Portal (video game)

For other uses, see Portal (video game) (disambiguation).

Portal
File:Portal Logo.jpg Portal is bundled as part of The Orange Box.
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	Valve Corporation
Engine	Source engine
Platform(s)	Windows, Xbox 360, PS3
Release	Microsoft Windows (Retail): RUS: October 10, 2007 USA: October 10, 2007 EUR: October 18, 2007 AUS: October 18, 2007 Microsoft Windows (Steam): INT: October 10, 2007 Xbox 360: USA: October 9, 2007 EUR: October 18, 2007 PS3: November 15, 2007[1]
Genre(s)	First-person puzzle game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Portal is a single-player first-person action/puzzle video game developed by Valve. The game was released in a bundle package known as The Orange Box for PC and Xbox 360 on October 10 2007, and will be released for the PlayStation 3 sometime in November. The Windows version of the game is also available for download separately through Steam. The game consists primarily of a series of puzzles which must be solved by teleporting the player's character and other simple objects using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The goal of each puzzle is to reach an exit point. The "portal gun" and the unusual physics it creates are the emphasis of this game.

Gameplay

A typical Portal level with both the player's blue and orange portals opened.

In Portal players control Chell (as she is named in the game credits), a test subject in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Gameplay revolves around the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" (also known as the "portal gun"), a handheld device that can create an inter-spatial portal between flat planes, allowing instant travel and a visual and physical connection between any two different locations in 3D space. Portal ends are restricted to planar surfaces, but if the portal ends are on different planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur, such as the player walking into the portal through a wall and "falling" up out of the floor several feet behind where she started. An important aspect is that objects retain their momentum as they pass through the portals: an object that falls some distance before entering a portal will continue moving at that same speed out of the other end. This allows the player to launch objects, or even Chell, up to higher levels that lack appropriate portal surfaces, among other possible effects. Only two portal ends may be open at a time, one orange and one blue in color. If a new portal end is created, it replaces the previous portal of the same color. Either color may be used as an entrance or exit portal. The portal gun is also used to pick up objects in a similar manner to the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, though it cannot throw objects or drag them from afar like the gravity gun can.

Guided by a female electronic voice-over of a supercomputer named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, voiced by Ellen McLain) players use the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" to perform a variety of tests, such as creating portals to knock over turrets and other objects or moving to a previously unreachable area.

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.

Two additional modes are unlocked upon completion of the main game. In Challenge mode, the player has to get through a test in either as little time, with the least number of portals, or as few footsteps as possible. In Advanced mode, the hardest levels of the game are made even harder with the addition of more obstacles and hazards.

Plot synopsis

File:PortalPlayer-v2.jpg

Chell, the female protagonist controlled by the player, views herself holding the Portal Gun through the portals she has created.

Portal is set in the Half-Life universe, and is presented to the player through the game's audio messages and visual elements seen throughout the game. Additional elements of the story's background are developed from the fictional Aperture Science website created by Valve for the game.

At the start of the game, Chell wakes from a stasis bed, though how she came to be there is initially unknown, with a radio playing a lively salsa version of "Still Alive". She wakes up wearing heel springs: these allow her to fall long distances without injuring herself. GLaDOS informs her of the test and proceeds to guide her through the introductory test chambers. At this time Chell lacks the portal gun altogether. As the tests progress she eventually acquires the first "portion" of the portal gun, allowing her to place blue portals but not orange ones; later she acquires an upgrade that allows her to place orange portals. Further along the the game the player is introduced to the Weighted Companion Cube, which is used within only one test chamber, before being incinerated by the player. GLaDOS warns that known side-effects of the testing includes hallucinations, where the test subject believes that the Weighted Companion Cube is capable of speech. Initially the test chambers are clean, friendly environments. Chell is promised cake as a reward for successfully completing the tests, and this appears as an available (deactivated) component in the stage descriptions. However, as Chell works through the stages, GLaDOS's colorful dialog begins to paint an unnerving picture of the type of research that occurs in the facility. She cheerfully informs Chell of various safety risks in each stage that could kill or seriously injure her. GLaDOS also starts to betray signs of rampancy as well.

Although glass walls in key areas of the stages would allow observation of the subject by laboratory personnel, the chairs seen beyond these glass walls are empty and no research personnel are seen at all. Some stages are broken, allowing Chell to explore behind the pristine test areas and into grimy, deserted maintenance areas. Prominent in these hidden rooms is graffiti from an unknown benefactor accusing GLaDOS of lying about the nature of the tests, and repeatedly claiming "the cake is a lie". One such room contains a tribute to the Weighted Companion Cube created by someone who apparently had affection for the cube. Suggestions by GLaDOS imply that the person who created the tribute heard voices that he/she thought came from the cube. GLaDOS becomes uncomfortable with Chell exploring these areas and begins to hint that Chell is ultimately disposable and will be dealt with. Such areas contain hints that Aperture Labs is in competition for GSA funding with the Black Mesa research facility, from the first Half-Life game.

