Video Games : Portal

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from: Electronic Arts

: Portal

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Amazon Maximum Age: 20 years
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 months
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Electronic Arts
EAN: 0014633098716
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Format: DVD-ROM
Label: Electronic Arts
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Model: 9871
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: April 08, 2008
Sales Rank: 914
Studio: Electronic Arts

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Your name is Chell and GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) is a computer AI that monitors, directs and misleads you in a kind of twisted experiment. You must rely on information from GLaDOS to survive as you navigate through a series of mostly doorless rooms using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device ("portal gun"). The portal gun creates two portal ends, both of which are simultaneously a potential entrance and exit. Objects, alive or otherwise, that travel through one end will exit the other at the same speed. Also, portals create a visual and physical connection between two different locations in 3D space. Their ends are restricted to planar surfaces, but if the portal ends are on nonparallel planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur as you are immediately reoriented to be upright with respect to gravity after leaving a portal. You can pass through open portals at will, but barriers, known as "Material Emancipation Grids" or 'fizzlers' prevent you from carrying objects beyond them. Luckily certain objects, known as 'companion cubes' can be tossed through. Passage through these fields also closes any open portals, so it's important to look before you leap. It's your challenge to survive the hazards of the portals, including booby traps, hidden gun turrets and the treachery of GLaDOS in the search for eventual freedom.

Windows Vista/XP/2000 1.7 Ghz Processor [Pentium 4 Processor (3.0 Ghz or better) recommended] 512 MB RAM [1 GB RAM recommended] DirectX 8 level Graphics card [DirectX 9 level Graphics card recommended] DVD-ROM Drive/Mouse/Keyboard/Internet Connection

Amazon.com:
Portal is an action/puzzle video game from Valve, creators of Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. The winner of over 40 awards, including 15 Game of the Year honors, it is one of the most original games on any platform in years and offers gamers hours of unique gameplay. Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, Portal is designed to change the way players approach, manipulate and surmise the possibilities in a given environment; similar to how Half-Life 2’s Gravity Gun innovated new ways to leverage an object in any given situation. Players must solve physical puzzles and challenges by opening portals to maneuver objects, and themselves, through space.

'Portal' game logo
The new physics of fun
Use the portal gun to create your path
Use the portal gun to create your path.
View larger.
Every portal has two ends
Every portal has two ends.
View larger.
Toss companion cubes through portals for use on the other side
Toss companion cubes through portals.
View larger.
The Story
Portal contains only two characters, the player-controlled Chell and GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), a computer AI that monitors, directs and misleads Chell in a kind of twisted experiment. It's not exactly a match made in heaven

Regardless, Chell must rely on information provided by GLaDOS to survive as she navigates through a series of mostly doorless rooms using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device ("portal gun"). The portal gun creates two portal ends, one orange and the other blue. Both are simultaneously a potential entrance and exit and objects, alive or otherwise, that travel through one end will exit the other at the same speed. In addition, portals create a visual and physical connection between two different locations in 3D space. Their ends are restricted to planar surfaces, but if the portal ends are on nonparallel planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur as the player character is immediately reoriented to be upright with respect to gravity after leaving a portal. Chell can pass through open portals at will, but barriers, known as "Material Emancipation Grids" or 'fizzlers' prevent players from carrying objects beyond them. Luckily certain objects, known as 'companion cubes' can be tossed through. Once through these can then be used as the player wishes. Passage through these fields also closes any open portals, so it's important to look before you leap. It's Chell's challenge and yours to survive the hazards of the portals, including bobby traps, hidden gun turrets and the treachery of GLaDOS in the search for eventual freedom.

Features

System Requirements:

Minimum Specifications:Recommended Specifications:
OS:Windows Vista/XP/2000
Processor:1.7 Ghz ProcessorPentium 4 Processor (3.0 Ghz or better)
RAM:512 MB RAM1 GB RAM
Video Card:DirectX 8 level Graphics cardDirectX 9 level Graphics card
Other:DVD-ROM Drive/Mouse/Keyboard/Internet Connection
 





Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - Decent game, horrible install
As has been noted by others, the installation is awful. I can't believe that I was required to open an account online just to install and play the game. I guess I will have to be more careful and review games in the future to make sure I do not purchase games controlled by Steam or any other third party vendor.

I would have no issue if Steam was voluntary, but this was not voluntary. It made my install take 30 minutes because I couldn't understand why my install placed Steam on the hard drive and not Portal. I uninstalled and re-installed the software, but instead of getting Portal, Steam was installed again. Eventually I realized I had to do a second re-install after Steam was installed to get Portal on, but not until the software directed me to setup an online account with Steam.

