Game 15: Portal

Portal is just one game in Valve's newest release, The Orange Box. The Orange Box is a collection of a few different games but Portal is definitely the one that intrigued me the most. The concept of the game is that it is basically a first-person puzzle game that uses a special gun to navigate the areas. This special gun is the portal gun, which allows you to create a blue portal and an orange portal. You can place these portals on most surfaces and then walk/fall/hurtle yourself through it and you'll end up on the other side. Lots of cool things can be done with this and I'll try to explore its many possibilities in my first hour review.

Portal was actually based off a senior project called Narbacular Drop. From the sounds of it, Valve basically hired everyone on this project to help them create Portal! Not a bad turn of events. Oh, and you're probably thinking: "Portal is a brand new game! How is it possible you're reviewing it already!" It's true I don't normally review such brand-spanking new games, but I couldn't pass this one up! Enjoy this rare, new game review!

For my shorter review on the whole game, please see my Portal review at Beyond the First Hour.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - Start a New Game and we're off! The game starts right away. I'm in a little cell, just a toilet, bed, and radio. A weird little song is playing on the radio. There's a countdown above the door. A computerized voice starts talking - it's welcoming me to the Aperture Testing Center. And in three seconds, something is about to happen...

01 - An orange doorway has opened! I approach the portal and peer through, I can see myself and the room I'm in!
02 - I enter a room with a giant red switch on the floor. A crate drops from a crate dispenser, guess I know what to do.

03 - Placing the crate on the button keeps the door open for me, and I pass through it and into an elevator. There looks to be about 19 "levels" in this game, as each level opens up with a giant sign detailing what level I'm currently on and what dangers lie before me. The next area puts me in front of an orange portal, and every few seconds the view inside the portal changes.
04 - I enter the portal and pick up a crate, as I'm passing back through the portal, the portal disappears but the crate made it through! Now I have to wait for the portal to appear again.

05 - Done with that level now, just had to be patient. The computerized voice is almost constantly talking to me, it's pretty entertaining. Right now it's warning me about the unintended taste of blood, as portals may disintegrate teeth!

07 - I have gotten my own portal gun! Now I can shoot blue portals! Awesome!
08 - I shoot a portal on the piece of wall a camera is on, it falls to the ground and the computer yells at me! Hahahaha! Seeing myself through portals is pretty crazy and somewhat disorienting, I really have to think differently when playing this game.

09 - There's barely any loading in this game, but the elevators are no doubt serving as the loading behind the scenes.

10 - In the next area I shot a blue portal on the floor, so when I passed through, the game had to fix my viewing axis as the orange portal was on the wall. Weird stuff. The computer informs me it will not be monitoring me during the next test.

12 - Had to place two crates on two buttons, nothing too complicated but I did make a crate fall through like an infinite loop! Very cool! The barrel would fall out of the orange portal and into the blue portal, over and over again.
13 - The computer said it lied to me about not watching me, and will stop enhancing the truth from here on out.

14 - I'm in a much different looking room. The walls are invulnerable to my portal gun, but the ceiling and floor are not. There's also a high energy pellet flying back and forth. The computer informs me contact with this pellet may cause disabilities such as vaporization!

15 - I had to make the energy pellet come in contact with an energy pellet receiver. I did this by placing a blue portal on the ceiling so that when the pellet passed through the orange portal it would continue on going downwards. Man, some of this stuff is hard to explain!
17 - Very cool little room I just finished. I had to shoot a portal onto the ceiling over a moving platform and then fall through the floor onto the moving platform 10 meters away!

18 - The next room has a poisonous sewer/swamp on the ground! The puzzle was also relatively complex, I had to shoot a portal for a pellet to pass through and then when it was bouncing around after passing through the portal I had to shoot another portal somewhere else.
20 - The computer says the next test is impossible... yeah right!

21 - It wasn't that hard though, just had to shoot a portal across the room through a little hole. The game is happy I was able to solve it in an atmosphere of such extreme pessimism.

23 - I just got an awesome lesson on momentum! I learned all about portal's affects on momentum, or their lack of. Portals were placed high on the walls and then I jumped down about 30 feet into another portal, thus hurtling me through the high up portal at a very fast speed! It was a lot of fun, but seems mighty dangerous! "Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
24 - I get some useful advice in the next area from the computer, "the floor here will kill you, try to avoid it."

