🔵 Portal and Expectations

Hey you,

Today's Listening: One of the best credits songs ever

(just for reference, I'll be talking about both 1 and 2, but no explicit spoilers)

When you hear people talk about Portal, how do they describe it?

I queried Quora.com (which may have been a mistake) and found many people praising it in very vague ways. Something about the game seems to garner a more eccentric crowd that enthusiastically employs literate language with whimsical wordage while myself is more married to ample alliteration associations.

This person is clearly more articulate than me am, and makes good point, that I may or may not be deciphering properly.

I'll tell you what I think though in very small words.

Portal is funny.

This is the only game I would quote humor as the selling point. And this is not just in the form of jokes. It is represented in the graphical style, the sound effects, the animation, the mechanics, and of course the delivery of voice lines.

The idea that you, the player, are constantly being watched by an all seeing, sentient super computer as you fumble around through each elaborate stage, is hilarious to me. Every time I throw myself across the room using gravity, achieving terminal velocity, or play around with my "companion cube", GLADOS is just...watching, writing it all down.

When I first played, all I knew was, “it good puzzle game" and I could "use portals to do funny stuff". I was not expecting every single level to be an ever evolving inside joke between me and a sentient potato.

The first game makes a simple story extremely effective, with laughs to go around. The second game makes a more nuanced narrative, extremely effective, and it is even more funny than before, with more emotions to travel through.

Oh, and it good puzzle game too btw.

So is Portal worth your time? Absolutely. Even if you suck at puzzle games, you can pull up the guide, it is ok I won't judge. But if you must resort to guides, don't let yourself get spoiled ok? There is some juicy stuff along the way 😉

Thumbnail credit: https://tenor.com/view/portals-metaverse-portals-metaverse-portals-game-teleport-gif-26022641