It's a nice little diversion from more serious gameplay. Sadly, it offers very little beyond that.
Let none mistake the genius of Portal, it sets up a promising foundation for platforming puzzle buffs. Using two simple portals that connect two points in space and a whole lot of cleverly placed walls, platforms, switches, and a cube (yes, a cube), some genuinely cool challenges could made of the simple act to get from point A to point B. If Portal were released as such a platform for user-made content, as Little Big Planet was, no doubt it would enjoy much greater success. Alas, in 4 hours of play time, I found no such feature in the game. Instead, the player is stuck with the puzzles created by Valve in a perfectly linear story that could be comfortably completed in 3 hours by a person of average intelligence and dexterity with minimal platform gaming experience, like myself. Then it's over.
This is not a criticism of Valve. After all, they are just one company with only so much puzzle-making talent and very limited time away from their normal game-making work. The fact that they were able to expand the simple game mechanic behind Portal into a 3-hour story that is at times comical and sometimes even slightly creepy is a testament to the talent of the developers. The story, though lacking substance, is appropriately atmospheric with a couple of well written plot twists. At its end, I felt content and gratified even if no sense of triumph or great accomplishment. It's all the more remarkable considering I experienced no meaningful interaction with any AI in the game.
This is the first point that prospective gamers should know. At no point in the game is the player armed with anything other than her portal gun, which shoots one or two portals. Although many random objects could be picked up, only the cube serves any useful purpose. For those of you who have heard of the Companion Cube, I'll let you decide for yourself what that is. The cube I am talking about is just a box. It's heavy enough to activate some ground switches, big enough to help you climb onto some ledges, and sturdy enough to withstand machine gun fire or energy particle impact. That's it. The entirety of the game consists of getting around with occasional moving object tasks. There are exactly two types of enemies in the game, a machine gun droid and a rocket turret. The former never moves and breaks down after being tipped over. The later is invincible and essential to completing certain puzzles. There is a voice that you keep hearing throughout the game, and you find its source eventually. I don't want to spoil the game. Sufficient to say, after a while, the voice begins to drone and becomes more annoying than anything else. Otherwise, the player is all alone throughout the entire game with no one to talk to, nothing to blow up, and indeed nothing to do except move around.
Fortunately, as with most other Valve games, the presentation is clean and effective. The visual is crisp and the screen rate smooth even on my mid-level PC. I played 3 hours straight and experienced no eye strain or dizziness. The sound is, well, sufficient. Everything looks and sounds like it's supposed to. The downside is there is not much to see or hear. The game takes place indoors and there are exactly two motifs to the decor. Since there is also no explosions or swinging light bulbs or all that good stuff and only one other voice that talks to you, the game feels bland. However, it's well-done bland, not intrusive at all. You may feel like you are in a boring place, but you do feel like you are there.
That, the immersion, is perhaps the most challenging aspect of any game. Whether it's a blood soaked battlefield, a city full of mystical creatures, or just a simple science lab, I want to take on that existence when I play. Whatever other faults I may find with Portal, I cannot find fault with that. However short, linear, or uneventful it might have been, I did take a journey through Aperture Science test labs.
With that final thought, I conclude my review. It's hard to score Portal. After all, it does what it sets out to do so well, but it sets out to do so little. As a platforming game, I feel it's just wrong to put it at the same level as, say, Prince of Persia. As a puzzle game, it doesn't offer the same level of usability as Little Big Planet and the built-in puzzles are only marginally challenging. If I were rating it as a 3-hour building exploration and portal gun testing experience, I'd give it a 10/10, but I am not sure what that means. So, I score based on my reaction after finishing the game. It's good, 7/10 good. I am glad I had the chance to play it during free-to-play weekend. If I didn't play it, I wouldn't have missed much, and I won't be playing it more.
$20? Way over-priced. $10, maybe.