Portal (game)
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| Portal, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Destroy the Computer | |
|---|---|
| |
| Developer | Valve Software |
| Release Date | Quite a while ago |
| Genre | First-person puzzler |
| Platforms | Is there a 'Jump' button? Yes, there is. So you can expect plenty of platforms |
| Rating | Suspiciously good |
| Would Bill Clinton play it? | [VERDICT HERE], because the cake is a lie |
Portal is a worldwide offline internet meme, by Valve Software.
It has been released for the Xbox 2π, PlaySlow 3, and Windows platforms, and was a triumph.
See! I made a pun! Triumph, 3 platforms? Oh, all right.
Contents |
Development
Portal first began development as a text adventure, at Infocom. Below is an excerpt from an early beta:
| Relaxation Vault
You are in a small room. There is a radio on the coffee table, playing in the background. There is a small toilet here. There is a small toilet here. |
Naturally, Infocom gave up on the idea, as text simply could not convey the visual aspects of a portal.
The idea was later picked up by Valve. It was incredibly timely that a group of talented students should have turned up at this opportune moment, with a game called something no human could spell correctly. Did I mention they were students (read [POOR])? Valve decided to recruit these students to produce the game at a professional scale, under the conditions that:
- they change the name to Portal, because:
- that was the original idea's title.
- the students' name for the project could not be spelled on the contract.
- they include plenty of references to cake.
To fulfill the second requirement, the development team spent two years developing a digitising apparatus that would transport a real Black Forest cake into the Source engine. Two months were spent on developing the game itself, and the last couple of months were spent on play-testing, soundtrack composing, and a party. Even the Weighted Companion Cube was invited, but he couldn't come because you murdered him.
Gameplay
Portal's gameplay mainly consists of a series of puzzles solved by making gaping holes in the fabric of space-time, using the ASHPDA, or Aperture Science Handheld Portal Decanting Amplifier. This physics decomposer can create two such portals, with colour schemes dubbed Hazard Orange and Barney Blue. Subsequent portal creations will result in the euthanising of the previous corresponding portals.
There are rebellious surfaces that will resist portal creations: attempts to create portals on such surfaces will result in rapid response from Civil Protection Teams *bzzt* I mean, "Test Administration Personnel." The protagonist may try to pick up objects directly with the ASHPDA, however this often results in a slap-on-the-face because they really hate to be viewed as just objects. Try offering to buy them a drink, first. Or just euthanise them.
The portals hold a spatio-visual interlocational connection (whatever that is). The fun part is when the planes accommodating the portals are nonparallel. Momentum redirection results in illogical motion contrarian to normal Newtonian motion of objects in three-dimensional space-time. This basically means that the player can fling himself over great distances by a maneuver fittingly called "I.M.C.N.N.M.O.3-D.S-T," or, in layman's terms, "flipping out, man." (The official Aperture Science term for it is "flinging," but we prefer the preceding term.)
This feature allows for an interesting play technique impossible in other games. For instance, a player may jump from a high ledge to enter a portal on the floor, only to be ejected from an other portal located on a nearby wall, causing the player to fly across the room at near-terminal velocity. Jumping from a slightly higher ledge, however, will result in painfully slow travel, multiple security checks, and confiscation of your hair gel as a result of achieving terminal velocity. But, as this is not real life or even Sparta, the player is allowed to ignore enormous G-forces that really should knock out the player.
There are no weapons available to the player aside from the deitical power to manipulate the fabric of space-time and sticking it to Einstein's gravestone (which is probably available in Garry's Mod). Although perceived by newbies as a shortcoming, this feature affords the player unique opportunities to try out the console and the code impulse_101.
Synopsis
Setting
Portal is set in the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Incineration Centre, where convicts go to die (TM). The facility is completely isolated, and without other lifeforms, perhaps except for this giant computer rig called GLaDOS, another murderous, paranoid computer, apparently from the people that brought you HAL 9000. Portal is set in the Half-Life universe -- you know, the one where the guards always promise to buy you a beer and never do, and the one where the Marine Corps try to kill you.
Most of the other background is given via an Aperture Science website that looks really old (like, as old as ARPANET) but really is a piece of viral marketing, as well as YouTube speculation.
