Who would have thought that making holes in walls would be so much fun!
I ... frickin... hate Counter Strike! Therefore, I thought I hated the company that made it (Valve), so it was only natural that I was avoiding most of their games, until... I found this game.
I have seriously never played a game as original and fun as this one, it's a masterpiece amongst masterpieces. As I kept playing it the game kept getting better and better right till the very end where it delivered everything I had hoped for and exploded with it's originality! I loved it so much that I simply couldn't get enough of it, so I beat it again... and again :)! Now I believe that this game deserves a review.
You wake up in a glass cell inside of some kind of a laboratory. You wander around a bit and try to figure out where are you or how do you get out of here, when suddenly you hear a female computer voice telling you that you are a test subject inside a science facility known as Aperture Science and that you will undertake a series of tests. The female computer (GlaDos) sets you free and you begin your tests. The tests consist of getting from point A to point B. As lame as that sounds it's far from it, because in order to get to point B, you have to conquer incredibly high platforms, cross acid pools, avoid robo-turrets, power up electrical switches, put blocks on buttons and all those things would be impossible if you didn't have you Portal gun. This portal gun makes a large hole in the wall (big enough so you (Chell) can fit through it and exit through another Portal also made by your portal gun. Imagine that you are standing near a building and are looking at the top balcony of it. If you had a portal gun, you can simply shoot one portal hole at the balcony and one right next to you, and once you go through the one next to you you will instantly be at the balcony. It's pretty hard to explain how it works, but once you see it with your own eyes, you will instantly be hooked on it and want to use portals all the time!
Once you get acquainted with your portal gun and have learned the basics, you will start doing some more difficult tests. These tests are anything but boring. Every single test will tickle your brain. You will have to use physics (momentum) to get to some places, which will result in your characters flying through the air in incredible speed, put a box on a button which opens a door, press a switch which gives you another puzzle and so on... Most of tests are just hard enough to make you not give up and each time you pass a test chamber you will be fulfilled with satisfaction (I used to tell myself that I was a genius... NOT).
The game is played from a first person perspective and looks incredibly similar to half life. Well... DUH... it was made by the same company and from the same Engine. It is interesting to point out that at it's first release, Portal was just a modified version of Half Life, but seeing how the game grew in popularity, Sierra released it as a stand alone game (smart move :) ). So the controls work just as good as in Half Life .
So by now you are probably thinking that this sounds like an original little game... so why did this game gain so much popularity? I mean it sounds good, but it's not a masterpiece, right? WRONG!
What this game is very rich with is HUMOR!!!
PURE GENIUS HUMOR!
Remember that female computer I mentioned earlier, well she is the only character in the game that speaks (apart from some turrets) and she will speak to you as you progress through the tests. She will praise you, encourage you, insult you, make fun of you and tease you. You will absolutely adore GlaDos even though she is the villain. I won't tell you any of her jokes, except one that actually became a pop-cultural term. Once you pass a few tests, GlaDos will try to motivate you by saying that once you beat all the tests that you will receive cake! Yes, cake!
Of course, at first you won't care, but since this is a running joke, you pretty much won't be able NOT to laugh every time she mentions the cake. But the best part about it is, that during some of the tests, you will find damaged wall holes where previous test subjects, such as yourself, have tried to escape, and in all of those holes you will find the words "The Cake is a lie". So nowadays, when someone promises you something which you doubt will happen, remember: The cake is a lie!
And I have to say that this game has the most EPIC ending in the history of all games.
:P
The only, and I mean ONLY, downside to this game, is that it is way too short. So short that you can beat it in less then three hours (that's how much it took me on my first try). So once you beat it, you will be begging for more.
So that's portal, one of the best and funniest games ever created. If you don't know about it, you should definitely go and play this game and discover if The cake is really a lie.