Mike Bantick
Saturday, 23 February 2008 11:17
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Part of the excellent value contained in Valves Orange Box: Consisting of a full suite of Halflife 2 games (Full original plus the two episodic releases) and the multiplayer fun of Team Fortress 2, Portal, the puzzle portion of the game, deserves a review of its own.
Dear readers, the following is a tale of woe and triumph, captured in a single 700 word review of one of the best games going around at the moment.
Orange Box - Portal
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Developer
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Valve |
Publisher
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EA
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Rating
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MA 15+
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PC, PS3, Reviewed on Xbox 360
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First the woe; Portal has the distinction of being the second game, behind Gears of War to be the one that
killed my Xbox 360 . Yep I am the victim [again] of the Red Ring-o-Death hardware issue inflicted after many hours of intense Portalling.
Still the Microsoft machine is
well oiled in handling these issues , and I expect, that my Xbox 360 (or similar replacement model) will be returned soon.
Which will be great so that I can get back to Portal. Recently
revered by their peers, developer Valve have yet again nailed game-play without parallel.
So now we enter the 'triumph' part of the review, but sadly there is not much to really say about Portal, it is after all part of a greater release that is the Orange Box offering a variety of First Person play from the action adventure of HalfLife 2, including episodes 1 and 2 to the cartoony multiplayer mayhem of Team Fortress 2. Portal sits aside from these titles as an atmospheric puzzler that will have you high fiving yourself after each 'mission'.
The reason there is not much to say, is that Portal is one of those games that nails simple game-play with a depth that is discovered by the player at their own pace, and the magic 'just one more level' addictiveness.
The premise of the game; you are an android, trapped in Aperture Science test lab. Your goal, to use the Portal Gun to simply get to the elevator exit of each level. Each level is a self contained room of platforms, doors that need to be activated somehow, as well as the more menacing sentry turrets and corrosive liquids.
