Portal (2007)

Portal is one of my favourite games of all time - and on replay for the first time in nearly ten years, I have to say it's definitely still up there with the best of them.

I smashed through the test chambers much more quickly this time around, as there's not a lot of challenge in it once you've mastered the physics and tricks of the portal gun. Still, I had a ball, and the passive aggressive and murderously deranged GLaDOS is one of my all time favourite game villans.

Portal will always have a special place in my heart. It came as a freebie when Steam was released for Mac back in 2010 and helped drag me back from the consoles and back into the world of PC gaming, and while I ditched the Macbook years ago, Portal will always be the first game in my steam library. That ever expanding, vacuum of money spent on games I've never played.... facepalm

This felt like a proof of concept for the next game more than a fully realized standalone, a demo to test the mechanics. I felt the puzzle design had a narrow scope and most of them lacked creativity or complexity until the very end of an already short game, something about it felt like I was watching someone pitch a great movie idea to a studio rather than watching a great movie.

Portal 2 is one of my favorite games so I'll always have reverence for Portal, but I didn't enjoy my brief time with it.

I wish I didn't like it as much as I do.
It's just so well structured, the story unobtrusive but interesting, the puzzles strong but not impossible.

The minimal graphics mean it will hold up visually for awhile still, and though I don't remember anything from the soundtrack the overall atmosphere (kind of claustrophobic, kind of open) is enough to leave a pleasantly unsettled feeling.

F A N T A S T I C! It a 2007 game with a unbelievable gameplay (as all source valve plataform).

A lot of concerns about details, the story is a mind blowing and the final: simple fantastic.

A very short but a true funny game. The mechanics of portals, the complex of the puzzles. Everything is so funny and enjoyable. To makes unforgettabale: A song and a Cake!

Great game. A classic puzzle game with a unique concept (a gun that lets you create two portals that you can then walk through) and some amazing and entertaining dialogue that has since become iconic (the cake is a lie). I don't even like puzzle games and this one hooked me. The portal gun is a unique concept that I really can't believe nobody thought of before. The puzzles are well thought out and cleverly designed to take advantage of this mechanic. And that's not even to mention the best thing about this game: GLaDOS.

GLaDOS is great for soo many reasons. First off, you don't even realize she's your enemy until near the end of the game. I mean, she obviously has some serious emotional issues but you still think she's (more or less) on your team, for all that she doesn't actually care about your life so much as the mission's success. But what I really love is how little the reveal of her desire to kill you actually changes her character. Evil GLaDOS is exactly the same person as "good" GLaDOS, except that she's openly trying to kill you. And it says a lot about how untrustworthy a narrator GLaDOS was until that point that this doesn't actually come as a great surprise, despite how shocking the actual moment is. She's basically like that evil ex who tried to control your life but who you obviously didn't realize was psycho, despite all the warning signs, until too late. But all that wouldn't matter at all if she wasn't so funny. From her blatantly obvious lies to her immense pettiness and irrational behavior, GLaDOS is a true joy to observe.