Portal (video game)
| Portal The logo for Valve's game, Portal. | |
|---|---|
| The Orange Box Now you're thinking with portals. | |
| Developer(s) | Valve Corporation |
| Publisher(s) | Valve Corporation (Steam) |
| Engine | Source engine |
| Platform(s) | PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 |
| Release | October 10, 2007 (in The Orange Box collection)[1] |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle, First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Portal is an upcoming single-player first-person puzzle action video game by Valve Corporation, shipping in a bundle package known as The Orange Box which will also include Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 as well as Half-Life 2 and Episode One. The Orange Box is due to be released on October 10 2007.
Gameplay
Gameplay revolves around the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" (ASHPD), a handheld device that can create portals on flat planes, allowing instant travel and a visual and physical connection between any two different locations in 3D space. Portals are restricted to planar surfaces, but if two linked portals are on different planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur, such as the player walking through a portal on the wall and "falling" up out of the floor several feet behind where he started. Only two portals may be open at a time, one orange and one blue in colour. If a new portal is created, it replaces the previous portal of the same color. The device also acts as a less powerful version of Half-Life 2's gravity gun, which can grab and hold objects, though it is not able to 'punt' objects as the Gravity Gun can.[2]
In their initial preview of Portal, GameSpot gave an example of a gameplay scenario:
In other situations, you may be under fire by a gun droid. So all you need to do is shoot a portal open over the gun, then shoot a portal open beneath a crate, then watch the crate fall through the hole and crush the gun. It gets even crazier, and the diagrams shown in the trailer showed some incredibly crazy things that you can attempt, like creating a series of Portals so that you're constantly chasing yourself.[3]
Story
 | This section possibly contains original research. |
In Portal, players control a test participant in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Using the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", players perform a variety of tests, such as creating portals to knock over turrets and other objects or moving to a previously unreachable area. Guided by an electronic female voice that is at once both comical and subtly threatening, players must either complete their set objectives or fail the test. Failure or refusal of a test likely results in death, although the consequences may not be permanent. At the end of the Games Convention video the computerized voice ominously says "When the testing is over, you will be... missed"; in another, more recent video, the voice states that "you will be baked, and then there will be cake", perhaps referring to the flame-filled areas seen in the original trailer. The Games Convention video, however, states that "an intubation associate will be dispatched to revive you with peptic salve and adrenaline" in case of consciousness loss, hinting that some care is taken to keep the test subject alive at least until the tests are over.
Portal has been confirmed to be set in the Half-Life universe,[3] and it appears to take place in a "Combine portal user training facility", according to Shacknews.[4] Certain aspects similar to the Half-Life universe can be noted in the official trailer, such as the turrets, which operate and sound similar to those that the Combine implement, though this may only be due to the use of sounds from Half-Life 2 as placeholders. Also, orbs like those that the Combine use in the Citadel are seen, with sockets similar to those seen in Half-Life 2: Episode One: again, they might only be placeholders.
According to Doug Lombardi, the protagonist in Portal is a yet-unintroduced character who will play a role in future games of Half-Life. Though Lombardi has hinted that this character might make an appearance in Half-Life 2: Episode Three, this is not a certainty. It was later suggested in an interview article from 1up.com with Portal level designer Kim Swift that the jump-suited male character from the preview video is a placeholder character;[5] the walkthrough videos from the 2007 Game Developers Convention also describe the jump-suited male as "not the final character." It was confirmed in a Game Informer article and even through a screenshot from ComputerAndVideoGames.com that the protagonist would indeed be female.[6] Her face was revealed at E3 '07, and can be clearly seen in a video on the GameTrailers website.
Information about the Aperture Science Center will not be revealed in Portal, but will rather be explained in Half-Life 2: Episode Two. However, the background of the female protagonist and her reason for being at the Aperture Laboratories will be explained during the game.[6]
A dark undertone is revealed in the ApertureScience.com site (see below) in that the application questionnaire (accessed when the user types APPLY at the B prompt after logging in with the password PORTAL) asks such questions as how much the applicant can withstand pain before passing out, how they would react to torture, if they felt anyone was watching them, how long they could stay awake; if they were to disappear tomorrow, would anyone miss them, etc. There is a total of 54 pages in the questionnaire. The questionnaire ends chillingly with the user being told to wait at their workstation to be investigated by a superior after failing to properly enter a 64 digit ID code displayed before the questionnaire begins (which changes while displayed, making recital virtually impossible and the fact that the code is case sensitive and what the user types on the keyboard are all in capital letters). During the questionnaire, in some questions, the user can see letters dimming and (on one page) even see an ASCII art of a cake flash for a brief moment. By taking all the dimming letters in the questionnaire and arranging them in the order of appearance, it spells out THECAKEISALIE. Typing that at anytime after login reveals a hidden message from a distraught employee and a security camera video, hinting that Aperture is not all it seems to be, with the final line, "I don't think going home is a part of our job description anymore", before telling the user to press return if a supervisor passes by (which brings up a fake spreadsheet software image. The spreadsheet listing a curious item, INTUB-XLG, of which one was ordered, costing $974,999.99. The only other things on the spreadsheet are 50 units of flour and 75 units of thumbtacks.) There is also an option to try to INTERROGATE an employee, but are rebuffed as not having clearance with an error message stating: "Illegal attempt to initiate disciplinary action".
