Portal (computer game)
| portal | |||
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.svg&filetimestamp=20080315115756&) | |||
| Studio | Valve software | ||
| Publisher | Valve Software Electronic Arts |
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| Senior Developer | Kim Swift | ||
| composer | Kelly Bailey Mike Morasky |
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
Windows : October 9, 2007 October 18, 2007   PlayStation 3 : December 11, 2007 December 14, 2007 Xbox 360 : October 22, 2008 macOS : May 12, 2010 |
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| platform |
Windows , Linux , Xbox 360 , PlayStation 3 , macOS |
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| Game engine | Source | ||
| genre | Action adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Mouse and keyboard or gamepad | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | Download , DVD-ROM , Blu-ray Disc | ||
| language | Multilingual | ||
| Age rating |
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Portal is a computer game by Valve . It was published on October 18, 2007 together with Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 in the Orange Box and as a single title on October 10, 2007 on the Steam gaming platform . The aim of the game is with the portal device with which one teleportation portals can create to master various tasks and overcome obstacles. The action is set in the Half-Life universe.
The game
Gameplay
The player has the option of teleporting himself or objects in order to solve certain tasks. At the beginning of the game, the player gradually gains control over the mobile portal device from Aperture Science , with which blue or orange teleportation portals can be created by shooting on a suitable surface. Only one portal of each color can exist at any one time, a new one replaces the old one. Matter - including living things, such as the player - and light come out of the other without delay after entering one portal, speed and orientation (or momentum and angular momentum ) are retained, taking into account the "portal effect". For example, if the portals point in different directions, one still walks out of the destination portal "straight ahead" if one has walked into the original portal "straight ahead". The speed of objects thrown in is also maintained or as described in the game:
"Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
"What goes in quickly comes out again quickly."
The color is only used to distinguish it, both portals can be used in both directions. It is also possible to linger “within” the portals. If both portals exist, only their edges are colored and you can look out of the other portal through them, as if through a window.
These properties give the player many options for avoiding obstacles such as acid-filled ravines, metal or glass walls. An advanced technique consists of creating portals lying one above the other in the ceiling and floor, through which one can build up a high speed in free fall, in order to then move the ceiling portal and, thanks to one's own inertia, be thrown very far or high.
There is no violence against people from the player in the portal, but the protagonist is often in mortal danger during the game due to the hostile computer opponent. The main character's blood is colored gray in the German version.
action
The player takes control of Chell, a young woman who acts as a test subject for the Aperture Science Enrichment Center research facility at Aperture Laboratories . Aperture Laboratories is a competitor to the Black Mesa Research Facility , where Half-Life is set.
The action begins in a glass cube equipped with only the bare essentials. In this sterile environment equipped with surveillance cameras, the player is greeted by the female computer voice of the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System "GLaDOS" and asked to take part in tests. These consist of obstacle courses called “test chambers”, in which, among other things, cube-shaped boxes have to be searched for and placed on floor switches . As a reward for successfully completing all 19 chambers, a cake is promised again and again (in the 19th chamber a cake is even displayed on the information board at the end).
It quickly becomes apparent that GLaDOS has a split personality , who vacillates between caring, indifference and, later, hostility. The test chambers are becoming increasingly life-threatening due to acid pools, energy beams and self-firing systems. In addition to short interruptions of GLaDOS and their ability to use euphemisms and to lie, small areas apart from the actual test chambers also have a disturbing effect. There, next to cookers and food supplies improvised from computers, there are notes like “She's watching you!” Or “The cake is a lie!” (“The cake is a lie!”) On the walls of this relative dirty, gloomy rooms.
At the end of the last test chamber, Chell is to be driven into a combustion chamber on a moving platform and killed - according to GLaDOS 'statement, the protagonist does not have to worry about the equipment from Aperture Science, as it is designed for such high temperatures. But thanks to the portal device, Chell can escape. The second half of the game is - accompanied by the usual changeable and entertaining comments of the now clearly angry GLaDOS, sometimes filled with reverse psychology - of the escape through the maintenance areas of the enrichment center, which have no similarities with the sterile test chambers and have apparently been since have been abandoned for a long time. In the maintenance areas, too, Chell often comes across notes from the person who had already scribbled on the walls, but at this point she seems to be the only person in the enrichment center. In addition to taking notes, this person has also scribbled arrows on the wall in some places to show the player the way.
Chell finds GLaDOS 'supposed system kernel and in a final fight she succeeds in destroying the computer. She passes out and wakes up apparently rescued in the parking lot of the site between burning rubble. A few systems are activated in the enrichment center and a gripper arm extinguishes the candle on a cake that is waiting. In the end credits GLaDOS sings that she was looking forward for the success Chell and will continue to do research, because they live (GLaDOS), and she was fine (the title of the song is Still Alive , that is still alive ). It remains unclear whether the second half of the plot with the escape is part of the actual GLaDOS test or not.
