Last weekend, my boyfriend let me borrow his copy of The Orange Box for Xbox 360. It contains Half Life 2, and Half Life 2 episodes 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.
So I ignored the other games and tried out Portal.
The basic game concepts are explained best in the trailer for the game.
I was quite surprised that unlike most FPS games and recent Katamari Damacy titles, this game did not make me suffer Simulator Sickness, even though the game is set out as a simulator and requires lots of looking around and the environment has these portals. Even with the levels where you do a lot of flying and falling.
It's a fairly short game, I played it all the way to just-before-the-finish within 2 and a half hours of starting it, went to bed, then completed it after under an hour's time when I restarted playing in the morning. It doesn't feel short though, as it feels rewarding to complete each puzzle and it seems like each level has been lovingly crafted and play-tested hundreds of times to see how people would tackle the game. Unlike Beautiful Katamari, for example, which is short and too easy (and full price).
After you've finished, you can play out the same levels as before in "advanced" mode to make them harder, or attempt to finish the levels using a certain amount of time or portals.
Portal is really brilliant. Oh not only is the concept of the game great, and the level design great, but it's really well written. A puzzle game with a story? Yes, it's got a story, it's got an interesting character with some really funny dialogue, and there are little things you see in the environment and mentioned by the character that hint towards a bigger story... and I really liked the ending.
There's a new version of Portal coming out on Xbox Live Arcade later this year called "Portal: Still Alive", I've heard there will be extra levels and challenges, and maybe the ability to play user-designed levels. I'm looking forward to it!
In the meantime, maybe I'll try the fan-made 2D flash game based on Portal... :D
