Can you find your way? Will Portal let you find your way? Or will you at the end find its all a lie....?
The main aim of Portal is all about a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player's character and simple objects using the handheld portal device, a device that can create inter-spatial portals between two flat planes. The player-character, Chell, is challenged by an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS to complete each puzzle in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The game's unique physics allow momentum to be retained through portals, requiring creative use of portals to maneuver through the test chambers.
The way you go about doing all that in Portal is very differant indeed but i will get to that soon. You controls the protagonist, Chell, from a first-person perspective as she is challenged to navigate through a series of rooms using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The portal gun can create two distinct portal ends, orange and blue. The portals create a visual and physical connection between two different locations in three-dimensional space. Neither end is specifically an entrance or exit; all objects that travel through one portal will exit through the other. An important aspect of the game's physics is momentum redirection. As moving objects pass through portals, they come through the exit portal at the same direction as the exit portal is facing and with the same speed with which they passed through the entrance portal. For example, a common maneuver is to jump down to a portal on the floor and emerge through a wall, flying over a gap or another obstacle. This allows the player to launch objects or Chell herself over great distances, both vertically and horizontally, referred to as flinging by Valve.
As GLaDOS puts it as only GLaDOS can, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out. If portal ends are not on parallel planes, the character passing through is reoriented to be upright with respect to gravity after leaving a portal end. Chell and all other objects in the game that can fit into the portal ends will pass through the portal. However, a portal shot cannot pass through an open portal; it will simply fail or create a new portal in an offset position. If a portal of the same color as an existing one is created, the previous portal is destroyed. Moving objects, glass, special wall surfaces, liquids, or areas that are too small will not accommodate portals. Chell is sometimes provided with cubes that she can pick up and use to climb on or to hold down large buttons that open doors or activate mechanisms. Particle fields known as emancipation grills exist at the end of all and within some test chambers that, when passed through, close any open portals and disintegrate any object carried through. The fields also block attempts to fire portals through them.
Although Chell is equipped with mechanized heel springs to prevent damage from falling, she can be killed by various other hazards in the test chambers, such as turret guns, bouncing balls of energy, and toxic liquid. She can also be killed by objects falling through portals, and by a series of crushers that appear in certain levels. Unlike most action games, there is no visible amount of health; Chell dies if she is dealt a certain amount of damage in a short time period, but returns to full health fairly quickly. Some obstacles, such as the energy balls and crushing pistons, will deal this necessary amount of damage with a single blow, thus causing instant death.
Now with the gameplay out of the way it is time for me to move onto the story or plot of Portal. The game begins with protagonist Chell waking up from a stasis bed and hearing instructions and warnings from GLaDOS about the upcoming test experience. This part of the game involves distinct test chambers that, in sequence, introduce players to the game's mechanics. GLaDOS's announcements serve not only to instruct Chell and help her progress through the game, but also to create atmosphere and develop the AI as a character. Chell proceeds through the empty Enrichment Center, interacting only with GLaDOS. Over the course of the game, GLaDOS's motives are hinted to be more sinister than her helpful demeanor suggests. Although she is designed to appear helpful and encouraging, GLaDOS's actions and speech suggest insincerity and callous disregard for the safety and well-being of the test subjects. The test chambers become increasingly dangerous as Chell proceeds, and GLaDOS even directs Chell through a live-fire course designed for military androids as a result of "mandatory scheduled maintenance" in the regular test chamber, as well as having test chambers flooded with a liquid that kill. In another chamber, GLaDOS boasts about the fidelity and importance of the Weighted Companion Cube, a waist-high crate with a single large pink heart on each face, for helping Chell to complete the chamber. However, GLaDOS then declares that it unfortunately must be euthanized in an emergency intelligence incinerator before Chell can continue.
Some of the later chambers include automated turrets with child-like voices that fire at Chell, only to sympathize with her after being disabled "I don't blame you" and "No hard feelings"....What happens in the rest of the game is up to you the player to find out.
Portal came out for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 on October 9, 2007.
The System requirements for this game are:
Minimum:
Operating system:
Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000.
CPU:
Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1700+.
Memory:
512 MB RAM.
Graphics hardware:
NVIDIA GeForce3 128 MB or ATi Radeon 8500 128 MB.
Network:
Internet Connection.
Recommended:
Operating system:
Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000.
CPU:
Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz or AMD XP 3000+.
Memory:
1 GB RAM.
Graphics hardware:
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 256 MB or ATi Radeon X1900 256 MB.
Network:
Internet Connection.
While Portal may not be the longest game in the world it is alot of fun and if you have not yet played it then you should go out there and get this game.