Portal (video game)

This article is about a 2007 computer game. For the 1986 computer game, see Portal (1986 computer game).

Portal
The logo for Valve's game, Portal. Now you're thinking with portals.
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	Valve Corporation (Steam)
Engine	Source engine
Platform(s)	PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Release	Q1 2007
Genre(s)	Puzzle/FPS
Mode(s)	Single player

Portal is an upcoming single-player puzzle game by Valve Corporation, shipping with Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which is due to be released Q1 2007.

Gameplay

Gameplay revolves around the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" (ASHPD), a handheld device that can create portals, allowing instant travel and a visual and physical connection between any two different locations in 3D space. Portals are restricted to horizontal and vertical planes, but if two linked portals are on different planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur, such as the player walking through a portal on the wall and "falling" up out of the floor several feet behind where they started. Only two portals may be open at a time. If a new portal is created, it replaces the previous portal of the same color. The device also acts as a less powerful version of Half-Life 2's gravity gun, which can grab and hold objects, though it is unclear whether or not it is able to 'punt' objects as the Gravity Gun can.[1]

In their initial preview of Portal, GameSpot gave an example of a gameplay scenario:

In other situations, you may be under fire by a gun droid. So all you need to do is shoot a portal open over the gun, then shoot a portal open beneath a crate, then watch the crate fall through the hole and crush the gun. It gets even crazier, and the diagrams shown in the trailer showed some incredibly crazy things that you can attempt, like creating a series of Portals so that you're constantly chasing yourself.

Story

File:Portal1.PNG

A character carrying the ASHPD, seeing himself through the portal chain.

In Portal, players control a test participant in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Using the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", players perform a variety of tests, such as creating portals to knock over turrets and other objects or moving to a previously unreachable area. Guided by an electronic female voice that is at once both comical and subtly threatening, players must either complete these objectives or fail the test. Failure or refusal of a test likely results in death, although it may not be permanent. At the end of the video the computerized voice ominously says "As part of a previously-mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed." Still, the gameplay video from Leipzig Games Convention mentions that "an intubation associate will be sent to revive you [the test subject/player] with peptic salve and adrenaline" in the case of conciousness loss, hinting that some care is taken to keep the test subject alive at least until the tests are over

Portal has been confirmed to be set in the Half-Life universe. Certain aspects similar to the Half-Life universe can be noted in the official trailer, such as the turrets, which operate and sound exactly like those that the Combine implement, though this may only be due to the use of sounds from Half-Life 2 as placeholders. Also, orbs like those that the Combine use in the Citadel are also seen, with sockets similar to those seen in Half-Life 2: Episode One, again, potentially placeholders or possibly intentional.

According to Doug Lombardi, the protagonist in Portal is a yet-unintroduced character who will play a role in future games of Half-Life. Though Lombardi has hinted that this character might make an appearence in Episode Three, this is not a certainty. Portal level designer Kim Swift later revealed the protagonist would be female, suggesting the jump-suited male character from the preview video is a placeholder character. Additionally, it could be hypothesized that since the trailer is in the form of a training video, the jump-suited male is intended to represent a demonstrater of the portal technology, recording a video that is being viewed by test subjects as they are indoctrinated into the program.

Trailer

The trailer takes the form of an introductory video produced by Aperture Labratories (sic) and given to all test participants, presumably viewed by the player. The video begins by introducing a "simple task": crossing a chasm to reach an exit. First, a computer-animated figure demonstrates how this can be accomplished: by shooting a portal onto the wall near the exit, then shooting another portal on the wall near the figure. The figure proceeds through the portals and exits successfully. The next scene yields a "real world example" (taking place in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center), where the chasm is now filled with fire and the player is threatened by a metal press. The player shoots a portal onto the far wall across the chasm, followed by another onto a nearby wall, and runs through. Notably, while the computer-animated demonstration indicates that the entry portal should be shot before the exit portal, the real world example demonstrates that the order in which the portals are shot does not matter.

File:Portal2.jpg

Figure demonstrating the use of "vertical momentum" to jump to tall ledges

The video continues by demonstrating the method to move otherwise immoveable objects: by shooting a portal onto a wall, and then shooting another portal beneath the object. This will cause the object to fall through the portals and on to the ground under the first portal. Another real world example is shown. The player encounters a turret with a heavy cube nearby; the player, under fire from the turret, proceeds to shoot a portal onto the wall above the turret and another below the cube. The cube falls through the portals and successfully knocks over the turret.

File:Portal3.jpg

Player falling through an infinite portal system

The next few scenes all show the figure performing various tasks, including jumping over tall obstacles through first "building vertical momentum" by jumping into a portal located below the current level, looking through a set of lined-up portals to create an infinitely recursive view, walking through portals to fall on moving platforms, falling through an infinite portal system, and jumping off of high ledges. This is followed by a few real world feats, demonstrating the use of the ASHPD as a weak gravity gun, other complex variants of using cubes and portals to defeat turrets, and a portal-turret system set up so that it shoots itself, and concludes with the player watching himself fall through an infinite portal system.

History

Portal is Valve's professionally-developed semi-sequel to the freeware Narbacular Drop, the 2005 independent game released by students of the DigiPen Institute of Technology; the original Drop team are now all employed at Valve. Certain elements, like the orange/blue system of identifying the two different portals a player can have open at a time (one connecting to the other), seem to have been retained.

In recent interviews, Gabe Newell also revealed that Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek of the classic gaming commentary/comedy website Old Man Murray had been hired and put to work on the dialogue for Portal, which so far seems chiefly composed of the lines read by the female "narrator."

Criticism

With Valve's recent announcement of Portal coming so close on the heels of the release of Prey, some have accused Valve of copying an innovative and trendy gameplay element, much like many developers rushed to include variants of Half-Life 2's own "gravity gun" in their games. However the two designs may have been arrived at independently.

Portals as seen in Prey are not without precedent. Portals have been a common feature of videogame 3D engines since Descent (computer game). Prey distinguished itself by including overt portals based on this technology in the game's level design, though a few first-party and third-party levels for other games have behaved similarly.-

Portal seems to have been in development for some time; the features of the gameplay date back to 2004 and the start of work on Narbacular Drop, while Portal itself dates to the hiring of Narbacular Drop's developers. Both of these occurred before the final version of Prey, long delayed and thought to be cancelled, was publicly announced in 2005.

Video quotes

The female narrator in the portal video says some rather unusual things during the course of the video, included are:

• "If at first you don't succeed, you fail."
• "Remember our motto: there's a hole in the sky through which things can fly."
• "At the enrichment center, we believe that a highly motivated test subject can carry out rather complex tasks, while enduring the most intense pain; so in case you don't make it through the testing, goodbye!"
• "As part of a previously-mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed."

See also

• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Narbacular Drop

External links

Official

Official homepage

ApertureScience.com (Viral advertising, Alternate reality game)

Press

Gamespot initial preview

IGN's interview with Portal team member Kim Swift

Media

EA Summer Showcase trailer (Xboxyde)

Portal trailer (Steam)

Portal Trailer in Quicktime format (Gametrailers.com)

Portal gameplay video from Leipzig Games Convention (on the left)

Portal Trailer at Youtube.com

Gmod mini mod demo

Community

A 'portal gun' modification for Garry's Mod

Half-Life 2 Portal mod: Exite