Half Life Portal

Here's the time for a very new game to be reviewed. I played another game from my Black Box Edition of bundled games of the video card package, namely Portal. To start off, I can say that the people who love the physics lessons will enjoy this game greatly because it's all about accuracy, speed, movement and the gravitational relations between dynamic objects and static portals. The big idea here is that you have to go through one portal to another in order to reach the exit of each level - and it gets dangerous as there are some levels where the character you're playing as a gamer can get "killed" and you will have to replay the level again. If you watched the movie "The Cube", this game will look very “familiar”. This is not exactly a first person shooter game - it’s more like a first person puzzle contest.

The game story starts with Chell, who wakes up in a chamber with see-through walls and she finds a radio playing the “Still Alive” song from the game credits. The character moves along with a pair of heel springs – these allow her to fall from high places without getting hurt. As the levels change, Chell finds out that GLaDOS, the “voice” that gives her instructions, is testing and watching her all the way. First she gains the simple type of the portal gun and then the “upgrade” that allows her to create an “entrance” portal and an “exit” portal. The big “reward” for completing the tests is a big cake, literally, which is a bit silly…

Moving on, we see again various traps and obstacles that Chell needs to go through, and GLaDOS warns her that there are side effects like hallucinations. If the initial stages are relatively friendly in environment, the more you advance through the game, the more difficult and the more skilled you need to become to pass the tests. From GLaDOS’ speech you will soon realize what this whole experiment in the game is getting at, but then again, the artificial intelligence behind the female voice shows signs of human weaknesses and starts acting “immaturely”, and aggressively in some points.

You will get to see a lot of graffiti on the walls left by “probably a former test subject”, containing the text “the cake is a lie” – and it certainly is, you didn’t actually believe that, did you? GLaDOS tells Chell that these inscriptions came from a person who thought that the cube (again, does this sound familiar to the fans of the movie “The Cube”, or what?). First, “the voice” is impressed with Chell’s achievements in the tough levels, but later on it gets uncomfortable and tells her that she is not unique, she can be replaceable and that she will be finally disposed of.

With a bit of luck and some wits you will manage to reach the final test, where Chell finally sees how the “voice” looks like, “up close and personal” – you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you? Now that the enemy is in front of you, there is no time to waste at all as it will start spreading a toxic gas and there won’t be enough time to defeat it. So the best thing to do is to create a portal near the red hole where you can throw each of the “heads” of the GLaDOS artificial intelligence and thus you defeat it. There is also a trick – there is a rocket launcher that can be tricked to fire into the machine.

Game Guide - Levels 1 -13
After you win the final confrontation, you will get a “virtual” cake – what did you actually expect to eat that? There’s a robotic arm that puts out the candle and then you will hear the “voice” gain singing “Still Alive” – watch out for the messages that will be displayed – they convey some very interesting information.

End Song

Digitainment: 8 out of 10

Publisher/Developer : Valve

Buy: $19

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