A spectacular physics defying masterpiece

2007 will be looked back on as a great year for games. Particularly the months of October and November have provided a cornucopia of gaming delights, in particular for the Xbox 360. Amongst these, the Orange Box from Valve Software has given me probably the greatest joy.

Nestled in the corner behind the big names of Half-Life 2 and the long awaited Team Fortress 2 is Portal, a peculiar first person puzzle game. You are guided through a research facility, by an unseen and increasingly unreliable computer voice, and given the use of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device 04 which can open doorways between walls and ceilings and floors which you can pass through. Built by a team who created a mod for Half Life called Narbacular Drop who were then hired virtually wholesale by Valve to produce a full game based on their portal concept.

The genius lies in the mechanics of the portals fully utilising the clever physics in Valve’s Source engine. In short, as the computer intones, “speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.” This leads to firing yourself across rooms, water and forcefields in order to get to your goals. It’s both disorienting and exhilarating, an entirely new gameplay mechanic that should be confusing, but isn’t.

That is due to the other key element of Portal, the difficulty is judged to perfection, elements are introduced one-by-one allowing you to quickly grasp the basics, but not with some dreadful tacked on ‘training level’. Through the initial levels your skills are built up until you’re firing portals as you fly through the air. The included directors commentary shows the level of care, control and consideration that has been put into what is essentially a bonus when you buy Half Life 2.

The final thing that truly stands out is the writing. In a year that has brought a game such as Bioshock to top it is a hell of an achievement. Rarely has a game been so tightly plotted and wonderfully written, with a terrific solo spoken performance by the GLaDoS computer guiding you through the facility. Most importantly for the continued improvement of story in games it’s incredibly, laugh out loud, funny in a way that games haven’t been since the halcyon days of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle.

At only three or four hours, some might say the game is too short, there is replay value in advanced versions of puzzles and timed challenges, but rarely has a single player game been created that is such a fully realised experience. The finale leaves you both satisfied and with a tantalising glimpse of what may be to come future iterations of the game. Plus probably the finest credits sequence ever created. I cannot wait to see what comes next.