Portal | Hands-On
Kim Swift, the project lead for Valve Software's upcoming pack-in for Half-Life Episode 2 'Portal', asked me to sit in front of a huge widescreen monitor and start the Portal executable. The game launched and immediately I was taken aback by how great the game looked. Everything was so crisp and detailed. The game fits the Half-Life universe superbly with its similar set design and color palette. The title screen felt eerie, the image of my character laid in the background, asleep on a cot-like bed amidst the menu options.
At the start of the game I had the option to choose between several available chapters. After selecting chapter one, my character jumped up from the bed and into my control using the expected WASD control-schema and spacebar (jump). My on-screen avatar began the game trapped inside a glass cube with only a cot, a dresser, and a few other minor effects laying about. The female narrator begins speaking, relaying something about already collecting my sample and it being time for my training?
Without a weapon I find myself standing in a room listening to the narrator, laughing at her humorous dialog – you'll have to trust me on this since you can't hear it. Eventually, she gives me an audio cue to move on. One of the first of many portals I'll be seeing is created in the solid part of the cube across from me. Immediately my avatar runs through the portal into the void beyond. I literally shout out, "Woah!" Kim laughs. She shares with me that after having worked on the game's development for so long, it no longer has that effect on her anymore.
Pret a Portal
The first room outside my holding pin has a button on the floor, a block, and a portal. I grab the block with E (the action key) and put it on the button. I then move through the portal to enter what seems to be an elevator – and indeed it is as I'm swept to the next room.
From my new point of departure there are a series of portals opening and closing in the walls. Each leads to a different sub room one would assume. Again, I have to find the block and place it on the nearby switch. The block was harder to find this time because the portals lead to different rooms at different intervals. Being lead into one room only to lose your sense of location in the next minute made this process all the more difficult. The easiest way to reorient myself to my surroundings was to stand in the same place and simply observe the movement of the portals in relation to their spawn locations for a minute or so. Within a moment the solution leapt to mind and I quickly solved the puzzle. Obviously Portal isn't a run and gun shooter – Portal rewards those who take the time to think before they leap..
Johnny, Please Don't Point that Gun at Me
The next room required me to avoid getting hit by the gun making portals in the middle of the room. This task was much easier than the previous. Once I made my way to the center of the room, I was able to grab the gun and put it to use. Finally, I had in my hands the famed Portal gun! I wasted no time in getting acquainted with the intriguing device and tried it out by creating a few portals in random locations. I found that for some reason I could only make blue portals (the trailer shows orange and blue portals). I went instantly toward the next room.
I found another "place-block-on-button" puzzle room, and learned that I could grab blocks with the gun just as easily as I could without. I breezed through the next few rooms until I was finally halted in a room with an orange glowing sphere created by a contraption on the wall. The narrator warned me not to touch the sphere, and then listed off a bunch of ridiculous side-effects that might occur if I did, one of which involved the fillings in my teeth disintegrating. Of course I did what any curious gamer would do…I disregarded the voice, and ran toward the orange glowing sphere. My character screamed as I was instantly pulverized. I respawned in the same room this time deciding to heed the narrator's advice. I chose instead to create a portal near the point where the sphere was bouncing against the ceiling. The sphere went through and came out another portal and entered a holding contraption that allowed me to pass through to the next room.
The final room I played had the same sort of nasty orange sphere. I utilized the same technique as in the previous room. This time, a platform began to move, but was positioned too high for me to reach by jumping. Not only did I have to create a portal in the correct location to reach the platform, but I had to time my leap through in order to match up with the position of the platform beneath. Portals puzzles get increasingly more complex with each passing level and the trailer hints at some simply mind-boggling scenarios. Mensa members take note!
Game Over
After about eight rooms, Kim told me I had to stop playing – more like peeled my hands from the mouse and keyboard. I really wasn't too excited at the prospect of leaving because the game is just so beautiful in its benign simplicity. The gameplay was a bit hard to grasp at first, but after the first few rooms, it becomes quite intuitive and, moreover, addictive. With a little bit of thought I found I could finish just about any puzzle. Too bad my superior intellect couldn't find a way to talk Kim into letting me stick around longer 
Portal is a deceptively simple title. Like Tetris it's layers unfold like an onion revealing ever more complex puzzles as the player progresses further into its matrix. There are no aliens to shoot. No Gordon. No Dog. No Black Mesa. But you won't even miss them once caught up in Portal's snare. For those with a Steam account already intact, you'll want to be sure to grab Half-Life Episode 2 when it releases as Portal alone will be well worth the price of admission. For those without a Steam account… Aperture Science Centers strongly suggests getting one immediately.
-FlyingMaiden
 | Valve Interview |
