Portal

Moby ID: 30616
Windows Specs
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Description official description

Aperture Science is a secret weapons research organization in competition with Black Mesa. Chell is a test subject at the "Enrichment Center" facility who awakens to find an A.I. construct called GlaDOS requiring some tasks to be completed. They are testing the Aperture Handheld Portal Device (aka Portal Gun) which is able to create portals in space, allowing Chell to move from one point to another without actually crossing the distance. Chell is promised cake should she be able to overcome the obstacles and perform the necessary tests.

She has to use her new gun to fling, jump and fall her way through 19 puzzles. These include obstacles but also androids that fire at her. Although the game is played as a first-person shooter, a large amount of strategy and puzzle-solving is involved. After completing the game, two additional game modes become available: Challenge where the game needs to be completed in either as little time, as few footsteps, or as few portals as possible. The other mode is Advanced, where levels are made harder through additional obstacles.

Portal is set in the Half-Life universe and it is considered the spiritual successor to Narbacular Drop, some of whose original developers worked on this game. The Windows game can be bought stand-alone, while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions are only available in The Orange Box.

Spellings

  • ポータル - Japanese spelling
  • 포털 - Korean spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

171 People (164 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 41 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 270 ratings with 6 reviews)

Interesting idea, but not much of a game.

The Good
I haven't seen a fresher idea for a game mechanism in years. And to find one that actually leaves much up to the player's imagination is rare. The portal weapons work like a charm, as does the physics in the game.

The Bad
However, I can't shake the feeling that I'm playing around with a tech demo. I have a hard time calling it a game. Most gamers will probably finish it in a couple of hours and that only adds to the demo feeling of the "game".

The story is thin, vague and not much to spur the player on. I got this game for free but had I payed money for it I would have felt even more cheated. It's fun to play around with and the gameplay is superbly executed - but I just don't see a whole game in there.

The Bottom Line
Imagine a typical 3D shooter without weapons. Instead you have the ability to shoot portals on almost any solid surface. If you shoot one portal on the right wall, and the other on the left and then go through the right one - you will come out of the left portal. These portals can be applied to ceilings and floors as well.

Now, the traditional shooter becomes a puzzle game where you need to use the portals - and your imagination - to get from point A to point B.

Windows · by Thomas Helsing (182) · 2011

An exercise in how to tell a story without cutscenes

The Good
Portal is, at its heart, a puzzle game. You can place one portal here another there and walk through one to get to the other. Although the interface is typical of a first person shooter, there is no shooting of bullets on your behalf, the turrets on the other hand are rather trigger happy.

The FPS style wrapper for the game makes it immediately accessible to fans of that genre, but the game play is all about the puzzles. You proceed through the game completing rooms of increasing difficulty using portals to get around the obstacles. When you figure out the trick to a room there's a rewarding "Ah ha!" moment in your brain.

The story elements emerge out of the frame work of the game seamlessly. We don't need to be told exactly who we are or what we are doing there. We are put in the position of a mouse in a maze. A maze constructed by a sadistic AI personality. That's all there is to the story but how it unfolds is a brilliant example of minimalist writing.

You are never thrown out of the game world by an expository cut scene. The story happens through the dialogue and also later through pieces of the environment which suggest you are far from the first rat to run this maze.

The simple story reminds one of Harlan Ellison's AI gone mad in "I have no mouth but I must scream". And you have no mouth. Your character, though given the name Chell, is as silent as Valve's Gordon Freeman. Your own voice cursing or laughing is Chell's voice.

As simplistic as this may sound, the game is executed to a high level of quality. It's short. There is nothing extraneous present in it. Just very distilled puzzle game play surrounded by a simple plot that carries you along.

The ending, although well known and quoted to death by now, is one of the best I've seen in a video game. The end song flips the feeling of hatred you felt towards the AI in the game on it's head and makes you wish for more.

Should there have been more? Making a game this tight is a balancing act. I feel that if it had been longer perhaps the impact of the first play through would not have been so good. As it stands, they did an amazing job of creating the world of Portal around you as you played through the puzzles.

It does say something to the strength of the game that despite being bundled with an episode of Half Life 2, Portal has seen a sequel well before the next portion of Half Life 2. Talk about stolen thunder.

The Bad
I did feel that the difficulty in the game was a bit weird. Most of the earlier puzzles are easy to figure out. For a game having less than twenty total levels, the majority are easily cruised through.

The last couple of levels do present a challenge but some of this is from pure twitch mechanics not from brain work. For a game that relies so much on puzzle solving, it's odd that the hardest parts are just twitch timing.

