“The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that android hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.”
–GLaDOS
This is the time of year that everyone with an IP address compiles their “Best Games of the Year” list. It’s a hard thing to do this year, as we saw a deluge of great titles.
Valve gave us the Orange Box, which was an absolute boon. Sure, it was nice to have the whole Half-Life 2 saga in one package, and Team Fortress 2 is a blast, but the most unassuming game in the box ended up being the one that surprised me, and it appears I’m not alone in this.
Portal is an abject masterpiece.
Sure, it’s only two hours (perhaps less) long, and it all hinges on a single gameplay mechanic, but it’s a stellar example of just how much a talented team of developers can do with a simple concept and some imagination.
See, you’re trapped in a laboratory. You’re a guinea pig for a deranged, passive/aggressive artificial intelligence called GLaDOS. Rather than weapons, you’re given the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (“Portal Gun” for short), a device that allows you to punch holes in space. You place one nearby and another where you want to go. You go through.
It sounds simple, but it’s far from easy.
You progress from relatively uncomplicated tests to some that require some serious thought and planning. In many cases, you have to use the portals to manipulate the environment to trigger certain events.
Unlike most videogames, Portal doesn’t rely on reflexes, and there’s little to destroy. You are, however, playing for your life, and failure in many cases leads to death from any number of environmental hazards.
Subtle spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.
The only other character in the game with a speaking part (with one exception) is GLaDOS, the AI in charge of the now-abandoned Aperture Science laboratory. At various points, she offers dry corporate doublespeak, vicious sarcasm, encouragement or malice, depending on her mood. She appears to want your companionship while pushing you away at the same time.
The emotional interplay is particularly fragile since, like Gordon Freeman, your character never speaks. Like Alyx in Half-Life, she seems aware that this is a one-sided conversation, and often appears to be speaking for her own benefit only. You’re a rat in a cage for the most part, and she seems to relish taunting you.
Still, since hers is the only voice you hear in an otherwise hermetic and stifling environment, you find yourself hanging on her every word. The writing is sharp, witty, sometimes hilarious, and very affecting.
There are plenty of indications that you’re by no means the first test subject, and that the others unanimously met with bad ends. Since there are no cutscenes and the game offers no explicit backstory, you rely not only on GLaDOS (who is, by her own admission, somewhat…flexible with the truth) but on the environment as well.
Your predecessors left behind their dying thoughts and words scattered about, and finding snippets of them can be both informative and tragic. At one point, you’re given the Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube (yeah, everything has a name like that). The Companion Cube is just like all the other bland, plastic crates in the game, except that it has a little heart painted on it. GLaDOS informs you that you’ll need it to complete the test, and advises you to take care of it. She then gives you this dubious advice:
“The Enrichment Center reminds you that the weighted companion cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.
“The Enrichment Center reminds you that the weighted companion cube cannot speak. In the event that the weighted companion cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice.”
The cube never talks or gives any indication that it’s sentient, or in fact anything more than a crate. The funny thing is, you actually do bond with this thing, and when you’re told you have to incinerate it at the end of the test, it breaks your heart. That’s the power of this game.
Later on, you’ll face automated gun turrets. Like everything else in the game, they seem to have been manufactured to appear empathetic, despite their menace. When they spot you, a chipper, computerized soprano intones, “there you are” in the most pleasant manner possible, just before opening fire. Instead of “now firing,” they say that they’re “dispensing product,” and when you disable them, they say things like, “I don’t hate you.”
You think twice on this, since the poor things appear to be doing just what they were programmed to, and even though they don’t understand why you’d want to stop them from doing that, they can’t bring themselves to feel malice about it.
So, yeah, there’s alot going on under the surface of a deceptively simple game. The physics model forces you to think around corners, and the whole experience is quite stimulating as well as being a great deal of fun. It’s the sort of game you can pick up and finish over a lazy afternoon, and a sense of satisfaction comes not from obliterating alien hordes, but from figuring out how to work around traditional notions of space and direction.