Plot
The player, in the character of Chell, wakes up from stasis, and subsequently undergoes a series of puzzles in the Incineration Centre. Throughout the puzzles, Chell is promised cake as a motive for completing these esoteric, worthless, horribly murderous tests. Great.
Chell proceeds through the Centre, while noticing GLaDOS's gradual mental psychosis from years of isolation. GLaDOS mentions something about being baked into cake, rambles onto something about grief counselling, then explains incinerating a cute little inanimate storage crate. As the player proceeds through the Centre, GLaDOS's sadistic, haphazard nature is further revealed. Some of the chambers have sections that are falling into disrepair and have been vandalised with statements like "the cake is a lie" (which makes no sense unless you are GLaDOS, or one of those bakery owners that know the pain of having their patisseries ransacked by vigilantes and having all of the good cakes destroyed). Others involve high-risk gameplay elements, such as Aperture Science High-Energy Vapourisation Units, or cute little turrets that specialise in friendly fire (pun intended).
Meanwhile, GLaDOS does have a more sadistic and haphazard plan in store. When Chell finally completes the test course, she realises that the cake was a lie: she is rickrolled, and subsequently sent into an oven. However, with the portal gun (and some convenient plot devices), Chell escapes, and goes through a more disrepaired section of the Centre. Here, while navigating through the area, Chell realises that GLaDOS's hard drives must be corrupt, and she is the only one still alive.
Despite GLaDOS's threats, she navigates to GLaDOS's computer room, where GLaDOS briefly contemplates on the futility of survival and existence and free will, before declaring war by firing missiles. Chell then realises that the only way to defragment GLaDOS's hardware is by completely fragmenting (i.e. destroying it), which she proceeds to do. The Deus Ex Machina module subsequently causes an improbable resonance cascade, and the player passes out just before the fence surrounding the Centre.
The final scene shows a tedious journey through the innards of the Incineration Centre ending with a Black Forest cake and a reincarnated Weighted Companion Cube. The end credits features GLaDOS's single hit, "Still Alive."
Extras
Portal can be played with audio commentary enabled, meaning that every time the player points at a large icon shaped like a speech balloon, he can hear a developer getting excited about how they managed to remove a gameplay element through extensive play-testing. A common flaw in earlier level designs was the ability to shoot portals through portals; this was criticised as too "meta," but not removed until revealed to make the game so much easier. Also removed from the game was the Rat Man, a schizophrenic genius removed from the narrative because "even the name freaked everyone out."
A "Crash Every 10 Minutes Mode" may be activated by installing integrated graphics on your computer. This results in extremely low detail, horrible graphics, and a Blue Screen of Death every 10 minutes of gameplay (guaranteed or your money back). Compatible chipsets include the Intel 915, 945 and 965 chipset lines. However, this was apparently never supposed to be released to the public, and Valve has released removal kits over Steam, its system deceleration *bzzt* I mean, content distribution network.
Critical reception
Portal has had positive critical reception from its infancy; even hard-boiled reviewers find the game hard to criticise. This may be partly explained due to extreme guilt triggered by Weighted Companion Cube incineration. However, it may just be due to the fact that the game is far ahead of its time, is paradigm-shifting and really innovative, and just rocks. This second possibility is extremely improbable, and likely was caused by an Infinite Improbability Drive.
Portal's Weighted Companion Cube has especially resonated among gamers. The cube has gained a cult following that worships it, and has made it in cake, PC, papercraft, plush toy, fuzzy dice, ASCII art, and desktop wallpaper versions of their idol. This just goes to show that code monkey very simple man with big warm fuzzy heart: code monkey like it a lot. (And not just play Call of Duty 4 and Grand Theft Auto IV for hours on end, killing and looting virtually. Or should I say virtually looting and killing?)
Portal has also won several awards:
- Game of the Year from Joystiq, Game Developers Choice Awards, AV Club, and a billion other organisations;
- Best Puzzle Game from most of above organisations;
- Some type of Innovation Award from Game Developers Choice Awards, IGN, what should have been TechTV, and a trillion other organisations;
- Most Sinister Villain Award by GamePro;
- Best Soundtrack by Penny Arcade, which is kind of funny because only had one track ("Still Alive");
- Too many others for this author to bother to name.
External links
Valve and its creepy games
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