I’m glad, in a way, that I didn’t end up reviewing Portal, especially as a standalone game. One of the major criticisms is that it’s way too short, and it certainly leaves one wanting more. However, in entertainment, it’s often better to leave the audience wanting more than to satiate them, or even leave them wanting just a little bit less.
The thing about Portal is this: it’s very funny. Most comedic video games fall flat sooner or later. I think most of us can remember playing a game that was initially funny, but by the time you were a few hours into it, you had heard the same quips so many times that you were ready to throttle the writer, voice actor, and each individual pixel that made up the character.
So Portal runs maybe two to four hours. It’s also very funny throughout. I can’t help but imagine there’s a connection there. I’d love to play another twenty levels of it, but I wonder at what point they’d run out of A material and have to resort to increasingly desperate attempts at humor, or worse yet start repeating the same jokes. As a puzzle game, Portal runs way too short. As a comedy, it’s perfect.
How’s the JoCo song at the end?
The song is GREAT! You can tell it is his style of lyrics. And it fits quite well into the game’s story (especially the ending). You can find plenty of youTube videos of just the credits & song if you look for “Portal Still Alive”. I will warn that it can be considered a big spoiler to the last parts of the game.
And yeah, Portal was a blast. I agree that the humor was paced out just right showing up mainly in the walking around breaks between actual puzzle areas as kind of a reward for solving a puzzle and shutting up when you actually need to think about what you need to do.
I do agree that it could be difficult to get much more A material though if there were a “Portal 2 – this time with pie” map pack to put into. Not much of a writer myself, but I’m not sure of how many more angles they could take the test subject route (and other premices that don’t involve the player as a test subject that first come to mind just don’t seem to be the type of 1st person puzzler with a portal gun game I would want to keep doing either)
I found it just the right size for a puzzle game. The engine is so minimal that there are only so many permutations of platforms and walls, and it hits most of them. A lot of puzzle games fall into the trap of “now do the same thing, only harder” and Portal could have if it had gone on longer. In fact, some of the bonus maps do.
On the comedy side I agree for the most part. Unfortunately for the replay factor, it looks like the kind of thing that’s ripe for Holy-Grailing. How long until we’re sick to death of hearing people say “The difference between you and me is that I can feel pain”?
There’s also a 2D flash version (unofficial).
Erik Wolpaw is credited with writing dialog for Portal (probably was not the sole dialog writer, but who knows).
You might remember him.
I’ve read a few reviews and everyone was complaining it was too short. However, I actually LIKE beating video games in a reasonable amount of time. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. Of course, I also heard that Sly Cooper was way too short, and it took me a few weeks to beat. Maybe I’m just a slow gamer.
I’ll definitely have to get Portal.
I think it’s really interesting that they made it a comedy. Has anyone played Portal’s inspiration, Narbacular Drop? Completely different tone and setting, but it’s still pretty cool. You can get it for free from the DigiPen Website:
http://www.digipen.edu/cgi-bin/games/downloader?year=Games&game=NarbacularDrop.exe
“Erik Wolpaw is credited with writing dialog for Portal (probably was not the sole dialog writer, but who knows).”
Chet Faliszek, also credited, is, yes, that Chet.
I’m not even a real gamer myself, but I completely concur about Portal’s awesomeness as a comedy. I was even inspired to write a sort of backseat gamer review of it, just based on having sat next to my boyfriend and listened to all the VO throughout. The song at the end really did it for me, though I think you get the best experience if you read along while it’s being sung.
I downloaded and played through Portal tonight, then started over to hear the commentary. If you feel like spending $20 for an evening alone you really can’t do much better. The game is, if not perfect, pretty damn close.
I dont think it’s too short, and 2-4 hours of gameplay, then you had to play it really fast! It took me like 2 hours just to get through the 19 test levels. When writing this, I’ve been playing another three hours or so, and no sign of an ending yet…
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