This is grossly unfair in my opinion because I deplore online games and am very concerned about my computers security. I do not like having third party software on my computer that connects to the Internet. Worse, you have to keep Steam on to play. In fact, it seems that every time I start up Portal, my computer connects with Steam, and sometimes I get an error that Steam's server isn't available. This is absurd since this is a single player game that I purchased on a DVD from a store. There is no reason whatsoever that I should be forced to open an account with Steam.

Needless to say, after I completed the game, which was decent, I uninstalled Steam and Portal. As far as system crashes, I had none. I use a Q6600 processor, 8 gigs RAM, 256 Meg video card, and Vista 64bit.

The game play is fairly intuitive in that you create portals to move from one location to another quickly. I did have trouble with one portion on level 18 in which I could not figure out how to obtain a block all the way across the room, and after an hour I gave up and did a search and easily found a video that pointed out what I missed. Other than that, I was able to complete the game, and I rarely play video games, so I think most people can do it.

There are 19 levels in all, and each level gets progressively longer. There is no penalty for dying, which is fine with me; you simply re-start at the last significant moment.

A number of posters complained that the game was too short. As a novice, it took me a long time, 10-12 hours to figure everything out and by that time, I had enough of this game. Once the game is completed, you can replay some of the same levels again, but they are re-configured to make them harder. I had enough of the game and Steam, so I didn't bother playing the re-configured levels.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Great game!
Portal is simply amazing. The characters, although really, there are only two (unless you count the companion cube =P) are very well thought out and really interesting, you'll get pulled into the story and won't want to stop until you figure out what is what. (And even by the end, there's still loose ends that make you really want more). Great game, great story, let's just hope to death that there's a SEQUEL!


Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - Very unpleasant trying to install and use, so I quit trying
Portal looks like it might be fun, so I got it. I have a new machine (fall 08) which runs everything else very well. Portal would not load correctly for a long time, and then finally after many hours of installation, it ran for about 2 minutes and crashed. It kept doing this so often I quit trying to play it. You must hook to the net and then run it through steam, and it is not worth the headache. TERRIBLE SYSTEM




Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Valve makes yet another original game
Portal is one of the best games I've played in a long time. When you first start the game it opens up with you waking in a small room with walls of blue glass and strange (happy) music playing and you really do wonder where am I?

...that was just to get you started, but here's the real review.
Now you have to understand that unlike other puzzle games portal is not frustrating, what do I mean by that? Well let's take a game like mist for example. When you play mist, unless you're a super genius you're going to be throwing down your mouse every couple seconds. But now with portal, Valve makes the chambers just easy enough for you to not get frustrated. (don't get me wrong they take some skill to learn. But if you think they're too easy then play the advanced chambers that you unlock at the end.)

For the first 15 chambers the game seems to have no other story then that you're some lady participating in a test at a laboratory. But then we come to the 16'th chamber (your training for turrets) now I'm not going to spoil what happens but the game suddenly takes a humorous and somewhat disturbing turn in the story. Also you may have heard about some references to the Half-Life games and curiously wondered what they were. It's not really a big deal in this game though, but Valve has stated that in the future Portal games there will be more hints at Half-life.
Sadly portal is a somewhat short game and even though Valve has achievements, advanced maps, (which I will tell about later) and even challenges (which I couldn't complete) the game just falls short of replay value. So I would suggest that you purchase Portal in The Orange Box as you'll be playing a series if games (not just portal) like Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and of course the long awaited Half-life 2: Episode 2.

Now I've almost finished my review, (my second shortest yet) I come to one of the most important parts of my review (I stress that.) *drum roll* THE HORRIBLE INSTALLATION!!!! Now if you have played other valve games you will understand that you must both install portal and the program (that we hate for the first few months) called Steam. Now Steam isn't bad software(no spyware no spam...nothing) it's just that being forced to install steam them download the game and finally play it while connected to the internet is somewhat frustrating to some people. But when you start to realize the potential steam has you slowly change your mind. You might ask "what the heck is "steam"??" well it's a program where you download games off the internet, like Call of Duty and Crisis. (NOTE: That's only a few of the games available on Steam.) There's so many things to do on Steam that your head will spin. For instance, the Steam Community and Free mods to download. So all though you'll be frustrated for a while you'll soon realize that Steam is great.

-Have fun playing
Blackout (that's my steam community name)



Rating: 1 out of 5 stars - Can't play Portal because "Steam server unable to process request"
I have tried to play this game 3 or 4 times since I got it about a week ago. I can't even play a game I legally payed for and is a single player game with no need to even connect to the internet because Steam's servers are to busy to process my request. My request being to play my game that I legally paid for. I will never purchase another Steam game ever. This is ridiculous. Also, you are not able to play any of the Orange Box games without it first updating, which if you are on a slower connection can take hours. It is not even an option. And one more thing, is forces you to install their Steam software which I don't like.

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