Portal

Published October 30, 2007 by Morgan Nichol | Comments (2)

Now here’s the thing, I’d heard a lot of really great buzz about Portal, so of course when the Orange Box finally came out last Friday I managed the track down a copy in the city (not as easy as you might think, I called 5 or 6 places that had sold out before I found a Dick Smith which had a single copy left – luckily I happened across a sales assistant who was super super helpful) and over the weekend I fired it up.

Portal is a game about a test. Or a series of tests. And you’re the subject.

I guess I’d been playing for a couple of hours, I hit level 18 and I lost interest. It was super hard and I just wasn’t seeing what people were digging on with this damn game, so I shut it down and headed out to have lunch with friends and watch an episode of Heroes (this is how we roll). Then on Sunday night I decided to have another go, discovered I was being an idiot, nailed level 18, and carried on with the game.

But I was dissatisfied by it, I mean it was really clever – and the gameplay is simply awesome – but I just didn’t see where the buzz was coming from.

And… Then I did.

This is the best game I’ve ever played.

If perhaps I’m overlooking a great gaming experience from the past and it turns out that Portal is really only the second best game I’ve ever played, it still has what it most certainly, without a shadow of a doubt, no question in my mind, the absolute best ending of any game. Ever. (Ever.)

You must try it. And cake.

[MEDIA=1]

(Song contains spoilers.)

  • http://www.secret-passage.com Robyn

    I looked at the Wikipedia entry for Portal. Reading it made a little bit of my brain tingle. So therefore I must stay away from it, or I fear I will never leave the house.

  • http://www.the-monkey.net Morgan

    Now here’s the thing, since finishing it I haven’t really felt a great deal of temptation to play through again, or to play the extra challenges and special rewards. So you’d play the shit out of it once, and then maybe you could go out for a coffee. I’m sure I’ll play it again at some point, but I haven’t spun it up again yet.

    The portals themselves are simple genius. The level design is brilliant. But the writing! Man, the writing is simply incredible.

    (And that ending.)

 
 
     
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