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One of the few original games out there

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: April 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm not sure what I can say about the X-Box to the PC conversion, as I haven't played it on the 360. I can say that Portal is the best game I've played for a long time. I'm not a big gamer, but this got me hooked, it's so addicting and challenging, that you won't rest until it's completed.

Essentially, Portal is a game about Physics. Every portal has a begining, and an end. By using this peice of information, you create portals using a gun. Sounds simple, but your brain needs to sweat to be able to play the game.

So far, the story is lacking, but I'm barely into the game. The design on the other hand, is insanely good. When you make portals, you can see yourself moving in the next portal and the next and onto infinity. It is such a trippy feeling. They must have spent hours figuring out the physics of the game. While playing, you have to sit back and think: "Look at how far we've come from the the days of Pong."

Finally, the graphics are great, the music, although there is not much, is great, and the game is the most original 'first-person shooter' out there.

This not entertainment, this is science.

UPDATE: Wow. Just...wow. The final peices of the game just blew me away. The plot unfolds brilliantly, GLaD's dialogue is frickin' awesome in the final battle, and the song playing in the credits is so original and caputures silliness of the game amazingly. Once finished, Portal leaves you with a bitter/sweet feeling in your heart. It is over, and yet somewhere, deep down, you know they have to make a sequel.

The Cake Is A Lie

awesome game for those who want to use their brains

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I had so much fun playing this game! I only wish I got it for the ps3 rather than PC (I'm just more used to gaming on there). For the guy on here who whines about the $20 price tag...i got mine from a major retailer for ten bucks on sale so just shop around. It's your own fault for paying full price for something.
Anyways - the game is well worth 10 or 20 bucks. I had hours of enjoyment and you really need to think "outside of your brain" for this game.
You experience enter & exit portals. soon you get a gun where you can create either of the two. You just have to see how the two react to you going through and then later in the game velocity and momentum play a role in it as well. I know my description might not be the greatest but it really gets your mind thinking about how to get to the otherside of the room which mostly seems impossible. Tons of fun - especially the computer GlaDos system that mocks you the entire way. Laugh out loud funny lines especially towards the end. I had tons of fun and for that same guy who whines about the length - there are many advanced levels you can unlock after you solve the initial game and online ther are many DIY portal dimensions you can do that people have posted themselves.
I can't wait to play it again! Level 15 sure had me stumped for awhile :)

A must-have for fans of FPS games - and others as well

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought the Orange Box for the Half-Life Episode and was not disappointed. Then I fired up Portal and realized that this was even better!

If you blow through the game as fast as you can it can feel a bit on the short side, but for $10-$20 I think the length is not unreasonable. What it lacks in duration it makes up for in addictive gameplay and wicked humor. I was not disappointed in the length. And yes, they are working on a sequel.

As the game progresses, the challenges get more difficult and GlaDOS becomes more imbalanced. You have to use the portal gun and the companion cube to navigate increasingly complex puzzles. The portable gun turrets are easily disabled by knocking them over, but getting into position to do so or figuring out how to drop one turret through a portal onto another is the challenge here.

Those familiar with the Half-Life universe will notice references to Black Mesa, etc., and Portal 2 may incorporate both (or the next episode of Half-Life might, who knows?).

If you are so inclined, there is also a way to import the portal gun into the Half-Life games with some limited funtionality, a little google searching will reveal how.

Overall, the simple yet addictive gameplay and humor of the game win out over any concerns of brevity. Highly recommended.

Surprisingly Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

By the time you read this review, you will have already learned that Portal is a very short game. However, I can tell you that you should invest the modest price for the game and play it. It's a very fun and fresh concept. The game is entertaining; both in terms of actual gameplay and the undercurrent of humor. I haven't had this much fun with the non-play portion of the game since the No One Lives Forever franchise.

