So when I downloaded Steam on my new computer (to get Puzzle Quest 2) a mini-screen suddenly comes up saying that an Alienware promotion has activated a free download of a game called "Portal!" It's pretty cool... it's like "Half-Life Lite." You're a chick armed with a "portal gun" who has to navigate through a series of laboratory rooms. It's apparently an old game, but I'd never played it until now.

You're never played "Portal" until now?

Never even heard of it?

For shame.

The cake is a lie.

Been playing WoW for 6 years...

You've been playing WoW for 6 years?

For shame.

I like it. But I just got through the game just now. Kind of short, but very well scripted!

Portal's very short. Short and sweet.

I prefer a short game over a game that goes on forever with a monthly subscription.



Just messing with you, I've probably sunk about as much time into Pokémon, I have no real right to judge.

I mean, I honestly do hate MMOs out of principal, but far be it from me to judge how others spend their time/money.

I guess there's a sequel coming out next year. I found it pretty cool because you don't actually have a weapon in the game... you've got the portal tool. The other thing I thought was neat was that Chell didn't have a health meter.

The lack of the health bar has become pretty common in FPSs the last few years, although Portal is one of the few times where it's not a nuisance, since by and large things kill you basically instantly and a health bar wouldn't really show you much.

As to the sequel, I'm less than enthusiastic. It's hard to see anywhere to go from this point, either it will just be little more than an expansion pack — which they already have for the 360 — or it'll end up adding unnecessary bullshit which will just cheapen the specialness of the original. Maybe they'll surprise me, but I doubt it.

What I've heard is that it'll be the former, with a male protagonist.

If they have to have a sequel, something like this would work:

I just reread your opening post, I wouldn't call Portal Half-Life Lite at all. Not even a little bit. It's totally it's own thing.

The sequel has Chell in it as the main character and she awakens again after several hundred years to a fully repaired and expanded GLaDOS. The male character is there to support team play in multiplayer mode.

I think it's very much a lighter version of the original Half-Life using the Source engine.

Ah.

Well that actually sounds like it could be interesting, if done right.


Um, how?

It's in the same Universe and inside a creepy little compound?

Pretty weak comparison.

Half Life is an action game, while Portal is at it's core a puzzle game. In both core game play and story line they are about as far apart as they really could be.

In both games, you play as a mysterious employee of a mysterious corporation with government contracts. Black Mesa and the Enrichment Center both have labs and corroded industrial areas and are abandoned. Both games also feature puzzles for the player to solve in order to advance and advanced weapons/devices to assist you in staying alive. The atmosphere is very similar and Portal uses some of the same sound files and art from the Half-Life series. I'd say calling it "Half-Lite" or something similar is quite appropriate and not a put down in any way.

Okay, here's where I'm coming from: If you were to keep the core gameplay, but instead of a Portal Gun the portals were magic based, and instead of an evil corporation you were escaping from a fairy tale dungeon, would you still be inclined to compare the game to Half-Life?

That is not a hypothetical, Narbacular Drop — the precursor to Portal, made by the same team before they were bought/hired by Valve — was just that. Anything Half-Life esque was added on after the core game play was already established. It is comparable to Half-Life in some ways I will admit, but nothing more than window dressing that can be explained away by the fact that it exists in the same reality.

Comparison to Half Life is more often than not hardly an insult, and it still isn't in this case, but it does greatly undermine the things that made the game special on its own right. The core gameplay — which was unique, simple, elegant, and challenging all in one fail swoop — and the wickedly dark humor of the writing.

I can get that you'd see specks of Half-Life in Portal, because there are specks of it there, but nothing more than that. Just bits and pieces woven into a game that at its core is wholly original. I'd be inclined to venture a guess that Half-Life was the only Valve game you had played prior to Portal, so perhaps you went in expecting something similar and your mind latched onto the similarities to back up that point. However, the truth is that the differences outweigh the similarities and that it is truly its own thing.

Of course not... I'm judging the game as a whole, story content and graphics included.

See, it's the fact that Miss Potts has never played Portal (when she plays other video games and is down with all the current trends, yo) that baffles me.

Exactly.

If the core game play is so far away from Half-Life then it is downright wrong to call the game "Half-Life Lite," it is in no way that.

Half-Life is a run and gun action shooter with some light puzzle elements; Portal is a puzzle game with some light run and gun shooter elements.

There is some overlap in their game mechanics. Some. But, those are overshadowed by the glaring and concrete differences.

Unacceptable.

That's an interesting opinion, but that's not how I feel. You haven't swayed me.

Of course not.

You're on read only.