Geek vs Life

Today started so easy. Get out of the relaxation chamber, listen to the oddly friendly computer voice over the intercom, throw my coffee cup and the radio into the toilet, walk through a fiery gate ripping a hole in space and time to escape my glass prison, put a box on a giant red button, and enter the elevator right after my fillings are vaporized out of my head by a wall of energy. And now, here I stand staring down a hallway with beams of red light shining across hunting for me, all the while small robotic laser guided egg shaped machine gun turrets are asking me nicely where I’ve gone and if I would please come back out. What exactly did I sign on for, and why am I a girl?

I have 2 defenses, hopefully unerringly intertwined: my wits and a gun that tears the universe a new one and then tears another new one to connect to the now slightly older new one. I shoot a hole behind the laser turret, and turn to my right and fire again, creating the second hole in the wall next to me. I reach my arm through watching it pop out down the hall, and step through and grab the small egg shaped death device from behind. I toss it back through the wormhole behind me, and see it fall and fire at random. Somehow, I can even ignore it’s pitiful cries, and its claims that it doesn’t hate me.

Ok, that may have been a little hard to follow. That’s really because the game is that far from normal. Portal is filled with innovative level design and intriguing puzzles that will keep you on your toes and thinking for a few hours, which is the biggest drawback to the game: it’s really short. Beatable within a few hours for what could be considered the story mode. Additional challenges are included as well, which have been compensating for the length of the overall game.

Visually, the game is wonderful. The amount attention to detail overall is very good. The physics engine that they’ve used makes the game feel as real as you can get when you’re running around with a wormhole generator. Everything ties together and is surprisingly easy to maneuver, if not simply disorienting as you attempt to make yourself upright when you pop out of a hole.

Aside from the imaginative design and well done graphics and control, the game is funny. It’s written by the same group of guys that wrote Psychonauts. And it’s just better if you really pay attention to what’s being said and the writing on the walls. Jonathan Coulton has done a song for it as well, which is included with the cake at the end of the game.

I give Portal a 10 out of 10. It exemplifies what a first person shooter puzzle game is. Oh, and some other stuff came out with Portal in the Orange Box set. I haven’t gotten around to those yet. Available on the PC and Xbox 360.

Originally published in the Shoreline Community College paper, the Ebbtide.