27 - Yes! I am now able to shoot out orange portals, so I can make complete portal links myself!

29 - Another momentum flying level, this time I have to climb a vertical shaft like room by shooting blue portals really high up and then jumping really far down into an orange portal! Tons of fun and the computer thinks so too! "Wheeeeeee!"
31 - Wow, things are getting so weird. Being able to see myself in portals is odd, but very cool. In the last room, I had to drop crates from above onto buttons that were too high for me to jump to. Of course, I didn't have to be high, I could just shove the crates through properly positioned portals and they would fall right on to the buttons!

34 - I just had to place a portal on the floor so that I could jump from up high through another portal and then when I came out of the original one I would have enough vertical momentum to "jump" high enough! Take that gravity!

35 - The computer rewards me a complementary victory lift for beating the puzzle. Too bad the "victory lift" is actually required to move on!
36 - Cake and grief counseling are available at the conclusion of the test, can't wait!

39 - The game is throwing more complicated momentum jumps at me, including having to do basically two jumps to get enough momentum! This means flying out of a blue portal up high and then creating another orange portal where you're going to land so that you fly out of the blue portal again at an even higher speed! Phew!

41 - Ouch! I died after landing in the swamp doing some complex portal jumps over it!
43 - The levels are getting longer and tougher. But luckily, I can donate one or all of my organs to the Aperture Science Organ Fund for Girls! Oh snaps! The next level is a live fire course with drone guns!

44 - I encounter my first gun, it's facing away so I pick it up. It says in a soft voice: "Please put me down!" So I do but then it falls over and has a critical error! Poor drone gun...

45 - I fight back against the next drone gun by placing an orange portal on the ceiling and then a blue portal underneath the gun, causing it to fall!
46 - I don't seem to have health, I just can't get shot a lot in a row. That's nice of the game. I wander into kind of a dark and dumpy area behind all the sheen, don't think I'm supposed to be there!

47 - Dropping crates on drones is fun!

50 - Wow, that was an intense level! Lots of drone guns all over and lots of sly crate dropping on them! In the next area I get a Weighted Companion Cube. Basically a crate with hearts on it! I have to take it along on my journey.
51 - I turn the corner and get killed by an energy pellet. Well, I get to meet my Weighted Companion Cube again.

57 - Well I just completed a complicated sequence with the help of my Weighted Companion Cube. Together we conquered all odds and traveled through portals to make those all important jumps.

58 - OH NO!!! Now I have to euthanize my Weighted Companion Cube in a fire! The computer assures me that the Weighted Companion Cube would rather die in a fire than burden me, but this is a tough decision.
59 - I have euthanized my Weighted Companion Cube more quickly than any other test subject. I am sad. I want to jump in the fire behind it.
60 - The 18th out of 19 levels has nearly every warning on its posted sign! This one sounds dangerous, but I am too sad to be worried about that. I start out making a series of long falls from portals placed in the ceiling. But the decision has been made. I cast myself into the scorching sewer sludge as time runs out. I will be with my Weighted Companion Cube someway...
Now for some scores out of 10.

