I just finished Portal...

jkam

jkam

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I'm not a huge 1st person fan at all. I mean I play 1st person stuff from time to time but it's more the rarity than the norm. So when Portal launched as part of The Orange Box and got great reviews I still kind of ignored it. When it launched as a stand alone product on XBOX Live my interest peeked up a bit...but yet I still didn't get it. So then...it was free for awhile from Valve so I grabbed it for the PC...but didn't have a decent enough computer to play it on. Well after getting an m11x and getting Portal free with it again (wish I would have gotten the 2nd copy to gift but it didn't work out that way) I decided it was time to play it.

I started to play and even though I had heard a lot about the game I wasn't really sure how it played. I think it was on only the 3rd puzzle that I was already hooked. Here I am playing a 1st person puzzle game and I'm into it. I love how the game mechanic felt fresh and it kept me coming back for more. I think I was also fueled because I wasn't getting stumped all that much and each new element made the game even better. I felt as if the game ramped up nicely and the final level was brilliant and even a bit suspenseful which I wasn't expecting at all. Although it was a relatively short game it felt complete.

I wish their were more unique games like this especially in the first person genre. I'm really looking forward to Portal 2.
 
Portal never took with me, I think my initial negativity towards it was more of a reaction to all the memes it generated (I still think "Still Alive" is an annoying ass song), but I eventually played it to get an honest impression and still couldn't really get into it. Enviromental puzzlers just aren't my thing TBH... it always seems like an excuse to keep you in a certain room for a long time so they don't have to flesh out a level more, you walk into a giant room and groan knowing you're going to have to cover every inch of it to get to the exit. Obviously though this is probably a minority opinion, Portal 2 looks to spice things up a bit more though, but I just don't think it's something I can appreciate.

I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs a month or so ago, did I hear a "The Cake is a Lie" reference?
 
you had a small window (approximately 3 hours after the steam release, which is how long it takes to beat the game on the first run) to enjoy Portal's jokes before the internet ran it into the fucking ground.
 
hows the quality of the orange box compared to the pc version? ive been wanting to pick it up for years now after getting it for the pc so i can play it on ps3 is it worth it?
 
[quote name='ninja dog']you had a small window (approximately 3 hours after the steam release, which is how long it takes to beat the game on the first run) to enjoy Portal's jokes before the internet ran it into the fucking ground.[/QUOTE]

I think it was good that I waited for this reason.
 
Only buy Half Life 2 if you have a fetish for hearing the name 'Gordan Freeman', because thats ALL you will hear. "Gordan Freeman!?! Gordan Freeman, Gordan Freeman Gordan Freeman Gordan Gordan Freeman!"
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']Play HL2 and the episodes while you're at it. Single Player FPS hasn't touched it since.[/QUOTE]

:applause: exactly

Don't feel bad I just finished Portal back in March myself.
 
[quote name='lokizz']hows the quality of the orange box compared to the pc version? ive been wanting to pick it up for years now after getting it for the pc so i can play it on ps3 is it worth it?[/QUOTE]

The PC version of the Orange Box is the definitive version of the Orange Box. Team Fortress 2 has had numerous updates including new maps, new weapons and new gametypes. Portal had a new ending attached to it relatively recently, had a new meta-puzzle that consisted of finding radios in the game and taking them to a particular point in a map (so they can send out a transmission), and has a number of map-packs for it. I'd particularly recommend the Portal Flash mappack. Very challenging. I don't believe the HL stuff has been changed much, if at all.

Also, this seems relevant
cutting_edge.png
 
I read somewhere that Valve updated the ending a little bit around the time they had that huge Portal 2 marketing campaign and I have been meaning to play it again since then. I am guessing it just shows glados being alive or is it something else.
 
[quote name='eliter1']I read somewhere that Valve updated the ending a little bit around the time they had that huge Portal 2 marketing campaign and I have been meaning to play it again since then. I am guessing it just shows glados being alive or is it something else.[/QUOTE]

Something else
Both endings have you ending up on the surface, surrounded by debris. The original ending just kind of faded to black, leaving it pretty open. In the new ending, you hear a robot walk towards you and start dragging you back inside before it fades to black.
 
You should check out the demo for Zeno Clash on XBLA or Steam if you want an interesting first-person game, as that's a bit of a first-person brawler with some occasional shooting segments.
 
[quote name='jkam']I think I might try Half-Life 2...do I need to play the first one?[/QUOTE]

It depends on if you can stand less graphics for great gameplay and a great story. I would honestly say wait for Black Mesa Source to be finished. A group of individuals are recoding all of the original HL into the HL2/L4D/L4D2 Source engine. I don't feel you will lose much if you just play HL2 and the episodes in the mean time.

http://www.blackmesasource.com/downloads.html
 
My dad was visiting over the spring (2010) and needed something to do during the days besides Netflix so I sat him down to play Portal. It was his first 360 game, first FPS game, first time he's played video games in a decade (since Chrono Cross). He was moaning and doing total noob things (like moving then turning, not doing both at the same time) but he understood the core concepts of the portal system and really dug the whole atmosphere of the game (a given for any Valve game, yeah).

The only things he had trouble with were the timed segments, where you had XX seconds to do this thing over there, or X seconds to jump-turn-fire-jump-run-fire. Like he knew what he had to do, but his poor old fingers couldn't keep up. The puzzles, the logic, the humor, but not the quick-reaction moments.

So Portal kept him entertained for the better part of a week (where I beat in in two sittings) while I was at school. I helped him do two or three things, pointed out things he missed (like shooting cameras off the walls) and had fun watching him fail and try so hard. The next week we did some Gears of War and Halo 3 co-op. When he left I lent him my old Xbox and about 60 games for a year. In return, he's buying me a copy of Portal 2 as well as one for himself (along with a 360).
 
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