The Orange Box: Portal (Xbox 360)
Since it’s announcement and subsequent teaser videos, Valve’s Portal has been eagerly anticipated by many. Based on the freeware game Narbacular Drop, whose developers now work for Valve, Portal allows the player to create openings on walls, floors, and ceilings, and to both look and walk through them. While this gameplay mechanic was somewhat seen previously in 2006’s Prey, 3D Realm’s shooter did not allow the player to manipulate said portals. Now with the arrival of Valve’s Orange Box, the gameplay does not lose anything from the anticipation, and provides a solid, entertaining, and enjoyably puzzling experience, despite its brevity.
The game itself is pretty straight forward to learn. Eventually, you’ll gain the ability to create an entrance and an exit portal on surfaces that can support it. Walk through one, and you’ll end up out the other, making for obvious uses of getting to a higher platform by creating one at ground level, and the other at that upper level. However, you quickly learn that you or whatever objects going through the portal maintain their momentum — if you create a portal on the floor and jump into it from a great height, you’ll shoot out from the exit. This becomes a critical aspect of solving some of the puzzles in the later game. Beyond manipulating yourself through the portals to get to an exit chamber, you also need to use boxes to activate switches, or manipulate special energy balls to reach receptacles in order to activate platforms or open doors. Later puzzles also introduce automated sentries that will fire on you if they spot you (even through portals) but fail if toppled over. There’s just enough puzzle elements as to give a good amount of variety to each test chamber, without overloading the player with too many things to keep in mind to make for a nice, clean puzzling experience. There are a few puzzles that require some quick timing, but none demanded super-human reflexes to complete.
Beyond the game, there’s a lot of nice little elements from the presentation. The story is rather simple to start: waking up in an isolation chamber, a robotic voice instructs you to use Aperture Science’s new portal devices to work through several test chambers to verify the workings of the device. The game surprisingly is more than just a series of puzzles. There’s a very subtle story that carries through the short game, explaining who you actually are, why you are there, and just what is really going on. While it’s not a very deep story, it’s got the same flavor that Valve’s delivered before with the Half-Life series and players will note several universe tie-ins.
Throughout the levels, there are subtle visual hints about what to expect or how to solve a puzzle, including cute international-style warning signs for the impending dangers of the test chambers. It may not the most diverse set of textures, but it works just fine for the game. And of course, there’s a few interesting side areas that you may be able to explore. The robot guide voice is excellently done as you get towards the end of the game, and background music is sufficiently subtle but helps with keeping pace in the game.
Probably the only strike against the game is the length; I completed the entire work in about two hours. Of course, this is an add-on to The Orange Box and the Half-Life universe as a whole, so certainly I wasn’t expecting a lengthy game, and even to Valve’s benefit, they’ve added some additional replay value. You can attempt challenge modes, one where you are limited by the number of portals you can create and footsteps you take while racing against the clock, while another mode adds additional elements to increase the difficulty of the puzzles. Furthermore, once you’ve completed the game, there’s in-game commentary from Valve’s developers that you can activate as you go through the levels again.
Portal may presently not stand on its own for a full-length game, but by including it in the Orange Box, Valve has definitely demonstrated potential for further games based on the same premise, maybe even a true sequel to Portal. The portal technology is incredibly simple to learn but increases the possibly for unique gameplay opportunities immensely.
Primotech Rating: 
