{"id":4276,"date":"2010-04-13T11:17:53","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T17:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=4276"},"modified":"2010-04-13T11:17:53","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T17:17:53","slug":"portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/13\/portal\/","title":{"rendered":"Portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cube3\"“This is a triumph!” I have a few holes in my game knowledge, but I did play Portal a bit when it came out – you know, right after my massive heart episode. Anyway, the game didn’t mix well with Vicodin, so I played long enough to get that GLaDOS was hilarious and insane and that the game itself was a work of genius. Oh, I also fell in love with “I’m Still Alive” in Rock Band. Well, Portal 2 is coming and I decided to finally finish the first one. Actually, I started it over and for two days I became obsessed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I already knew why Portal was being called “Game of the Year” and I think I may have given it that honor as well, simply for proving that first person shooters could involve no shooting – well, no gun shooting.<\/p>\n

Turns out I was right – but I had no concept of HOW right I was. This game is the finest puzzle game I’ve ever played, one of the best first-person games I’ve ever played and also the funniest game I ever played.<\/p>\n

So many one-liners, insults, lies and more come at you at a breakneck pace, while you try to figure out how to use a portal device – you can place a Blue portal here and an Orange portal over there in a safe place to navigate traps, but you can only do it on certain kinds of surfaces – and the pride you feel when you figure it out. (Ok, I confess, I had to use a strategy guide for Level 18, the one before the massive level at the end.) The beginning is strong, but the ending is superb and for the duration, what’s going on is a genuine mystery.<\/p>\n

From the fiendish yet likable AI saying:<\/p>\n

“There was even going to be a party for you. A big party, that all of your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend, ‘the Companion Cube’. Of course, he couldn’t come, because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn’t come either, because you don’t have any other friends because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file; ‘Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned.’ SHALL NOT BE MOURNED. That’s exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted. So that’s funny too.”<\/p>\n

To:<\/p>\n

Finding “The cake is a lie!” scrawled on the walls.<\/p>\n

To:<\/p>\n

“I don’t blame you” – a machine gun says this after you kill it by portaling it away or simply knocking it over. Other guns say “Why?” or “Nap Time” and quite a few other witticisms.<\/p>\n

This is a game every 10+ child should be forced to play. The violence is restrained, there’s no blood (except in the writing on the walls – and that could be red paint) and the game truly tests spatial knowledge, creativity and more fancy educational type things than almost any game in recent memory. It’s also only $15 for PC or part of a not-so-kid friendly bundle called The Orange Box (which can easily be found used for almost every system). I can’t wait for Portal 2 now. This is why I’m a gamer.<\/p>\n

SPOILER highlight to read:<\/p>\n

The cake is a lie, is a lie. In fact there are only two GLaDOS’ TRUTHS is that the cake is really your reward.And it looks delicious. The other truth is about laying flat with your arms at your sides will summon the Party Bots to take you to the party. They do. And it’s so frustrating for your character. The ending is awesome but the sense of the character’s plight when the candl<\/span>e goes out is both hilarious and painful.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I want to have a lively discussion below, so if you haven’t play it, I recommend avoiding the spoilers. Seriously. This is a game that benefits sooo much from surprise.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“This is a triumph!” I have a few holes in my game knowledge, but I did play Portal a bit when it came out – you know, right after my massive heart episode. Anyway, the game didn’t mix well with Vicodin, so I played long enough to get that GLaDOS was hilarious and insane and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}