Story: 6
Not much of a story in the first hour of Portal, but things are still kept interesting by the talkative computer. Basically you're playing as a woman (Chell) who wakes up in some research facility called Aperture Science. There's really no explanation if she's here on her own will or if she's even a human (the computer mentions android hell and how I may be going there). There's a sense of mystery about her, but more intriguing is the aforementioned computer. You only hear its voice, and it seems to be friendly, but it says some really odd things. Some of my favorite lines are about how we're going to eat cake when all this is done and its bluntness about death and dying. It's very funny and fits the game perfectly, keeping it light and enjoyable. This is not a puzzle game thrown into 3D space, this is a hilarious puzzle game thrown into 3D space.
Graphics and Sound: 8
My computer is kind of old so I won't weigh this too heavily. I originally gave Half-Life 2 a perfect score in this area, but I don't think Portal achieves the same level of graphics that its big brother received. For one, the areas are small, all indoor, and very bland. This of course fits the game perfectly, but it doesn't do the Source Engine much justice in terms of draw distance and textures. There's no music in the game except for the little upbeat ditty playing on the radio and the sound effects are basically limited to the sound of the portal gun shooting. The computer voice acting is great though and sounds just how a creepy but lovable computer should sound.
Gameplay: 10
Very fun, very original gameplay. I think this score should have been obvious if you've read everything up to here. This is a fantastic puzzle/FPS hybrid unlike anything I've ever played before. Creating and navigating portals was mind-bending and awesome at the same time. Seeing myself through the portals was disorienting at first, but I was loving it. The whole time I was playing I was imagining the portal gun in multiplayer. It has so much potential and would create a totally new online experience. Not much else to say about Portal's gameplay, it rocks.
Fun Factor: 9
Great gameplay usually implies great fun, and that holds true for Portal. Not a perfect score because there are some frustrating moments with moving platforms and the gun drones seemed a bit out of place, but it all comes together for a great experience. Valve really knew what they were doing when making this game and I was pretty much loving all 60 minutes of it. I can just imagine that the rest of the game is just as great.
Minutes to Action: 1
Overall: 9
I thought about a 10 for a while, if you've been following my reviews you know I've never given a 10. I would consider a 10 the pinnacle of one hour of gameplay, and Portal just misses it. I'd rather not talk about what Portal does wrong, but everything it did right. Quick to the core of the game, doesn't try to make up a nonsensical story, and the gameplay simply rocks. The entire game is relatively short so my first hour review should really give you a great idea about the entire game (the whole point of these reviews if you didn't know). I would highly recommend Portal to basically everyone. This is non-frantic, non-twitchy gameplay that is basically a welcome to anyone. Play Portal.

I will find you again, Weighted Companion Cube.

Game 5: Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is one of those games that just delivers. Hyped up beyond imagination, Valve fulfilled their grand promise and gave gamers one of PC's greatest games. Delayed, leaked, and delayed again, Half-Life 2 was in the oven for a while, but many people would agree it came out perfect. But how were those first few bites, how was the first hour of Half-Life 2? Let us enter the world of City 17 and find out.

I should probably make it clear that my computer isn't that great, and the loading times are probably longer than what an avid PC Gamer would own. However, this review isn't targeted to such a small audience and my computer (Athlon 1800+, 1GB RAM, and Radeon 9800 Pro) may well be representative of the average reader. Anyways, on with the game!

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I click New Game and the loading begins. The clock continues running though.

01 - Still loading after the first minute, and then the opening cinematic starts. Not a typical cinematic, however, as we're staring right into the face of an elderly looking man. His computerized voice gives him a very creepy feeling.

02 - I can see the inside of a train behind the man's head, and he gives me his final words: "Wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." Guess I should have plugged in my iSmell. I'm able to move around the train now, I walk up to a man and he looks at me and mumbles something. Credits begin fading in and out of the screen.

03 - The train docks and I get off. There's a giant video board above me of a bearded man. He's welcoming me to the city, how nice! Masked guards on the floor shove other civilians, and I guess I got too close to one of them as I get shoved too!

04 - There's trash all over, and I'm able to pick stuff up and chuck it! Seems like a good time to note that the action has started. I throw bottles and they shatter and objects realistically bounce around on the ground.

05 - I throw a bottle at a guard and he runs at me with a taser! I get zapped and my vision blacks out for a moment. Interesting effect. A guard tells me to follow him, there's no where else to go so I do. I'm able to peek into another room where a man is arguing with a guard before he shuts the peephole on me.

06 - I enter the room and the guard babbles at me in his garbled voice. There's blood on the floor and more trash. The guard takes his helmet off, it's Barney, from Black Mesa. I supposed this is Half-Life 2 so Black Mesa must have been the first game. Our past is left off at that. I notice his lips match his voice well as I throw things at him.

08 - Barney kicks me out of the room and I need to maneuver a box to continue on. As I head into the next room, a loading screen kicks in, I kick back to wait. And wait, and wait. Three minutes later, I've decided that my computer has frozen on me. I restart and find out it never auto-saved or anything, so I have to start over. Man, all eight minutes again!

09 - I'm back! A guard yells at me to throw some trash away that he just threw on the ground. Jerk. But it's these little things that really get me immersed in this police-state world.

10 - I head out a pair of double doors and find myself in an open courtyard. I'm surrounded by Eastern European architecture but in the distance is a huge tower that disappears into the clouds.

