i started playing portal1 yesterday for the first time and i believe i got through the first 16 levels within 1 hour and 40 minutes or so. i only mention that to point out that the bulk of the levels can be finished in a relatively short time. i wouldn’t describe levels 1-16 as easy, i would just say they’re fairly straight forward. during these levels i caught myself having to take a few minutes to think it through maybe once or twice. that being said, the last 5-6 levels of the game kick up the difficulty level quite a bit. my total end game time was about 3 hours and 30 minutes which goes to show how much time i spent on the latter levels. also of note…the later levels are quite a bit bigger than previous ones.

i’ll only have a few minor *spoilers* mentioned here. i got stumped a total of 3 times (all of which happened on the later levels). the first time i couldn’t figure out what to do was level 18 – part 2 (the final segment of it). i couldn’t figure out how to do the far fling across the room. i had spent a lot of time on this level and was getting close to frustration…i was definitely ready to move on. i wonder if i had put in another 30 minutes or so on the level would i have figured it out? maybe, but i doubt it. the 2nd and 3rd times really involved the same solution – using the rocket turret to break things. when i first saw the rocket turret i assumed it was a boss or mini-boss and spent like 10 minutes trying to kill it. yet only to find out that its rockets don’t affect it so i simply walked past it. i should have figured out the rockets breaking the window since they show you that happening when you first meet the rocket turret. but alas…i did not. however, using the rockets to break the cube’s delivery tube i definitely would have never figured out. while the game shows you a broken tube earlier in the game it doesn’t really establish that they are breakable fixtures (as in by taking action upon them). i also managed to get myself stuck in the wall between the delivery tube during this segment with some creative portaling. i had to load a saved game to resume playing (this was the only time a bug like this occurred)

something that kind of annoyed me about levels 18 and 19 was that they were more platforming heavy. and by that i mean that the rest of the game focuses more on puzzle solving with only light platforming requirements. in levels 18 and 19 though you will die or not progress without some well placed jumps and quick reflexes. i never got overly frustrated by the platforming though because the game has perfectly placed save points. you never have to feel like “oh god i have to play through this entire level again” because of one misplaced jump.

i felt like the escape levels went on a tad too long. the end boss sequence was well done. i believe i died 2 times on the boss fight. the first time i was trying to figure out what to do and figured it out a bit too late. the second time i couldn’t pull off the necessary portaling in time.

overall, i give this game a solid 3/5 rating (moreso leaning towards 3.5ish). it’s definitely a good game, but a masterpiece? i’m not really seeing that. i’m not understanding how people gush over it or why one game reviewer site labeled it as the best game ever. i mean come on, really? i chalk it up to there being a generational gap between myself and youngsters nowadays. where portal may be considered a great game of their generation and thus means more to them. and anyone my age or older that thinks portal is the best thing ever are probably too excited over seeing an innovation in video games.

and the portal concept definitely is innovative. it’s cool and very well done. i would like to see it outside of the confines of a linear puzzle game, but i imagine it would have to be severely limited. for instance, imagine a game of counterstrike or capture-the-flag with portals…it’d be ridiculously cheap and unfair.

my final thoughts regarding the game are on the annoying “the cake is a lie” meme. i felt the initial reference in the game was mildly amusing, but even the game goes overboard with it. cake is mentioned a couple too many times and why is “the cake is a lie” written repeatedly and in more than one place? i think simply having the line once in one place would have been more effective. i actually thought the line “remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and i said goodbye…” line was much more memorable. but anyways, back to the scrawled writings of previous escapees. having escapees simultaneously write “help” while also giving escape directions is pretty lame. one thing i’m over in FPS games is having words like “help” scrawled on a wall. that has been played out for a while. and based on the directions it seems like previous escapees got to the end or near end. how did they deal with GLaDOS?

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