Recent reviews by Curtis

Visual masterpiece. The way the aesthetic themes support the narrative is really fantastic.

Just getting started. Still good.

Portal is a very creative game constructed under limiting constraints. Students working on a game called Narbacular Drop, which has similar mechanics to Portal, were hired by Valve to continue its development. Portal became the fruit of their development. The team indicated that the limiting constraints under which they developed the game contributed to its success. The game is a first-person puzzle game, where you play as Chell, who finds herself in an eerie, pristine test chamber in a vast laboratory building. Her antagonist is GLaDOS, a seemingly light-hearted AI, who guides you through the series of test chambers. Later, you find that GLaDOS is actually quite sinister.


I feel that Portal's story is told in a fashion that's truly unique to video games. There's a true sense that you're working toward finding answers, yet you're never expressly told to "Go here to advance story", or never told "Press X to not die". It's very hard to put into words, but the story almost feels like it's not there unless you choose to investigate and look more closely. The fact that it's told so subtly seems to make it stand out in my memory. I feel like Metroid Prime on the GameCube is very similar in this fashion.

I understand this is all vague sounding, and not really explaining the story itself, but if you've yet to play Portal, the less you know about it, the better.


This game's core portal mechanic has to be the funnest way to get around in a video game. The game revolves around interacting with two spatially linked portals placed on flat surfaces. You use this mechanic to move objects, and yourself, in various creative ways.

The gameplay feels mindbending and visceral, since the rate at which you're accelerating when you enter a portal reflects your acceleration as you exit the other. By the end of the game, you're doing some really creative things, and there's still probably many tactics and solutions you'd never consider.


Personally, I found the game's difficulty to be tuned very well. I was never super frustrated, yet finding some solutions felt very satisfying.


Overall, I can see why this game is considered such a classic. Every facet of the game just works well, and the story and gameplay work very well together. I'd have to say that GLaDOS is one of the best written characters I've seen in a while. It's all in the subtlty of the writing and Ellen McLain's voice acting. A lot of games these days really need to take a queue from this game and understand that subtle story telling can have a far greater impact.