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.
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Valve makes yet another original game
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2008
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)
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2008
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