I have been reading reviews of Half Life Portal; hearing opinions of this game on podcasts and they make this game sound like the greatest game ever, ever, ever made.

Well I think it is about time that a counter balance is performed and I will be that counter balance.  Portal is the worst parts of half life put into a game of its own.  In half Life and Half Life 2, I found the puzzle games nothing more than a way to stretch out the overall game and did not enjoy the experience.  Oh look; we have a physics engine and have to use it in the game.

The same mentality behind that portion of the game is the same mentality behind this short game.  People like puzzle games right?  Not everyone.  I played this game up to level 13 and thought ; "Fuck this for a game of soldiers."

You have been given a portal gun that enables you to create portals through some of the walls. This enables you to create an entrance and create an exit somewhere else.  You can walk through the entrance and exit out of the exit.  You are put through a series of puzzles to test your skills (assuming you actually give a shit.)

So you have a series of levels  as stated previously to navigate and here is where it goes down hill for me.

First of all to understand my point of view.  The game starts of with you in a room with one of the most annoying computer voices that introduces itself and it makes me want to turn the speakers off.  I don't know if I can put up with this for long, I told me self.

Then I remember the glowing reviews for a game that if we are honest, is not worth buying on its own for £5.  Never the less, I persevered with this game.  It must get better; I told myself.

So I started playing this game that everyone else is enjoying and personally was finding this puzzle lark a choir and I suddenly realised why I was not really enjoying this game.

 

This game reminded me of a group of men comparing the size of their dicks.  Now not wanting to appear a bit gay, everyone just goes along with it and just agrees, even if they don't like the situation.  You don't want to get bent over a table and fucked up the arse do you?

That is how I felt when playing this game.  It's bad enough that valve thought I would buy this game as part of a package just because they thought it was a bargain.  People online and in podcast basically saying that I would be mad not to buy the orange box.  I tell you what podcasters;  If you think it's such a bargain you can pay for mine to mother fuckers.  As soon as I hear someone telling me how to spend my money I know that something is up.

Is this game crap just because I don't like it? No; would I recommend it to my friends? Only if they like puzzle games or MMORPG grinding; it's all the same to me.

 

10th of January 2008

Here is an addendum to my review of Portal.

I was advise by a podcast presenter called Cooper Hawks to complete the game and then give my opinion.  I now have completed the game and I have to ask this question.  What great story was developed that I missed?  The game is tolerable at best and down right annoying at worst.  I do not think this type of game is for me.  By the end of level 19, I was praying for this game to end so I could play something else that was more attune to my taste.

As I state previously; I am not saying that this game is bad; far from it.  I am saying that it just did not agree with me.  It may have more to do with the fact that most games now days requires little or no brain power and it took me a little bit longer to get into the swing of things and is really a sad indictment on my mental state of health rather than the quality of this game.

If there was a story I must have missed it.  A computer that seems to be suffering from PMT, over the fact that it made you a cake and that I didn't care, can not in anyway be described as a story.  I hear that some who played this game felt sorry for the computer.  Let's put it this way; there's a scene at the end which I won't spoil but if you have played any First Person Shoot'em'up in the last twenty years, will know what will happen.

You finally meet the depressed computer that keeps moaning about this stupid cake and it asks me for what feels like the hundredth time.  "you don't even care, do you?"  I just thought; No.  Now hurry up and die so I can go play Mass Effect instead of the computer equivalent of my mother; this constant moaning voice in the background in really got on my nerves.