11 - I explore the square, trying to follow citizens into their respective buildings, but forcefields hold me back. Flying robots zoom around me, and take my picture! The flash temporarily blinds me in a very cool effect.

13 - I wander into an alley and see a walking machine that looks like a mini AT-ST out of Star Wars. I climb up a ladder to get over a fence and make my way down another alley.

14 - I see a man getting interrogated by some guards and another man sprawled out on the ground. The guards' crackling radios/speech creeps me out. I wander into a playground complete with teeter-totter, swings, merry-go-round, and cinder blocks. I mess around with the cinder blocks and teeter-totter for a while. The physics in this game are great.

16 - I enter an apartment - loading.

17 - Guards knock loudly on an apartment door and then kick it down violently. I hide in another room.

18 - The people here seem so desperate and sad. They're crowded around a window so I look out too, just some guards running around. The residents mention that they knew they would be coming. One man is listening carefully to a radio.

19 - The environments are incredibly detailed: peeling paint, stained floors, and rusted pipes. One guy motions me to enter his apartment, but the guards follow me! They start beating the residents so I hightail it out of there and head for the roof.

20 - Loading.

21 - I'm on the roof now, and I can still hear the guards causing trouble below. Some large maneuverable planes fly over me and start taking pot shots at me. This is getting serious.

22 - Shimmying! Well, I'm sure the guy I'm playing would be shimmying at this moment but I just quickly jog along the rooftops. I'm a little too careless as a moment later I splat on the ground.

23 - Loading my save, at least I saved, right? I continue on and as I enter another building from the roof, some guards surround me, all seems lost as I black out.

24 - A woman's voice appears and she saves me from the masked men. She seems friendly enough, so I follow her into an elevator. Turns out her name is Alyx, and she's quite pretty. She mentions that the bearded man I saw on the video before used to be my administrator at Black Mesa.

25 - Loading.

26 - We wander through a basement and then head through a secret passageway - through a vending machine!

27 - We enter a laboratory, there's tons of stuff to look at so I look around the room as the other characters talk. Someone mentions teleportation and my ears perk up, sounds like fun! Barney, the undercover guard appears, and lets me know that I've "stirred up the hive".

28 - Barney heads over to a security station and I'm able to watch no less than 10 TVs with different videos on them, very cool. Suddenly a monster appears, must be a head crab. The little guy scurries around and causes mayhem.

29 - I take advantage of the moment and hop into a sweet looking orange suit. Suddenly my health appears, I think I liked it better before when I was invincible!

30 - We all head into the teleporter room and Alyx hops into the machine. I'm suddenly having flashbacks of the beginning of Chrono Trigger. A power cord comes loose as the machine is whirring which gives me a chance to practice my E key tapping skills.

31 - Alyx is successfully teleported (I know this because I can see her on a TV - a remote view of wherever this teleporter goes to). I jump in, and await the bad stuff!

32 - Much the opposite of Chrono Trigger, it is I who get into trouble with the teleporter and I start seeing scenes from around the game I'm assuming. I even land for a moment in the bearded man's office freaking him out!

33 - I land directly outside the lab and immediately get my picture taken by one of the flying machines. I think it's time to get out of here before the lab gets compromised.

35 - Barney yells down to me and throws me a crowbar. Thanks Barney, not like you could have given me your gun or anything, right? Well, a crowbar does the job on the flying camera, very satisfying. Techno music begins beating and I can see hundreds of birds (maybe cameras?) flying out of the citadel tower.

36 - I'm getting shot at, can't really fight back with this crowbar.

37 - I feel a little lost, and there's a train heading right towards me. I end up getting squished in the confusion of getting shot. Whoops!

38 - I reload and head through a parked train. So obvious afterwards.

39 - Out of the train area, and into an alley. I turn my flashlight on and the game starts loading the next area.

41 - I turn the corner and hear a woman's scream! I head towards it to see two guards harassing a pair of ladies, I charge at them with my trusty crowbar! Their heads cave in easily to the hard metal. Ouch.

42 - I pick up their guns and try it out on the next guard I see. Works nicely. Next thing I see is the exploding barrel, not very original, but very fun. Explosions are even more fun in this beautiful land of physics.