After the final test, Chell is sent to receive her cake, but is plunged into a furnace (to "be baked," as GLaDOS had accidentally admitted numerous previous times, with glitches resembling Freudian slips). She manages to escape into a maintenance area and GLaDOS begins to show agitation, claiming first that Chell's ability to escape a fiery death was the real final test, and then that it was a joke. She tells Chell that there will be a party held in her honor and urges her to put down the portal gun, "assume the party escort submission position" on the floor, and await the arrival of a "party associate." Chell flees into the facility's numerous maintenance corridors, and GLaDOS becomes increasingly agitated. Roughly the last third of the game continues behind the walls of previous stages and the inner laboratories of Aperture Labs as Chell follows eerie notes written on walls and uses the portal gun to work her way upward to the top of the facility. Finally, Chell confronts GLaDOS, a large machine hanging in a cylindrical shaft. (Near the entrance to the room is a desk with a red phone. The developer commentary states that there was someone stationed at the red phone in case GLaDOS showed signs of independent thought - apparently, they weren't fast enough to make the call.) GLaDOS releases neurotoxins into the room to kill Chell, but Chell defeats GLaDOS by incinerating the spherical component modules, and GLaDOS's personality degenerates as her various AI cores are destroyed. During this confrontation, GLaDOS makes several comments that something has gone wrong in the outside world, and that she is the only thing keeping the facility from "them", which may refer to the Combine invasion. When GLaDOS is completely destroyed, the facility begins to shake and fall apart, and Chell is lifted high into the shaft, blacking out. She wakes on a pile of debris in the light of day, just outside the facility.

The final scene shows the promised cake surrounded by various metallic "eye" components similar to those that were on GLaDOS. Companion Cube is also in attendance. Some of the eyes activate and a robotic arm puts the candle out. The credits roll as GLaDOS gives a concluding, rambling, insane report about Chell and "the experiment" in the form of the song "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton. The song suggests that GLaDOS has survived the assault against her core, and makes further reference to Black Mesa.

When the ending credits and song end, the player is greeted with a new background: a cake with lit candles on a desk next to a radio. If the background is left alone for long enough, it eventually pans to show the Companion Cube on the right side of the desk.

Half-Life timeline

Statements by GLaDOS and the pristine nature of the neighborhood surrounding Aperture Science seem to imply that the game takes place around the time of the Black Mesa resonance cascade event during the first Half-Life game. GLaDOS is not an entirely reliable narrator, though; the state of disrepair of the facility itself and the unknown length of time between the building's abandonment and Chell's awakening suggest that the game could take place at any time from the event itself until the Half-Life 2 "present".

Development

Portal is Valve's professionally-developed spiritual successor 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. Certain elements have been retained from Drop, such as the system of identifying the two unique portal endpoints with the colors orange and blue. The key difference in the signature portal mechanic between the two games is that the portal gun cannot be fired through an existing portal (as it could in Drop) and will instead behave as if the portal were not there.

Regarding future Portal developments, Kim Swift said that it will depend on the community's reactions, saying, "We're still playing it by ear at this point, figuring out if we want to do multiplayer next, or Portal 2, or release map packs."

Portal, like other recent Valve releases, includes a commentary feature.

The Portal team worked with Half-Life series writer Marc Laidlaw on fitting the game into the series' plot. Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek of the classic gaming commentary/comedy website Old Man Murray had been hired by Valve and put to work on the dialogue for Portal.

The face of Chell is modeled after Alesia Glidewell, an American freelance filmmaker. Ellen McLain did the voice of the antagonist GLaDOS. McLain is also featured as the announcer in Team Fortress 2, and the voice of the Combine Dispatch in the Half-Life 2 series of games.

Critical reception

As of October 10, 2007 on the review aggregator Game Rankings, the Windows version of the game had an average score of 89% based on 7 reviews. On Metacritic, the Windows version had an average score of 88 out of 100, based on 7 reviews. The game recieved a 92% rating in PC Gamer Sweden.

Due to the popularity of the game, Valve's Director of Business Development Jason Holtman has confirmed that a Weighted Companion Cube desktop toy will be released by the end of 2007.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack can be found inside the non-localized Portal GCF store. There is no independently released soundtrack; these are simply the audio files found within the game's data.

1. "Subject Name Here" - 1:44
2. "Taste of Blood" - 3:06
3. "Android Hell" - 3:45
4. "Self Esteem Fund" - 3:30
5. "Procedural Jiggle Bone" - 4:34
6. "4000 Degrees Kelvin" - 1:01
7. "Stop What You Are Doing" - 4:00
8. "Party Escort" - 4:21
9. "You're Not a Good Person" - 1:24
10. "No Cake For You" - 4:05
11. "You Can't Escape You Know" - 6:24
12. "Still Alive" - 2:56

The ending credits song, titled "Still Alive" was sung by Ellen McLain and written by Jonathan Coulton.

See also

• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• The Orange Box
• Narbacular Drop
• Team Fortress 2

External links

Official

• Official homepage - The Orange Box
• ApertureScience.com (Viral advertising, Alternate reality game)

Press

• Portal at 1UP.com
• Portal at Eurogamer
• Template:GameSpot
• Portal at IGN
• Portal at Wired