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Sunday 13 January, 2008
GAMEPLAY
The story continues to be simple, which is a test subject trying to escape The Aperture Science Laboratories. However, the characters continue to grow more interesting by the minute because I eventually find out that there is no one in the Aperture Science Laboratories, and GLaDOS was the only one left. She is the central unit of the laboratories. This means she runs everything, and the test was her idea. That theory, however, was not completely proven at the end of the game. GLaDOS remains to be humorous, but becomes more sadistic as the game goes on. She threatens to "Bake her, then there will be cake." (GLaDOS) I was becoming more determine to find her and destroy her. Eventually I escaped the test location, but must escape from the actual facility. GLaDOS becomes friendly because she doesn't want me to escape. Eventually, I reached her and found out that she is composed of many branch unit, and must destroy the branch unit to kill her completely. The test subject escapes. The character are explored throughout the game, but not deep enough.
The game remain fun to play. It still engages me to think in different ways, since it is a game style that I have never played before. The physics part of the game is really great because the makers of the game actually took into the fact that gravity and momentum are conserved as the test subject goes into the portal. As GLaDOS said: "speedy goes in, speedy goes out," which is a very good representation of the physics part of the game. The back seating play of the game continues as everyone want to solve the puzzles because it is so stimulating to the brain. I just hope that they explained more about the connection between Aperture Science Laboratories and Black Mesa. Other than that, I was really glad that played this game because it was so innovating.
DESIGN
This game was simply put-innovative. Valve Software wanted to created a new kind of puzzle game, and to my opinion, they did a pretty good job. This new way of thinking should be incorporated into their future game as a new weapon or new feature. The only flaw of this game is that since it is an experimental game, it was short for a first person shooter. I wished that I could have played more of the game and that they make it longer. By the end of the game, I was not satisfied, I wanted more puzzles, and more in depth story line. I enjoyed the challenges that the game presented to me because I was tired of going into a FPS and just shoot everything that moves. The innovation not only is the best aspect of the game, but also is what keeps the game interesting.
They were really successful at making the game world creepy. No one likes to be alone, and that is exactly what portal offers, a lonely world. There is absolutely no one else in the test center other than the test subject. Even the only other character, GLaDOS, is a computer. There was another "character" called the weighted companion cube. It was an interesting character because it was inanimate, but GLaDOS insists that it is real. At the very start of the game, a radio was playing a song, as if to make the player feel comfortable, but it did exactly the opposite. I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the environment. The game world was quite monotone and unfamiliar, which also contributed to the strangeness of the world. As I went on to play the game, writing on walls starts to surface. It says "The cake is a lie," which is exactly what GLaDOS promised the player at the start of the game. I started to suspect GLaDOS real intentions. Eventually, I finished the tests (Test 19), GLaDOS wanted to murder me since the test was over. The game was eerie with a touch of humor.
The use of game space was important since it is a puzzle game. One of the features of the game is that the player must open the portals at the right places. For example, in order to kill a sentry gun, I had to open a portal right above the sentry gun, and another one right below a weighted cube. If one of the portal is misplaced, the cube will simply miss the sentry gun. The momentum part of the game forces the player to aim the portals in the right places so that we can fall from a high enough place and get shot out of the other portal, since momentum is conserved.
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