Finally got around to playing this. For some reason I played Portal 2 when it came out and just never got around to Portal Sr. Having prior knowledge of how to do the puzzles because of this made Portal 1 quite the breeze to get through and that’s really the only issue that I think it has.
It relies a lot more on environmental storytelling rather than any actual plot progression. It exists more just to set up the small world and act as a bit of a demo slice for its fun portally puzzle physics. The turrets are very silly and GLaDOS carries a lot of the runtime with sarcastic humor that kind of distracts you from how ominous the circumstances surrounding your character actually are.
It’s the kind of puzzle mechanics that itch your brain like giving scritches to your pet cat. Made me feel like I was both overthinking and also not thinking hard enough at the same time in some areas. There was one where I couldn’t figure it out immediately so I tried to loop myself between portals infinitely for fun, just to find out that that was the solution all along. So even while the rooms feel like you’re locked between padded walls, it really gives you just enough to play around with until you’re able to solve the problems. If anything I wished it was a bit longer or that the advanced puzzles were different levels. They’re really just the same maps just with harder obstacles like poop floors and more turrets.
Portal is Portal and Portal is very fun. I would say that Portal 2 is the better game, but that’s mainly because it’s just larger in scale, has co-op, and extends the universe created here. You have to start somewhere though and Portal 1 is the perfect sprout to a beautiful gigantic beanstalk.
It relies a lot more on environmental storytelling rather than any actual plot progression. It exists more just to set up the small world and act as a bit of a demo slice for its fun portally puzzle physics. The turrets are very silly and GLaDOS carries a lot of the runtime with sarcastic humor that kind of distracts you from how ominous the circumstances surrounding your character actually are.
It’s the kind of puzzle mechanics that itch your brain like giving scritches to your pet cat. Made me feel like I was both overthinking and also not thinking hard enough at the same time in some areas. There was one where I couldn’t figure it out immediately so I tried to loop myself between portals infinitely for fun, just to find out that that was the solution all along. So even while the rooms feel like you’re locked between padded walls, it really gives you just enough to play around with until you’re able to solve the problems. If anything I wished it was a bit longer or that the advanced puzzles were different levels. They’re really just the same maps just with harder obstacles like poop floors and more turrets.
Portal is Portal and Portal is very fun. I would say that Portal 2 is the better game, but that’s mainly because it’s just larger in scale, has co-op, and extends the universe created here. You have to start somewhere though and Portal 1 is the perfect sprout to a beautiful gigantic beanstalk.