Game Review: Portal

While Valve is more known these days for developing and supporting the PC gaming platform, Steam; there was a time where this studio was producing a bunch of incredible video game titles. Ever since the early 90’s, the Washington-based video game developer pushed out acclaimed title after acclaimed title. Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Dota and Left 4 Dead are some of their biggest titles that many a video gamer will recognize or have played at some point. One of Valve’s most iconic productions is the Portal franchise. Filled with charm, humor and a clever collection of puzzles, this series showcases the studio’s ability to push their physics engine in some very creative ways. Funnily enough I never had the pleasure of experiencing the first game in the series. I think this was because it was never on my radar back in 2007. I am happy to confirm that overlap has been corrected as of this year though as I finally got around to playing it as part of the Portal Companion Collection on Nintendo Switch.

Developed and published by Valve, Portal was originally released back on October 10th 2007 as part of a bundle package called The Orange Box for Windows PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  It plays as a linear first-person puzzle game which puts you in the role as a voiceless hero called Chell who is tasked with completing a collection of test chambers with portal mechanics. It gained many an accolade of recognition and praise in the wake of it’s release, including a collection of major gaming awards by the years end. 

The story of Portal follows a young woman called Chell, who wakes up to find herself inside a testing chamber within Aperture Science Laboratories’ main testing facility. Guided by the voice of the facility’s resident artificial intelligence called GLaDOS, you are instructed to progress through a collection of test chambers designed to test your problem-solving abilities. Eventually you are equipped with Aperture’s most innovative invention; the Portal Gun. With this device you can project a set of blue and orange portals within the chambers in order to solve some of the facility’s more complex tests. While GLaDOS beckons you along with a modest and caring tone initially, it becomes all too clear the deeper you progress into the facility that the fate that awaits you at the end of your tests is not the cake you were promised. If you are to escape with your life, you must find a means of outsmarting GLaDOS and its tests before its too late.

There isn’t much weight behind the narrative of this title. It’s clear that what story beats are here are intended mainly to provide set up and add some dark comedic tone to the game. GLaDOS serves as the key conveyor of the games narrative as it is literally the only speaking role in this game. The game does a pretty good job in utilizing the GLaDOS’ darkly comedic writing in all the right moments to keep the player following along. It’s pretty easy to argue that without GLaDOS then the charm of the series would be substantially lost, it’s through it’s sharp and bizarre dialogue that the game manages to give itself an alluring narrative set up that never fails to draw you in. My only gripe is what narrative exists here only serves primarily as set-up and doesn’t really have much chance to flesh itself out in the wake of the games short length. This is a flaw Portal 2 recognizes pretty well and fixes, but that’s a discussion for a future review.

The gameplay portion is the prime meat on this game’s bone. Chell moves and responds pretty fluidly with your basic set of controls. The game does a nice job of putting you through some simple set of puzzles to help familiarize you with her control scheme first and foremost. As you progress through the developing test chambers though, you eventually come to find the Portal Gun and it’s here you realize this game has captured a golden concept. The whole idea behind Portal is to utilize the orange and blue portals you can cast from your gun to create door-ways to traverse and overcome the puzzles laid out before you. Every single conceivable idea you can think of with Portal mechanics is fleshed out to the utmost degree here. Reaching out of reach areas, bypassing dangerous obstacles, using gravity and velocity to create height and momentum. The game is imbued with an intrinsic sense of intelligence and respect for modern physics with how it utilizes realism in line with its clearly implausible concept. That feels like a near impossible feat but Valve didn’t miss their shot in capturing it all the same.  Some of the best moments in this game are when a you are stuck on a puzzle and you have to experiment to figure out the solution, it’s through that experimenting that you realize the game is giving you as much freedom as possible within the confines of its test chambers to find a solution that works for you.

As noted in the story section, the only thing that really lets the game down in my opinion is its short length. Its clear Valve didn’t want to stretch this game any further at the risk of becoming repetitive or unoriginal; yet you will easily finish the game with a yearning for far more. Believe it not but what concepts are delivered within this game merely scratch the surface of what this franchise is proven to be capable of. What is here though is filled with so much value and quality that it is easy to understand how such a small game was capable of leaving such a large footprint in the industry, to a point where the subsequent sequel would only further elevate this franchise into an all time classic entity that it is known for today.