Portal is the game of the year

[Vesayen]

What criteria do I use to call portal the game of the year?

I hearby invent a new unit of measurment. The orgasma-gram.

An orgasma-gram is a measurment of intensity of fun over a set period of time.

Portal has a very, very, very high orgasma-gram ratio.

The game is very short, I beat it in a little under 3 hours. However those 3 hours are enormously fun. I am not even a big fan of puzzle games but it was great. Every moment was, enormously fun.

Graphics: A+

Sound: A+

Why is the sound A+? The music is great but the VOICE acting is great too. Yes, there is lots of dialouge, and it had me laughing myself to tears.

Gameplay: A+
It is just FUN. JUST as the "puzzle play" begins to get a TAD boring and the puzzles are begining to get old, the gameplay fundamentally shifts to something else.

Atmosphere: A+

As stated above, I laughed myself to tears at more then one point.

Length: D. The game is 3 hours long. I do not see much replayability to be honest.

Making it good where it counts: A+

To me a good game, is a story. That means the ending is very important. Most games skimp the end and most game endings now a days suck because the developers are pressed for time(or money) and can't make it a good one. I say with no reservations the ending of portal is the best ending I have seen in any game in 4 years(the last winner was the second neverwinter nights expansion pack, hordes of the underdark). The ending of portal is FANTASTIC.

Due to the very short length of the game, combined with the enormous fun, Portal gets a 90% oragasma-gram ratio and wins game of the year.

[Asher]

Are you serious?

A simple 3 hour puzzle game is game of the year? Where the entire 3 hours relies on a simple game concept?

You're crazy. It's a bundled-in game for a reason.

[Vesayen]

It is not a LONG game but it is a VERY VERY VERY good game.

Few games are CONSTANTLY fun, hysterically funny, enjoyable and have a great ending.

I can not find a single thing about the game to criticize except it's length.


If Valve uses the "portal" concept and mixes it with a game like the original halflife, they'll have one of the most memorable games ever made. I suspect they are already working on such a game, I can't wait for it to come out.


If I was teaching a course on good and innovate game design, I could spend 3 months teaching how Portal did it right.

[Asher]

I'm glad you think so, but I'm not sure I agree. Not even close.

The Half-Life developers have a knack for taking an interesting gameplay mechanic (physics in HL2, portals in...Portal) and knocking you over the head with it over and over. Perhaps it entertains you longer than me, but I get tired when the solution to every problem is the same: "Oh, I need to make a portal" and "Oh, I need to use physics". Blah.

One-dimensional.

[Asher]

This review of Portal seems slightly more grounded:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/825/825987p1.html

The idea behind Portal ends up being more brilliant than Portal itself. Regardless, we definitely had a lot of fun with what is there and appreciate the level of polish and thought that went into the presentation. We're definitely interested to see where Half-Life 2: Episode Three goes now that we've seen what the portal gun is capable of and how everything in Half-Life and this new character really fit together. We definitely recommend getting this with the Orange Box package rather than on its own.

Closing Comments
For 20 dollars, it may be a little pricey for what’s there, but we certainly won't tell anybody not to buy Portal. We recommend picking this one up with the full Orange Box because it’s hard to say no to another peek into this awesome universe and it does fit together with Episode Two.

8.2/10

It's an interesting concept and a half-assed game best suited as a bundle with real games. "Game of the year" is a bit rich...

[Vesayen]

I did not like Half Life 2 very much, *LOVED* the original half life though(and its many many mods).

They did a MUCH MUCH better job on Portal then HL2 IMO.

$20 is too expensive. It is over priced. For $13, it would be priced, just right.

[Asher]

If you can't justify $20 for the game, how can it be game of the year?

[Vesayen]

Because every moment of the game was incredibly fun, with great pacing and no boring moments, even for a second.

[Asher]

Are you sure you just didn't ingest some foreign substances before playing?

[Vesayen]

Nope. Loved every moment of the game utterly and it only got better and better as it went on.

It is too short. It costs too much. However based on how much fun it is at any given moment, it blows every other release this year out of the water.

[Asher]

Which other releases this year have you played?

[Vesayen]

I couldn't even try to keep count. "Most" of them.

[Asher]

Yeah, okay...

[Vesayen]

What is that supposed to mean? Why would I lie to someone online about the fact that I play entirley too many video games lol?

[Adagio]

I just played it for a little over an hour yesterday and I'm near the end (next level is brining in some turrets or something)
While the game itself is interesting, it sure as hell needs more to be classified as game of the year
If they had included a level editor (at least as far as I know there isn't one), a MP mode (with a puzzle mode and the usual death match mode with portals) and with maps that could be completed in different ways (and make them much harder)... then we're getting closer


MP mode is what I'm missing the most, could be fun with portals. But then there should probably also be a limit to how long time a portal can stay, and maybe add the functionality for a player to be able to remove the portals of another player, at the cost of his own (as in if you shoot another portal it'll take 30-60 sec before you can make portals again, and all your existing portals will close)