This, my friends, is the big one. The great hit. The one where the cake is claimed to be a lie and where we're using a trans-dimensional shower curtain. This, my friends, is portal. This game has probably been spoiled for you about a thousand times over, so I am not going to bother tagging all spoilers, just the ones relating to other games. Thank you for assuming the reader submission position and enjoy. Portal is one of the most beloved games of the last few years, this action adventure puzzle horror comedy shooter has been pretty much universally praised and there have been very few detractors. The game originally started as a half-life 2 modification (the half-life 2 review is next) and was later bought, given a story and new challenges, given new graphics and sold in stores. The game has proven popular enough to warrant a sequel, which will star in one of my next reviews. And it's easy to see why portal is so popular. The atmosphere of the game is absolutely fantastic. The contrast between the test chambers and the rest of the facility is amazingly done. GLaDOS' words can early on be interpreted in two ways. I especially like the "the floor here will kill you" and "all illusions of danger are just to enhance the testing experience" lines. Her lines become more and more erratic. The puzzles themselves are also great, always just challenging enough. But you can find praise everywhere. Therefore, here are some of the elements in the game that could have been done better. The most notable detraction of this game is it's length, having about 6 hours of gameplay. If you ever watch the advertisements for the first game, you note pretty much all of the rooms from those advertisements are missing. Maybe the creators of the game were scared of breaking the atmosphere with their spiked mashers, or maybe they just couldn't make the difficulty curve work. A second problem is that aperture science, ratman and Chell are given very little backstory in tge game itself. We know that Aperture Science makes stuff, competed with Black Mesa (from half-life) and now all its employees are dead. We never learn the history of the company and we never see any experiments not relating to portal room puzzles. This makes it seem like the only achievement aperture ever had was the portal gun, and every other invention was just for the sake of that gun. Ratman wasn't even given a name, and all we knew was that it was a hermit that, for some reason, had painted hints for you (for some reason, I always imagined a crazy teen girl whenever I saw the scribbles). The only thing we know about Chell is how she looks. Nothing else. None of these things are really required for the story, but it is a bit annoying how we never learn anything beyond "GLaDOS killed everyone at aperture. Aperture and Black Mesa competed for a government contract. Aperture made a portal gun. You test the portal gun. Someone is making scribbles". And yes, I know that the comic and the developers expanded on a lot of this stuff, but this is really something that could and should have been in the game. The third and most minor and subjective of this problems is that portal takes place in the half-life universe. The half-life universe is grim and serious. Portal is rather silly. It's a weird contrast. I also can't quite figure out how the time-line is supposed to work. The presentation about competition with Black Mesa was clearly made before the events of half-life: opposing force (Because in that game Spoiler the facility exploded ). But that means it should take place during either Spoiler the portal storms or the combine invasion. If it's during the portal storms, why aren't there any creatures inside the facility? I know that it's not that kind of game, but, according to half-life 2, all of the world has been overrun by aliens. Where are the barnacles, or the ant-lions? Sure, they might not survive inside the facility for long, but there are no corpses either. And GLaDOS clearly hasn't taken her time to clean the formerly populated parts of the facility. If the game takes place during the combine occupation, how come they never found the facilities, despite (spoilers for hl2: episode 2 and portal 2) Spoiler the knowledge of the Borealis? Wouldn't looking for better teleportation technology be pretty big for the combine? Final score for portal: 8.75 out of 10. The game is funny, witty, challenging, atmospheric and engaging. Sure, it might be lacking a bit in backstory, but the game more than makes up for it. As a final note: THE CAKE IS NOT A LIE! WE SEE IT, DAMN IT! WHY MUST THE INTERNET LIE SO?!
I'd assume they haven't found it because Aperature Science is located several kilometers below ground. That, and any alien scouts would probably be taken care of by sentry droids right away, then get incinerated. I like how portal 2 really expands upon the story, but yeah, the original is a bit meh in the lore department.
The combine conquered earth in 7 hours. I really doubt they'd have much trouble with stationary turrets. And the complex couldn't have been that deep underground if the party associate robot manages to reach you within seconds of breaking out. Also regarding that cake: wasn't the ending retconned for portal 2? So would that mean the cake IS a lie? Or maybe it's a quantum state of lying and truth. THE CAKE IS A SEMI-TRUTH/SEMI-LIE!
You can actually get to the cake room in portal 1. The thing is, it really is that deep. You can see it in portal 2. Anyway, I'd think that even the combine would have to put some effort into taking over a base that can just implode upon itself and crush everything between moving walls and spikes? I haven't payed that much attention while playing half life... Kinda refuse to start on it properly until they release episode 3. I bloody hate unfinished storylines. That being said, in portal 2 you find this office. On a table there is a piece of paper with a city on it. In the middle of the city is a freaking giant vortex/portal thingy. I'd say that portal happens during or long after the half life stuff.
Portal 1 happens within a few years either direction of HL2 (all we know is that HL2 takes place sometime in the 2020's). Portal 2 takes place a loooong time after, maybe hundreds of years. http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline There's the timeline.
On a note related to the reviews: I would like to review Half-life: Decay, but that was made for two players. Anyone here have Half-life and would like to play it some time? The pc version of the add-on is downloadable for free.
