[I'M MAKING A NOTE HERE: HUGE SUCCESS]
Oct. 25th, 2007 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chronovoreI finished Portal last night. It is as exceptional as everyone else is saying that it is. What have we learned from this? That if you give the resources of Valve for two years to a talented group of game modifiers who already have a good idea, they can make a great game that can be played through in about three hours.
Yes, it's that short.
However you can go back and play through it a few more times; listen to the Developer Commentary track and hear just how much work went into making it as polished as it is [AND IT IS AS SHINY AS A NINJA'S HEART], as well as tuck through some particularly difficult levels which have been further optimized to be Even More Cunningly Difficult. I suspect that if you go for Gold Award times on all the corresponding missions, you could end up playing for 100 hours.
Or going completely batshit insane.
I think I would have happily paid US$40 for the game alone and not felt ripped off. I would have paid US$20 and felt like it was the game of the year. As it is I'm stunned that for the first time in years I was able to finish a game without once consulting
GameFAQs.com and still felt very, very challenged during the entire experience.
Of note: There is a song at the end; it is wonderful. It was penned by Jonathan Coulton, and it makes for my favorite end-of-game sequence evar. I'm not linking to it because it has spoilers about the ending. As for the game writing itself, I hear ex-OldManMurray.com authors wrote the script. It shows; there isn't a huge amount of story, but it's very engaging and helps place you in the role of the [TEST SUBJECT].
Just don't turn off "Portal Funnel" in the Options. That's bad news for Test Chamber 18.
Yes, it's that short.
However you can go back and play through it a few more times; listen to the Developer Commentary track and hear just how much work went into making it as polished as it is [AND IT IS AS SHINY AS A NINJA'S HEART], as well as tuck through some particularly difficult levels which have been further optimized to be Even More Cunningly Difficult. I suspect that if you go for Gold Award times on all the corresponding missions, you could end up playing for 100 hours.
Or going completely batshit insane.
I think I would have happily paid US$40 for the game alone and not felt ripped off. I would have paid US$20 and felt like it was the game of the year. As it is I'm stunned that for the first time in years I was able to finish a game without once consulting
GameFAQs.com and still felt very, very challenged during the entire experience.
Of note: There is a song at the end; it is wonderful. It was penned by Jonathan Coulton, and it makes for my favorite end-of-game sequence evar. I'm not linking to it because it has spoilers about the ending. As for the game writing itself, I hear ex-OldManMurray.com authors wrote the script. It shows; there isn't a huge amount of story, but it's very engaging and helps place you in the role of the [TEST SUBJECT].
Just don't turn off "Portal Funnel" in the Options. That's bad news for Test Chamber 18.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 04:40 am (UTC)I was incredibly amused and even slightly moved by the ending!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 08:51 pm (UTC)http://www.bitsandbyte.com/stillalive.mp3
^-^
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 06:16 am (UTC)The game makes a point of telling you that the portals do NOT affect momentum; actually, they do - if you leave funnel ON, when you come out of a portal your momentum is REALIGNED to be completely perpendicular to the plane of the exit portal. If you turn it OFF, you maintain a parabolic drop which is consistent with actual physics.
When you enter the "elevated platforms above a large pool of poison" part of 18, save your game. Try it once with the funnel ON, and then try to re-do it with it OFF.
It's. Nearly. Fucking. Impossible.
And because I wasn't aware that I'd "corrected" the physics of my game with my saved options, I was doubly frustrated.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 02:38 pm (UTC)Blasted Coulton...
mmm... Delicious and moist cake...
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 11:25 pm (UTC)I am now... afraid to look at TC18.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 11:44 pm (UTC)Those same guys did an early version which seems to be good as well. What I find most amusing about the old version is that your character cannot jump (which makes level design more straightforward I guess) and therefore they decided you, as the main character, are Princess No-Knees.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 12:55 am (UTC)I'm looking forward to when my son plays videogames. The Daughter is already very, very into Animal Crossing and sometimes Yawaraka Atama Juku and also Love and Berry games. I'm down with AC but can't really get into the others.