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Portal

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9.6 User Score:

Universal acclaim

Based on 28 critic reviews
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Based on 1789 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Valve Software

Developer: Valve Software - Nuclear Monkey

Genre(s): First-Person Shooter

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: October 9, 2007

Summary

Portal is a new single player game from Valve. Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, Portal has been called one of the most innovative new games on the horizon and offers gamers hours of unique gameplay. The game is designed to change the way players approach, manipulate, and surmise the possibilities in a given environment; similar to how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun innovated new ways to leverage an object in any given situation. Players must solve physical puzzles and challenges by opening portals to maneuvering objects, and themselves, through space. [Valve]

Also On Metacritic

GAMES: Half-Life 2 The Orange Box

Cheat Codes & Hints: Cheat Code Central

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Just as Valve's Half-Life 2 is the moody loner to Halo 3's high-school quarterback, Portal is smarter, cooler, funnier, and more sinister than almost any game this year.

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100

Armchair Empire

Portal can be bought separately or as part of the Orange Box package – Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, and Team Fortress 2 – but either way you get one of the best gaming experiences of the year.

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100

Four Fat Chicks

This will be remembered as a supremely important game, and a sublimely good one. Portal calls for a special kind of nonlinear thinking, creating a world around its puzzles. It features outstanding art direction, writing, and voice acting and an experience so tightly tuned that this couldn't be anything but a Valve game.

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100

Four Fat Chicks

Portal, tucked neatly alongside four other games, outshines them all and ensures itself a place in posterity.

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GamerNode

From beginning to end, it's hard to find something not to like about Portal. Everything from the gameplay to the presentation are top-notch.

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AtomicGamer

Putting Portal into the Orange Box package was a great idea on Valve's part.

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YouGamers

One of the best single-player experiences of the year.

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PC Gamer UK

Portal is a magnificent puzzle game. The titillating wrongness of every solution and the wonky thinking required to get there make you feel like a space-folding genius, and yet you'll almost never get stuck.

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Gaming Nexus

It may be the least hyped part of the Orange Box but Portal is a strong addition to the lineup and really stands out on its own.

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Computer Games Online RO

Portal is a sum of contradictions: it’s an FPS game with no weapons, no human characters, no complex scenery, but one that uses a simple and incredibly fun concept, with a well thought-of story and accessible to people of all ages (given they have minimal notions of moving the character around with the mouse and keyboard).

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2404.org

I was completely impressed with Portal. It’s a great game that’s innovative, fun, and contains a humorous storyline. My only real complaint was that it was too short, and I want more.

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Cheat Code Central

It's a hilarious game that offers a completely unique first-person experience and forces players to use their brains rather than their blasters.

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GameSpot

With delightfully unique gameplay and fantastically witty writing, Portal is a huge success.

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Adventure Gamers

For anyone with even a modicum of action gaming ability, then, deciding to pick the game up should be a no-brainer.

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Play (Poland)

The idea stolen shamelessly from Prey, masterful implementation and... you won’t know when these three hours have passed. Zipping through portals and placing them on the fly (literally) makes for loads of fun, and the authors spice up the play with quite a story that’s not immediately visible and all the more enjoyable when discovered. [Dec 2007]

Thunderbolt

One of the most inventive, original, and down right entertaining games you’ll play this year.

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GameCritics

So Portal does its job within the Orange Box compilation, taking a brilliant left-field idea and successfully merging it with Valve's universe over an entertaining few hours of gaming.

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Eurogamer

One of the most interesting and delightful things Valve's ever done, but also one of its least fulfilling. If only we had our own portal gun to bridge the gap to the first infusion of new content, perhaps we could forget it.

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1UP

The more intricate the rat maze, the more necessary the reward -- part of Portal's sinister genius lies in the cheese-crumb trail it leaves. Puzzle solving is an end in itself, and the game's Skinner boxes (note that, like the computer intelligence pulling our strings, Valve remotely tracks player progress, indirectly seeing what stumps us) are supremely entertaining to crack in on-again-off-again sessions.

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GameSpy

Ine of the most unique, funny and satisfying games of 2007, and we can't wait until Valve produces more of it.

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GameDaily

Skilled players will portal their way through the nineteen levels in just a few hours, but this little puzzle game / tech demo provides plenty of entertainment and makes a great addition to The Orange Box.

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VideoGamer

The simple ideas are often the best, and Portal, quite simply, is one of the best ideas for a game we've ever seen. It's fantastically realised, brilliantly executed, and had me wrapped around its computerised finger for two-and-a-half unforgettable hours.

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PC Zone UK

It may be short, but it's a wonderful learning experience, forcing you to rethink rather base concepts of the first-person genre. [Dec 2007, p.68]

The New York Times

It is remarkable how many clever things one can do with portals.

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PALGN

Portal is a compact game that manages to punch well above its weight.