Trailer
The trailer takes the form of an introduction video produced by Aperture Laboratories[1] - although in the first video released the name was spelled "Labratories" - and given to all test participants, presumably viewed by the player. The video begins by introducing a "simple task": crossing a chasm to reach an exit. First, a computer-animated figure demonstrates how this can be accomplished: by shooting a portal onto the wall near the exit, then shooting another portal on the wall near the figure. The figure proceeds through the portals and exits successfully. The next scene yields a "real world example" (taking place in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center), where the chasm is now filled with fire and the player is threatened by a metal press. The player shoots a portal onto the far wall across the chasm, followed by another onto a nearby wall, and runs through. Notably, while the computer-animated demonstration indicates that the entry portal should be shot before the exit portal, the real world example demonstrates that the order in which the portals are shot does not matter.
The video continues by demonstrating the method to move otherwise immovable objects: by shooting a portal onto a wall, and then shooting another portal beneath the object. This will cause the object to fall through the portals and on to the ground under the first portal. Another real world example is shown. The player encounters a turret with a heavy cube nearby; the player, under fire from the turret, proceeds to shoot a portal onto the wall above the turret and another below the cube. The cube falls through the portals and successfully knocks over the turret.
The next few scenes all show the figure performing various tasks, including jumping over tall obstacles through first "building vertical momentum" by jumping into a portal located below the current level, looking through a set of lined-up portals to create an infinitely recursive view, walking through portals to fall on moving platforms, falling through an infinite portal system, and jumping off of high ledges. This is followed by a few real world feats, demonstrating the use of the ASHPD as a weak Gravity Gun, other complex variants of using cubes and portals to defeat turrets, and a portal-turret system set up so that it shoots itself, and concludes with the player watching himself fall through an infinite portal system.
History
Portal is Valve's professionally-developed semi-sequel to the freeware Narbacular Drop, the 2005 independent game released by students of the DigiPen Institute of Technology; the original Drop team are now all employed at Valve.[7] Certain elements, like the orange/blue system of identifying the two different portals a player can have open at a time (one connecting to the other), seem to have been retained.
In recent interviews, Gabe Newell also revealed that Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek of the classic gaming commentary/comedy website Old Man Murray had been hired and put to work on the dialogue for Portal, which so far seems chiefly composed of the lines spoken by the female "narrator."
Website
The website, Aperture Science, is run by Valve and presents a Flash-based green monochrome computer terminal that visitors can interact with.[8] To "login" to the terminal one must enter login, logon, user, list, or help, followed by any username and the password portal or portals. At this point several commands prompt results, such as thecakeisalie, dir, lib, ls, apply, logoff, and valve. Entering apply will take you to the questionnaire, while entering valve will take the user to the Steam website, or in some cases the users homepage.[9] (ActionScript source code of the site)
See also
![[1]](http://www.evilavatar.com/images/previews/halflifeorange/TOBOXpcSCRNportalAperturLab.jpg){kind=link}
References
- ^ Remo, Chris (2007-06-15). "Valve confirms Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 launch date". Shacknews. Retrieved 2007-06-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Perry, Douglass C. (2006-07-27). "The Portal Interview". IGN.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b "Half-Life 2: Episode Two - The Return of Team Fortress 2 and Other Surprises". GameSpot. 2006-07-13. Retrieved 2006-07-21.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Remo, Chris (2007-05-03). "Portal Preview". Shacknews. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Portal Preview". 1Up.com. 2006-09-08. Retrieved 2006-09-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Berghammer, Billy (2007-05-03). "Portal Hands-On Preview And Exclusive Direct Feed Videos". Game Informer. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Things are heating up!". Narbacular Drop official site. 2006-07-17. Retrieved 2006-07-21.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Halflife2.net forum users investigate aperturescience.com
- ^ Analyzing ApertureScience.com. Entering the command ? before logging in also prompts a result. Retrieved 2006-10-31.
External links
- Official
- Press
- Community