Portal Review
The Bad: Main game is very short, gameplay can be a little too easy at times.
Portal is a game unlike any I've ever played or even heard of. You take the role of a test subject in a scientific testing facility. Early on you receive a portal gun which can fire two different portals, of which you can enter one and come out the other and vice versa. The idea behind the gameplay is absolutely mind-boggling as you soon find out by playing around with the portals. For example, you can put one portal in the floor and the other directly above it in the ceiling and just fall endlessly until you move one of the portals. Or you can two portals on the walls in a corner of a room and run circles through them. There really is no limit to the things you can come up with using this portal gun.
Portal is a puzzle game. As you progress through the mysterious facility, you are forced to use your logic along with creativity to use the portal gun, and sometimes other objects, to progress to the next room. Portal does an excellent job of teaching you the different concepts that are combined with the Half-Life 2 physics engine and the portal gun. I'm not the best at puzzle games, but I did find this game to be a little too easy at times. But on a whole I would say the difficulty was just about right.
Probably the greatest thing about Portal is the humor. The writers in Valve have done an incredible job of incorporating a dark sense of humor into the games nemesis, the main computer in the facility. Even when you are being trained in the basics of the gameplay, you will be told different things that will make your sides hurt from laughing so hard. And on top of all this, the song that plays with the end credits may just be the funniest song ever made.
The graphics and sound are both excellent. Portal uses the Half-Life 2 graphics/physics engine and the game looks great. The sound effects are all very well done, and the voice acting is incredible.
Portal is an amazing achievement and is bound to become a legend among gamers. The mind-bending gameplay on top of the fantastic humor combines to make a game that has never been done before. No true gamer has an excuse not to get this game. It's going to be a long time before another game comes out that is so innovative and all-around enjoyable at the same time.
Gameplay: 10
Value: 9.5
Replayability: 9.5
Graphics:10
Sound:10