Portal

I'm running out of time here to get ready for my trip to Europe, but since I'm most-likely not going to be able to make up most of my posts for September (at least not anytime soon), I figured I would at least try to write enough posts now and tomorrow to cover the important stuff that's been happening in my life prior to the trip.

So, to start, last week I treated myself to a new video game, or rather, a video game compilation: The Orange Box, which is a compilation featuring five games (or expansions) from gamemaker Valve's recent lineup. While the centerpiece for the collection is easily Half-Life 2 and its two episodic expansion packs, there is also a multiplayer shooter called Team Fortress 2 and an award-winning puzzle game called Portal.

Now, while I have started Half-Life 2 and am perhaps about halfway through, I obviously won't be able to finish the game until well after I come back, so I also spent some time nosing around Portal. Well, as it turns out, Portal was extremely addictive, and I beat it on my first playthrough (which was a four-hour session).

It's too hard to describe this game in the space I have here, but let's suffice to say that it's a first-person shooter where you use a gun that creates up to two portals to help you solve puzzles by essentially teleporting all over the board. It's set in a laboratory in the time/locale of the Half-Life game, and while it might seem that you're basically just some test subject in a bunch of experimental tests, a respectable mini-story actually ends up developing over the time it takes to finish the game.

Bottom-line: this game is amazing. Not only are the physics and game-mechanics of the puzzles both challenging and a bit trippy, but the visuals look great, the sound design (especially for the robot that guides you through the puzzles) is top-notch, the script couldn't be better, and the mini-plot leaves quite an impression (especially for a puzzle game). By the time the game is over, you're itching to play it again, and that's not a problem, as the game has a number of built-in challenge modes to extend its life.

Overall, this is up there with Oblivion (which I'm still working through) as my favorite game of the year. While there are some other decent games I've played this year thus far, nothing quite reaches the level of these two games, so I'm going to make an effort to add to my collection a couple of older but well-reviewed games to help give them some competition. Oh, and definitely play Portal if you get the chance...I swear you won't regret it.