, was fun and challenging throughout and had a fun and tidy conclusion. In many ways, this game left me wanting more games that are equally short and cheap.

Now, about the gameplay. This game is a FPPS (First Person Puzzle Solver). I must admit that that concept wouldn't be my type of thing normally. For me, when I'm engaged in a fun FPS game and then come to an obviously contrived puzzle that I must solve, I find it a frustrating and annoying divergence from the purpose of the game. However, in Portal, I never had that feeling. I embraced it whole-heartedly and enjoyed the experience. Although I'm not a great puzzle solver, I found nothing here to be so hard as to force me to look to external resources for solutions. I feel smarter having played the game, yet never felt like I was solving arbitrary meaningless puzzles. In other words, Portal is a game of puzzles, but it doesn't play or feel that way. For me, this is the great strength of the effort.

The bottom line for me is that I found Portal to be a very pleasant surprise and would recommend it to FPS players looking for a fun diversion.

As has been noted by others, the installation is awful. I can't believe that I was required to open an account online just to install and play the game. I guess I will have to be more careful and review games in the future to make sure I do not purchase games controlled by Steam or any other third party vendor.

I would have no issue if Steam was voluntary, but this was not voluntary. It made my install take 30 minutes because I couldn't understand why my install placed Steam on the hard drive and not Portal. I uninstalled and re-installed the software, but instead of getting Portal, Steam was installed again. Eventually I realized I had to do a second re-install after Steam was installed to get Portal on, but not until the software directed me to setup an online account with Steam.

This is grossly unfair in my opinion because I deplore online games and am very concerned about my computers security. I do not like having third party software on my computer that connects to the Internet. Worse, you have to keep Steam on to play. In fact, it seems that every time I start up Portal, my computer connects with Steam, and sometimes I get an error that Steam's server isn't available. This is absurd since this is a single player game that I purchased on a DVD from a store. There is no reason whatsoever that I should be forced to open an account with Steam.

Needless to say, after I completed the game, which was decent, I uninstalled Steam and Portal. As far as system crashes, I had none. I use a Q6600 processor, 8 gigs RAM, 256 Meg video card, and Vista 64bit.

The game play is fairly intuitive in that you create portals to move from one location to another quickly. I did have trouble with one portion on level 18 in which I could not figure out how to obtain a block all the way across the room, and after an hour I gave up and did a search and easily found a video that pointed out what I missed. Other than that, I was able to complete the game, and I rarely play video games, so I think most people can do it.

There are 19 levels in all, and each level gets progressively longer. There is no penalty for dying, which is fine with me; you simply re-start at the last significant moment.

A number of posters complained that the game was too short. As a novice, it took me a long time, 10-12 hours to figure everything out and by that time, I had enough of this game. Once the game is completed, you can replay some of the same levels again, but they are re-configured to make them harder. I had enough of the game and Steam, so I didn't bother playing the re-configured levels.

a long time, old-school console gamer here and very new to PC gaming. i downloaded Steam from Valve's site a few days ago to take advantage of the free download of Portal and my... God... this game is flawless. i'm not kidding and not prone to hyperbole. (every one thinks i'm a pessimist and i'm inclined to agree)

let me qualify this by saying that my favorite film of all time is The Fifth Element. obviously i love sci-fi and this game feels like the best of every sci-fi film rolled into a completely unique gaming mechanism. using the portals is what this game is all about NOT shooting robots or demons. you truly are a human lab rat armed with an inter-dimensional travel facilitating device.

especially sweet is navigating the background structure outside of the testing chambers. that aspect of the game feels like Doom with it's something-to-kill-you-just-around-the-corner feel.

if you have a hard time wrapping your head around physics, don't worry. the first dozen stages are a 101 course that needs to be in every high school curriculum. that said, just looking at the game made my wife's head hurt. it is truly mind-bending in the best possible way.