As for the shortness of the game. I actually found this to be fine. Had I paid $50 for Portal, I would have been disappointed... but of course, I did not. Had the game been priced higher with 3x the amount of game play, it would have become tiresome, but as it was, I was left wanting more at the end. In comparison, another game I liked a lot was the massive Oblivion (a game which also featured portals, but of a different variety). However, that game was so big, that I actually was getting tired of the game before I completed it. It has had no replay value and I've avoided the add-on/expansion packs. Portal, by comparison, never grew old at all, was fun and challenging throughout and had a fun and tidy conclusion. In many ways, this game left me wanting more games that are equally short and cheap.

Now, about the gameplay. This game is a FPPS (First Person Puzzle Solver). I must admit that that concept wouldn't be my type of thing normally. For me, when I'm engaged in a fun FPS game and then come to an obviously contrived puzzle that I must solve, I find it a frustrating and annoying divergence from the purpose of the game. However, in Portal, I never had that feeling. I embraced it whole-heartedly and enjoyed the experience. Although I'm not a great puzzle solver, I found nothing here to be so hard as to force me to look to external resources for solutions. I feel smarter having played the game, yet never felt like I was solving arbitrary meaningless puzzles. In other words, Portal is a game of puzzles, but it doesn't play or feel that way. For me, this is the great strength of the effort.

The bottom line for me is that I found Portal to be a very pleasant surprise and would recommend it to FPS players looking for a fun diversion.

A+

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 15, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is very good, its a combination puzzle FPS game. The AI in the game is very entertaining. the game is short but in this case that is isn't such a bad thing.

Awesome!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is so creative and fun! The gameplay is fresh and will get you thinking but not looking at gamefaqs. It is just a trainride of fun from start to finish. The dark humor is hilarious and the game is very memorable. downloadable levels extend the life. Even though it is not too long it just helps to get you to the awesome ending. Then see if you can beat the extras!

Portal

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Awesome puzzle game using the H-L2 engine. It involves creating an "open" portal with one button, and an "exit" portal with another - use it to figure out you way around obstacles and enemies.

Sounds very simple; in reality, it's an intricately desiged, incredibly-challenging game that fails only because it's too short. There is a very loose story and a boss battle of sorts at the end that really pushes this game from four stars to five. Awesome ending credits, with brilliant music throughout. Definately not one to miss.

A good game overall...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

...The antagonist is funny, the protagonist is quiet, and it's filled with puzzles that confuse the mind and infiltrate the body. Overall, as I said, it's a good game.

Very fun but short (or perhaps just concentrated)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: April 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The game is a blast to play, if you are into physics-based puzzles. I'm not going to describe it, because it's well-described elsewhere (Wikipedia, for instance). So the question comes down to, "Is it worth buying?" And the answer is a qualified yes.

The game is short. Yes, really short. Compared to the typical puzzle game ("Myst", etc.), you blast through this in half the time (or less). But what is cut out is all the "envirnoment exploration". It has just as many puzzles as the typical puzzle game, but none of that walking around and looking at the scenery stuff. No bits where you have to go to island A to get the key that opens a lock in island B, which gives you the answer to a puzzle back on island A again, etc.

But it's not sudoku, either. GLaDOS is hilarious and menacing at the same time. Even with no other visible characters to interact with, the plot is a surprisingly important part of the experience. You start to get emotionally attached to the idea that you are a lab rat trying to get out of the maze before you get euthanized.

So, yes, it's worth the money. It's short, but intense. In the same way that an hour-long movie might be better than that same movie stretched out to three hours, I'm not sure the game would have worked if it was much longer than it is. In fact, I bought the whole "Orange Box" just to try this game, and I'm happy with the purchase. (That doesn't mean I'm not also going to play Half-Life, eventually.)

If I want to just kill hours on the computer, I can play solitaire. What I wanted was what I got -- an exciting and challenging set of puzzles with a surprisingly compelling plot as a bonus.

Very Challenging But Crashes

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: May 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I ordered the Portal DVD expecting a stand-alone game for the PC. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I had to sign on for Steam in order to play it. Although I have a strong video card and processor, the game crashed frequently or stuttered both in video and sound. I spent several weeks changing around start-up applications and game options until the crashes stopped (at least most of the time). Good game, but a pain to get running smoothly.

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