Portal - First Impression Review

Portal is a game I wanted to play for a long time. I'm a casual Puzzle games fan who enjoys creative puzzles that give me room for experimentation. After playing it this week, Portal did not disappoint.

Before playing it this week, I saw a few reviews about Portal, the Extra Credits team, and other YouTubers who recommended it. I found it in many popular game lists. Portal is also frequently offered with attractive discounts during Steam sales, so I bought it in one such 90% off sale.

It stuck in my backlog/library for more than a year, or two, or three before I finally decided it's time to finally play it!

Portal follows an unnamed character as she goes through multiple experiments using the titular Portal gun. The player is observed by a machine assistant who's sarcasm and instructions add a funny flavor to these experiments. (I assumed and later confirmed that this is the infamous GLaDOS whom I kept hearing about.)

It simultaneously feels like you're working with the machine and against it.

There isn't much of a story. The whole story is an excuse for the Puzzles. Reframing it as a series of experiments is a clever way to set the mood.

In this First Impression Review, I'll refer to these experiments as levels. There are 19 of them, though I only finished 14 and played a bit of the 15th as of this writing.

I had a lot of fun figuring out how the Portals worked, navigating my way through anti-portal surfaces, figuring out how to manipulate momentum, and surviving the acid liquid some of the floors had.

GlaDOS is enjoyable and sometimes funny. Sometimes as she talks, I notice a hint of glitching in her voice. Especially early on. I like how in the 5th level, she kept saying that solving this experiment was impossible, and she was sorry to present us with an unsolvable puzzle. I easily solved it, though. She congratulated me for overcoming the pessimistic situation. It was all exactly as planned for her.

I like how the game kept introducing new mechanics up to where I stopped playing. The difficulty curve felt 'just right' the whole time. First, the experiments introduced the portals and the ability to hold and drop things.

Once the game makes sure you understand that, it gives you the Portal Gun that allows you to shoot portal gates on any surface.

After a few experiments, it upgrades the Portal Gun to shoot both the Red and Blue portals, allowing for Infinite possibilities. At that time, I laughed when the GLaDOS said: "Now that you have control of both portals, this puzzle will take a long time."

Funnily enough, I died multiple times while playing. Most of my deaths were due to falling into the acidic liquid below some levels, and there's a part I kept dying in more than 10 times.

When you die, you go back to a previous checkpoint. The checkpoints I was thrown back to were always seconds away from where I died, which felt forgiving and let me experiment more.

There were some parts in the game in which I got stuck, like when I got in a room full of barriers and couldn't get out until I realized I could use the Portals to semi-infinitely fall and gain the momentum necessary to jump above the barrier.

When the laser balls first got introduced, I finished the level quickly and didn't think they were lethal to the player character. You can imagine my shocked face when I died for seemingly no reason, only to know that being on the path of a Laser Ball means death!

So that was my experience playing the game. I played it for a little less than 2 hours. Knowing what I know now, I could reach this far in less than an hour. I knew Portal was short before though, I just didn't expect it to be this short. This makes it a tight experience worth recommending.

What do you think?

^{- First image is taken from the Nintendo Switch page of the game. All screenshots of Portal, taken by me.}
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