WILL be purchasing Portal 2... looks like Valves diabolical plan worked.; )

To install Portal from the standalone DVD version (I don't know about the Orange Box bundle), you must first install Steam, and then open an online Steam account. This is ridiculous! Not only is it invasive and manipulative, it makes the installation take much longer and be much more complicated than it needs to be.

The game is great.

I will never buy another Valve product, because of the installation hurdles that came with Portal.

As a beginning gamer, I was slightly intimidated by the prospect of playing Portal, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The idea behind the game was clever and intriguing. You wake up in a testing facility, not knowing anything about yourself or the circumstances surrounding your situation. By not providing any backstory to the plot, the player is motivated to continue playing in order to find out backstory. There are hints in the settings, like "the cake is a lie" written on the wall, and in GLaDOS' dialog, but nothing definitive. For players with inquisitive minds, the prospect of finding out information motivates them to play through the levels and keeps the gameplay moving.

Many have commented on the brevity of the game, and I will add my two cents. It is short, but that is part of what makes the game so brilliant. If the game had been longer, I would have gotten frustrated and given up. At the length it is, the game leaves the player wanting more, which I personally prefer, and is a tactical move by Valve to get players to buy the sequel. One thing that I had a slight problem with was that the plot was very linear. You go through eighteen test levels merely for the purpose of being a lab rat. The plot is not very prevalent during these levels, because you get hints from GLaDOS of what is coming, but she is mostly walking you through the test. The gameplay in these sections can be very amusing despite the lack of plot twists. You can play around with the portal guns and end up in infinite loops, or chase yourself around a corner. You learn how to launch yourself across the room using the weird gravity changes through the portals. All of these don't seem like they are useful to the plot other than getting you through the level, but they actually help in the final "boss fight."

There are not any choices given to you on how to get through the rooms, which is helpful because it moves the story along, but irked me that there was only one way. Then, when I got to the boss fight, I thought it would have been much harder than it was. I only died once! It was a welcome relief from the previous level, but I expected the boss fight to be the most difficult level in the game. The cliffhanger ending was ingenious because it let you fill in the plot from that point on and you could develop theories as to what really happened. I highly recommend this game and fully intend on playing the sequel.

I loved this game. I have heard the phrase "The cake is a lie" and knew where it came from, but I just have never ¬played Portal. So I was really excited to finally play it!
I really enjoyed the actual gameplay of Portal - a lot more than many first-person shooters that I've played. It's probably partially due to the fact that my computer didn't ever freeze during Portal, so I was able to get through levels without suddenly getting stuck or seeing the Blue Screen of Death.
From a plot perspective, this is very different from many games, first-person shooters and platforming games in general. Typically, you know who you're playing as, why you are there, and what you are trying to accomplish. In Portal, if you are playing the PC version, you don't even know the main character's name (if you play the Xbox/PS3 version, you find out that her name is Chell) let alone why and how you are in the lab to begin with!
Normally, I would argue that a lack of plot (or rather, background information) or characterisation destroys the degree a player can be immersed into a game. However, that theory was thrown back into my face after I played Portal. I was sucked in, left to try to figure things out or make it up as I go. I was able to infer what I want which made the game creepy in an addicting way. From the start of the game, I was slightly paranoid. I shot down every security camera that I saw (sorry, GLaDOS) and was always checking every nook and cranny for danger. While I thought GLaDOS was hysterical (and who wouldn't find her funny?), she scared me at the same time. I never knew what to expect from her. I kept waiting for her to crack (which is very satisfying when the twist finally comes).
To me, the creepiest aspects are what made me love the game more. There are so many unanswered questions that you can let your mind run with its imagination and come up with anything. The settings give so many clues as to what might have happened; but with this, more questions evolve. I doesn't help that GLaDOS keeps lying to you, making you question every little thing that happens.
On a side, my theory as to why Chell was being tested in the first place: at one point, GLaDOS mentions that Bring-Your-Daughter-To-Work Day is a great way to get your daughter tested? Perhaps that explains why she there.
I'll definitely be playing Portal 2. No "ifs," "ands," or "buts."