Like Bioshock, the story reveals itself slowly and with great subtlety. By the time you reach the end, you almost don’t want to leave this place. What’s different with Portal is that, rather than going to great lengths to create an elaborate atmosphere, the Aperture Science laboratory simply is. Here you are, it says, and this is what you have to do. Things like “why?” are simply in the periphery.
It’s worth mentioning that all of the sentient characters in the game are female. I’ve brought this up before, but Portal actually shows a feminine aspect in the very approach to game design. You’re not killing things. You’re not using a weapon. In fact, you can’t really inflict yourself on the world in any way. You’re forced to think your way through, and victories come not through fighting, but from wits.
Though your own character is something of a tabula rasa, GLaDOS takes on the roles of not only mother, but jilted lover and bitter rival. When finally physically confronted in the end, she intones that, “the only thing you’ve managed to break is my heart. We could settle for that and call it a day, but I suppose we both know that isn’t going to happen.”
I’d almost wish Valve chose to release Portal as a standalone title at a budget price so more people would be willing to pick it up. The Orange Box is a great deal, without a clunker in the bunch, but Portal can stand well enough on its own merits.
Oh, and a thought springs to mind about the Companion Cube. She’s not dead. Towards the end, GLaDOS mentions that all Aperture Science devices “remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin,” so it’s likely to assume the incinerator didn’t kill her. What’s more, if you stick with the ending credits, you’ll see her on the left:
This also leaves the question of whether or not all parts of GLaDOS’ programming were destroyed.
So, all’s well that ends well. You’re free, and in the outside world. Of course, it’s the outside world dominated by the Combine. You see, Aperture Science is mentioned near the end of Half-Life: Episode 2, so it’s a safe bet that’s where you are. It’s also where Gordon and Alyx are headed. I really hope to see this cross over into Episode 3.
We’ll see.
So, how about the other stuff released this year? Well, Crackdown was a real surprise. It came with the Halo 3 beta, which is usually an excuse to peddle a weak title, but as it turns out, Crackdown was a great game in its own right. It wasn’t perfect (you don’t have much to do after completing the storyline), but it shows where the whole sandbox model can be taken. Its sense of scale and freedom were phenomenal, and the weaponry was so over-the-top as to inspire giddy laughter.
Speaking of Halo 3, well…more of the same, but with lots of new options. Of course, the status quo for Halo is pretty darned impressive, and as always, it’s got one of the most well-designed multiplayer schemes in the industry. I just wish it had a “maturity filter” at times.
Bioshock…what can I say? You’re trapped in an underwater Art Deco dystopia and forced to alter your own genetic code to defend yourself against the denizens of libertarian Utopia gone terribly wrong. What’s not to like? It’s Ayn Rand (Andrew Ryan, get it?) writ large as a videogame, and a really good one at that. The very question of choice runs through the whole thing.
It’s got great mechanics, a unique and vivid atmosphere, stunning graphics, and some of the most intense and subtle audio design I’ve ever heard in a game. The sound of a Big Daddy’s footsteps from afar still resonates in my dreams sometimes.
Assassin’s Creed rounds up the list for me. It takes a number of cues from a number of genres (sandbox, stealth, platforming) and turns them into a somewhat unique whole. Fans of each individual genre seem to take issue with the execution of the game in those respects, but they seem to fail at seeing that the larger picture is quite imaginative and often exhilarating. The whole game is impeccably designed, the crowd dynamic is impressive, and nothing beats the feeling of jumping 100 feet down to drive a knife in a Templar’s back.
Oh, and it’s quite accurate in its history–almost enough to wash the bad taste of Kingdom of Heaven out of my mouth.
I still haven’t played Mass Effect or Call of Duty 4, and both have garnered unanimous praise.
Still, in the midst of such greatness, Portal gets its own modest share of the glory. It’ll be remembered long from now as something truly unique and original.
“Cake, and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test. Thank you for helping us help you help us all.”