Meeting GLaDOS, Courtesy of Valve’s Portal
Someone sent me a link to Jonathan Coulton’s “Still Alive”, which plays at the end of Portal. I liked the song so much that I watched the Portal “End Boss” fight on YouTube. The enemy AI, GLaDOS, had some hilarious lines, so I got a copy of the game to see what it was all about. I really liked it. The game has almost no action at all, despite the fact that it plays like a first person shooter, but is instead a brain-teasing puzzle game. It utilizes warped (but predictable) physics and spatial awareness to create some challenging scenarios.
Although I liked Portal, it could have been longer. I beat the entire game in less than three hours. There are only 19 levels (many of them tutorials) and a boss battle with GLaDOS. Luckily, there was a commentary mode, which included activatable commentary tracks in each level. I played the whole game again, listening to all of the commentaries, which were very interesting. I especially like the ones by Ellen McLain, the voice actor who did GLaDOS. I dig voice actors.
Portal also comes with six advanced levels that you can access from the main menu. These were the same as some of the regular levels, but Valve made them harder. For example, turrets (“Hello-o! Are you still there?”) were first used in Level 16, but you could easily deactivate them by knocking them over. In the advanced version of Level 16, the turrets are encased in cages, making them indestructible. I really enjoyed these maps, and I think that some of the regular levels should have been this challenging.
The game seems to make a big deal about the “Weighted Companion Cube”. It was basically a shield against plasma balls and a paperweight to hold down buttons, and only appeared in one level. I have to say that I felt worse about smashing the gun turrets than I did incinerating the companion cube (you have to dispose of it in order to leave the level). I don’t see why people were attached to it. It didn’t cry and say, “I don’t blame you for killing me.” It doesn’t even talk.
Although I’ve already beaten Portal (twice), I moved on to a very similar game, Half Life 2. They’re based on the same engine and Portal uses a very similar user interface. Half Life 2 is proving to be very hard to put down. However, I just found out that there are downloadable levels for Portal online, made by fans. I can’t wait to try these out; with any luck, they’ll be decently made and last longer than three hours.
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