43 - I jump onto a moving train, and then off it right away to get across. I feel like a real adventurer.

45 - Guards start rolling flaming barrels at me, nice A.I. I shoot the barrels quickly but get hurt by the shrapnel.

46 - The techno music starts up again.

47 - I jump in some dirty water to avoid being shot at and wade my way through it. I meet up with a man and an alien in an abandoned train car and they inform me they're part of the Underground Radio. The situation in City 17 must be pretty serious, if you haven't realized that already.

48 - Loading.

49 - There's a monster hanging from the ceiling hanging his tongue down... reminder not to get stuck in those.

50 - I turn the corner and walk into a courtyard - and a auto-machine gun. I hide behind some wooden crates, not very smart as those are quickly torn apart by the bullets, so I head behind something a little stronger.

51 - I take out the gunner and head into a sewer hole. Looks like I'm in another Underground Railroad station, but this one has been emptied out by the patrols. A radio is barking out communication between other Railroad stations.

52 - The machine gun! I line up behind the stationary gun and wait for my prey. Stationary guns are completely worthless without a bunch of dumb A.I. to run out in front of it - and Half-Life 2 delivers the goods.

53 - My fun is spoiled though as soldiers start rolling exploding barrels at me! Dang you gameplay man who ever invented exploding barrels! Once that threat is over, someone starts shooting rockets at me!

54 - I'm unsure of what to do for a moment as the rockets have disoriented me, but Flight takes control and I run out of the danger zone.

55 - When running, I end up getting picked up by one of the ceiling monsters! Ouch! I shoot it a few times and it releases me.

56 - I jump into a small room filled with about 20 feet of water. I'm unsure of where to go next but then the exploding barrels start falling again! I dive underwater and watch (and listen to them explode). It's a scary but very well done sequence!

57 - An exploding barrel opens my next path and I jump out of the death trap. I shoot another barrel in the distance and it nearly takes out an entire bridge.

58 - I jog into a room with a ton of ceiling monsters - there's a conveniently placed exploding barrel next to me, so I feed it to them and blow it up when one of them picks it up. Pretty resourceful if I do say so myself.

59 - I wade through some more water and dodge some more exploding barrels...

60 - Final minute and one final shootout with some soldiers. Also one final exploding barrel too. As the final loading screen appears, I can see a teeter-totter and cinder blocks in front of me...

The first hour of Half-Life 2 is up, now for ratings out of 10.

Story: 7
This is a difficult category because there's really not a lot of story directly presented to you. However, there's a lot of background story on the city and its current situation available to the interested player. Various radios and TVs play propaganda and relay messages between the Underground Railroad creating a world that is desperate and foreboding. When I was in the apartments visiting the down-and-out residents, I was reminded of the main character in the novel 1984 and his illegal visits with a woman and the fear they had of being caught.
Graphics: 10
Not sure what else to give this, even my older computer renders this game beautifully. The textures are what stand out the most as they give so much to the atmosphere. The character models also look great. The game looked wonderful almost three years ago and still looks great.
Gameplay: 9
There's so much interaction and the advanced Havok phsyics engine makes the world feel incredibly realistic. All the "cutscenes" after the short opening still let you run around as the characters in the background talk. The two weapons in the first hour are quick and feel very natural in the game. The enemy A.I. seems relatively smart and kept me on my toes. There is an excessive use of exploding barrels though, and seem to be the answer to almost every situation that's presented early on.
Fun Factor: 9
The first 15 minutes move pretty slow but kept me interested through the amount of interaction. The last 45 minutes are almost constant action and explosions. The game kept me moving and it was fun the whole time (except for the five minutes total of loading...).
Minutes to Action: 4
Overall: 9
Another great first hour, as was expected from a blockbuster like Half-Life 2. Valve knows exactly how to pace their games and their one game every five years is proof. There's about five minutes of loading in the first hour and some of the conversations that you have to hang around for can be quite dull. The downside of never having any real cutscenes is that you can't skip them or at least speed up the dialog. The voice acting is of course top notch and the graphics were groundbreaking for their time. Probably more groundbreaking is the amount of interaction Half-Life 2 offers, and people who have played the full game can testify that the first hour would barely scratch the surface in what's to come. But as far as first hours go, this is almost as good as they get.