The game is very short. An expert player could probably clear it in an hour or hour and a half. I replayed it before the sequel was released and it took me about three hours. I wasn't racing though, I spent time seeing the sights and messing with portals for kicks. For the price, it's not a bad value versus an evening at the movies but compared to the majority of video games it may seem way to brief.



The Bottom Line
Portal is a puzzle game in a FPS wrapper surrounded by dark humor. As Chell, the poor girl stuck like a mouse in a maze, you must use the portal gun to navigate the tests you are put through. The gun is simple to operate, one mouse button shoots the first portal, the other button shoots the second portal. Walk through one of these portals and you pop out where the other portal is located.

A simple concept, but you must use these portals to navigate some devious rooms, defeat or avoid bullet shooting turrets and even figure out how to use them to launch you up to seemingly unreachable locations.

The game runs smooth and using portals to get around is the essence of simplicity. It's almost too simple until you get to the final truly difficult rooms, which require you to generate new portals quickly while you are in motion.

The story comes in the form of dialogue from an insane AI, dedicated to testing the portal device. The humor is enjoyable and the voice acting superlative.

Short and sweet, Portal is a rare example of a game that doesn't overstay its welcome but rather leaves you wanting more.

Windows · by snuf (14104) · 2011

An achievement in humor and game design

The Good
Portal will always be known as one of the best written games of all times. Every single joke lands on the spot because the voice acting of SHO... I mean GLaDOS is fantastic and she doesn't talk your ear off (a virtue Portal 2 unfortunately forgot).

This is one of the only puzzle games which have a very polished difficulty curve: the puzzles never feel too easy or too hard in context of the game progression. The mechanics are simple, but the designers found many approaches to make clever puzzles out of them.

The Bad
The downside of the polished difficulty curve is that most of the game feels like a tutorial. Only in the last chapter the game stops holding your hand, but just at that moment it also stops introducing more difficult or complex puzzles and only iterates. That's normal for puzzle games, but in this case it stands out negatively because the whole game is relatively short (at most three hours) and the previous chapters were exceptionally varied. In the end, it makes the last chapter a bit tedious.

The Bottom Line
I believe it is a hard challenge to find someone on MobyGames who hasn't played Portal before, especially because Valve regularly gave it away for free on Steam. If you are one of this rare species, you absolutely have to give it a try - it will only cost you a few hours of your life, but in return you receive one of the funniest games of all times.

Windows · by Patrick Bregger (298879) · 2021

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Free until May 25th, 2010! (on Steam) Patrick Bregger (298879) May 23, 2010
Valve re-writes the ending. Starbuck the Third (22608) Mar 5, 2010
Steam can't so I can't play Arachia Botanical Nov 20, 2009
Incorrectly grouped vedder (70685) Feb 17, 2009
The Device Has Been Modified xroox (3895) Jan 17, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Portal appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

German version

In some German versions, the colour of blood was changed to grey.

GLaDOS

According to a boardroom projection in the game, GLaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System.

Awards

  • Eurogamer (UK)
    • December 28, 2009 - Game of the Year 2007* Games for Windows Magazine
    • March 2008 - #1 Game of the Year 2007 (PC Game Awards)* GameSpy
    • 2007 – Best Puzzle Game of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Character of the Year (for GlaDOS)
    • 2007 – Best Sidekick of the Year (for The Weighted Companion Cube)
    • 2011 – #8 Top PC Game of the 2000s
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • March 28, 2008 - Most Innovative Game Mechanics in 2007

Information also contributed by jean-louis and LepricahnsGold.

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • A Piece of Cake
    An Apple Games article about the Macintosh version of Portal (May, 2010).
  • ApertureScience
    website of the fictional Aperture Science company with an alternate reality game
  • Design Language: The Portal Paradoxes
    Noah Falstein presents a comprehensive design critique of Portal - from intro to 'Still Alive'.
  • MacGamer Review
    A review of the Mac version of Portal by the news and review site, MacGamer (May 18th, 2010).
  • Portal Is for lesbians
    A look at the female cast and the influence on the theme, on Heroine Sheik (17th October 2007)
  • Portal flash pack
    A pack of custom maps for the game, based on the unofficial 2D flash version.

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  • MobyGames ID: 30616
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Dakota Bob.

Android added by GTramp. Linux added by Sciere. Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Sciere, Foxhack, Zeppin, lee jun ho, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Harmony♡.

Game added October 16, 2007. Last modified February 21, 2024.