The Twilight Sun

Alright everyone, sorry I haven’t posted lately, but you know what Real Life can be like. This is the first of five reviews on the games included in Valve’s The Orange Box. First off will be Portal, which is my second favorite of all five games. I’ll review Team Fortress 2 next round (my first favorite game).

.:Overview:.
Portal, while a relatively short game, really lives up to its motto of "Thinking with portals". The basic premise is that you’re a test subject in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, and you are sent through a total of 20 testing chambers, with a computer AI named GLaDOS guiding you. Along the way, you acquire the Portal Gun (to fire blue portals), and later additional functionality for the orange portal.

.:Gameplay:.
The game’s major focus revolves around Portals. With a portal in one location and the opposite portal in another, the two locations are merely a step away from eachother, even if they’re miles apart! This simple idea allows for a very unique style of gameplay, and the inclusion of "portal physics" (you retain all forward momentum as you pass through) creates some very interesting maneuvers, such as "flinging" – jumping into a portal on the floor and out of one on a wall – and a technique fans call "bouncing" – jumping into a portal on the floor and out of one on the floor.

.:Storyline:.
You might not expect a game like Portal to have much of a storyline, but it really does have an interesting backstory. Aperture Science seems to be a rival of Black Mesa, the government entity we all know and love from the Half-Life series. GLaDOS, the computer AI that guides you through the complex, seems to be the only sentient being besides you, which raises the question: where is everyone? And then there’s your character, who is named Chell (and is female). There is some speculation that she is/was a part-time employee at Aperture Science, based on some things GLaDOS mentions. (If you’re curious by now, GLaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System.)

.:The Test Chambers:.
Alright, so we have Portals. Where do you get to use them? The test chambers, of course! During the course of the testing, you may be asked to place boxes on buttons, guide energy orbs into the receiver, or make your way through a room chock-full of aggressive turrets, and every chamber requires the use of portals. Flinging and bouncing are also common, and very, very fun to use. There’s 20 chambers in all, and at the end, you’re promised cake! What a reward!

.:Achievements:.
This is something I really like about Portal. After certain points in the game, you get an Achievement (such as when you receive the complete portal gun). If you manage to fling yourself far enough, you can get an achievement. Falling 30,000 feet also nets you an achievement – yes, thirty thousand. There are six Advanced chambers based on chambers 15-18 that are unlocked after you complete the main game, and every two you solve grants you an achievement. There are also three Challenge modes you can play for each of those six levels (except not Advanced): Least Steps, Least Time, and Least Portals. It’s a rewarding feeling to have managed all six Advanced chambers!

.:Conclusion:.
Some say Portal is the first perfect game. I don’t think there is such a thing, but Portal is the closest game I’ve seen to that point. Why is Portal not perfect? Everything is great, I haven’t said a single bad thing. I’ll first say that some levels are extremely hard - mostly the Advanced ones – and attempting the Gold Medal score on any of the challenge modes is enough to make you play Team Fortress 2 instead ((true story!)). On the whole, however, Portal is an awesome game, and I give it a 10/10. (Perfect, to me, is 11/10 – un-attainable!)