I guess it was about a week and a half ago when Paul began playing a game called Portal that was part of one of his Christmas gifts. Initially I was elsewhere in the house when he popped it into the hard drive and started playing, but the acoustics in our house guarantee that any music, conversation, or other sounds that originate in the office can be heard in almost every other room. After half an hour of listening to the instructions and occasional insults coming from the game, I was so intrigued that I had to check in and see what he was playing. I ended up watching him play through a considerable portion of the training segment and enjoyed every minute of it. After finishing the game, he played through it a second time almost immediately with me acting as a full-time audience.
It’s a beautifully designed game, and one that I hope inspires developers to continue coming up with new and rewarding game concepts. Portal is very different and much shorter than the games I’m normally attracted to. It takes a handful of hours at most, and allows the player plenty of time to explore and goof around. I’m also not entirely sure what genre it falls into. I suppose it’s a cross between a first person shooter and a 3-dimensional puzzle solver. The first person shooter description is something that would normally make me a little wary since I don’t do very well in those kinds of games. However, this shooter is devoid of the stress of having monsters or heavily armed enemies jumping out at you in confined or poorly lit spaces. Games that keep the player on edge are games that fray my nerves too easily. And although I like the laid back feel of Portal, the most appealing aspect of the game for me was GLaDOS. She is the AI running the experiments at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. She acts as guide to you as you solve puzzles in the game and it was her sarcastic comments that first drew me into the office to check out what Paul was playing.
But the absolute best part of the game is the song GLaDOS sings. It’s been stuck in my head a few times now, and I catch myself humming in under my breath and singing it in the shower.