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PTGamers

Portal is really good. It’s an excellent appetizer for the likely future of the series, be it on a more intricate sequel, additional contents (that are already a certainty), or even the integration of the idea on Half-Life.

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IGN

The idea behind Portal ends up being more brilliant than Portal itself. Regardless, we definitely had a lot of fun with what is there and appreciate the level of polish and thought that went into the presentation.

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AceGamez

By anyone's reckoning Portal isn't a long game, weighing in at around the three to four hour mark. Those of you who do see this game from start to end though are in for a very special experience.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 9.6 (out of 10) based on 1789 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

JoJo gave it a10:
I am really fascinated by this awesome game and to be honest i never had so much fun with similar puzzle games. The only weakness from this game is the short playtime and the difficulty which is in my reason a little bit too easy.But thats nothing against the fun i had with this game so i think portal is the really treasure of the orange box and should be tried by everyone. And never forget: the cake is a lie.

Kyle B gave it a10:
With rumors of a sequel in development, it leaves me curious as to where this particular franchise could go.. but now about Portal in particular. Just when I thought games were starting to lack originality and interesting concepts, valve made something that shined brightly above the rest. The graphics.. now feel a little dull, but it was the source engine it was released on, and being the first thing released within the orange box, upon preordering and waiting.. it was a great game and although short, made it re playable. Also to others who think it is to short.. do the bonus levels.. some of them will keep you thinking longer then the actual game does.. and are a great challenge, personally i only could be bothered with six or seven, and about half of the other challenges.. GLaDOS, is a great villain, of which if you do not have sound on during this game.. you will miss out.. and as most of the community unfortuantely knows.. the cake is a lie, and on top of that.. poor companion cube.. forever lost within that flames.. after pointless attempts to exploit a way to save it.. (so many lying youtube videos..) If you have not played it... do so, and if you feel like something different, a group released a portal prequel, as such.. which is literally exactly the same pretty much. Except it is based before GLaDOS was booted up. Warning though, it does have quite a few sexist comments, in parts.. but that does not ruin it really.. since it brings forward a few new challenges, and an interesting different look at the game.

oli r gave it an8:
Portal is not perfect, but it is danm close! to all u idiots out there that say it is too short, that is a good thing. if it was any longer they would have just been using the same puzzles over again and u would be even more pissed. btw combat games are mindless, finding a stratigy then then using it over & over is not fun. portal is a puzzle game (look on the back of the box retards) not a fucking fps.

Markus M. gave it a7:
Good idea but the graphics suck even more and the levels are a bit too easy... I really like the humour in the game, also the atmosphere is really creepy.. The only thing i really hated that you can play the game through in 4-5 hours(if you already played it before), which is way too short... And i would not consider this game as a puzzle game... They also could´ve made the battle against Glados much more tricky and harder.

Felix K gave it a10:
The Cake is a lie, but the hype for this game is NOT. The beautiful Source engine is put to major use here as you navigate through a convoluted (and darkly hilarious) maze, the only reward being Delicious Cake and Grief Counseling. GLaDOS is one of my favorite villains, using only psychological manipulation to harm you. This is one of those games that you are going to need your sound on for. The puzzles do seem simple at first glance, but many are much harder then one might imagine, and have many unthought of solutions. By using certain techniques you can prop open doors and even avoid killing companion cube (sadly, I couldn't find a way to take him with me...). Great gameplay, great story, great game.

Lee W. gave it a3:
Valve's best achievement yet, apart from the original Half-Life. Of course, that doesn't say much. This game is an hour and a half long. It stays exactly one theme and one theme only: portals. You solve every puzzle with portals and a quick trigger finger. There is only one way to solve each puzzle, which really deters the phrase "thinking with portals." If you wanted, you could easily just press buttons until you ended the level without thinking. Obviously, this would make the game take longer to complete. The first two thirds of the game are a robot talking to you and practically holding your hand while guiding you through a bunch of tutorial chambers. You then get to the escape route where it suddenly turns on you and you, of course, escape. The only challenge you really face are acid on the floor and some new-paint-job annoying Half-Life 2 turrets that say things in a cute voice to get sympathy votes. Like Half-Life 2, it's not a puzzle game. It's a game, where you do scripted things in a linear fashion to get the programmed result that takes little to no effort that only disguises itself as a puzzle game. It's about the same as Prey, where portals pop up in the locations you need them to in order to succeed, except this time, you place the portals there without any choice.

bluepanda gave it a10:
Nicholas c You are very wrong, and the game doesn't deserve a 0 because you ended playing the game halfway through. The game doesn't end there. I understand you came to that "broken" chamber after escaping from the chamber 19 as intended, and fell through the elevator and hit the loading screen in air and then the game just ended? That is a weird glitch, never had that one. I reckon starting the game again from chamber 19, it shouldn't take too much to get there again. Even if I had came across this bug, I'd still rate it a 10. It's a 20 buck game, having one glitch there doesn't make the game worse IMO. I'm still playing the game for fun and don't think it was short at all.

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