A later update slightly changed the end of the game in the PC version: Chell is no longer just lying in the parking lot, but is discovered there by a robot and pulled away.
The plot itself tells little about the Half-Life universe. The only evidence of this is a projected presentation in two abandoned conference rooms in which the research facility Black Mesa is portrayed as a competitor, as well as a mention of this in the (humorous) closing song. In the episode 2 of Half-Life 2 (published together with Portal), Aperture Science's ship Borealis is revealed as the target of the next episode.
editor
With the map editor ( Valve Hammer Editor , VHE for short) supplied with the game , players can create their own maps / levels and offer them for download on the Internet. Shortly after the appearance of Portal, fan pages dedicated to this topic were set up.
development
Portal is the unofficial successor to the freeware technology demo Narbacular Drop, which appeared in 2005 and was developed as a study project by Nuclear Monkey Software at the DigiPen Institute of Technology . The game shows some parallels to portals such as the blue and orange portals. The entire development team was hired by Valve to develop Portal.
The story was written together with Half-Life author Marc Laidlaw, the monologues GLaDOS 'and the self-firing systems come from the authors of the successful, but now discontinued computer game review site Old Man Murray .
publication
In the beginning it was only available as part of the Orange Box and therefore only available in Germany from the age of 18, although it contains little direct physical violence. The full version of the game, which was tested by the USK on March 18, 2008, was approved for ages 12 and up. The game was released for the Xbox 360 on October 22nd, 2008 under the title Portal: Still alive , which has largely changed maps compared to the original game, while the plot remains identical.
From May 12 to 24, 2010, the game could be downloaded for free by anyone with a Steam account when it was released for macOS and played without any further restrictions.
reception
Portal has received several awards, such as B. “Game of the Year” at the Game Developers Choice Awards in May 2008, as well as several prizes for the “Most Innovative Game Principle” or “Best Character” for the GLaDOS- KI . Even Ben Croshaw aka Yahtzee, who is known for his brisk and relentless criticism in his Zero Punctuation Reviews, praised the game with the words: “I can't think of any criticism for Portal [...] Portal is great and anyone who thinks otherwise has to be stupid ". Portal won the Living In A Box awards for the best in-game item , the Portal Gun, at the 2008 MTV Game Awards , and was nominated in the Game of the Year and Best Supporting Role categories for the in-game item “Companion Cube ".
On November 29, 2012, the Museum of Modern Art announced the acquisition of 14 computer games, including Portal , for a new permanent design exhibition in the Philip Johnson Galleries from March 2013. The announcement identified the titles as outstanding representatives in the field of interaction design. In addition to the visual quality and the aesthetic experience, criteria were therefore all aspects that contribute to the design of the interaction, such as the elegance of the program code or the design of the player behavior.
Portal 2
A successor to the game with the title Portal 2 was officially confirmed by Valve on March 5, 2010 and was released on April 19, 2011 for PC and Mac via Steam and in stores on April 21, 2011 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms . Valve used a special kind of announcement to announce the PC version. On March 1, 2010, an unannounced update was made available for the portal, which, according to the changelog, changed the following:
"Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations"
"Radio frequency changed to comply with government bandwidth management regulations"
The end sequence of Portal has been expanded with this update, at the same time a new achievement has been added, which is achieved by correctly positioning 26 radios in the game. This led to a complex alternate reality game in the form of a scavenger hunt, which is now considered to be over.
In addition to the Windows , macOS and Linux platforms , Portal 2 is also available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles . Here, the integration for the PlayStation 3 is tighter than for the Xbox 360. The PS3 version contains a key for PC installation via Steam (Steam Play) and also supports the Steam Cloud, which allows game statuses to be saved in the Internet enables. For the first time it is also possible to play cooperatively across systems. Jonathan Coulton , the composer of the song Still Alive , also composed songs for the follow-up.
Portal 2 achieved a Metacritic Score of 95 on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 .
Web links
- official website
- Official website in the style of an alternate reality game
- Portal at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Schnittberichte.com: Portal
- ↑ New update changes the end! HLPortal.de, March 4, 2010, accessed April 10, 2011.
- ↑ Game overview at xbox.com. xbox.com, accessed January 3, 2013 .
- ↑ Portal: Still Alive: Coming next week. 4players.de, October 16, 2008, accessed January 3, 2013 .
- ↑ Portal is FREE! (No longer available online.) Valve, archived from the original on May 15, 2010 ; accessed on May 15, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Paola Antonelli: Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters. In: Inside / Out. A MoMA / MoMA PS1 Blog. Museum of Modern Art , November 29, 2012, accessed November 29, 2012 .
- ↑ Portal 2 in the Steam Store. In: Valve. Retrieved April 19, 2011 .
- ↑ Portal Update Released. Valve, March 1, 2010, accessed May 15, 2010 .
- ↑ The big scavenger hunt for Portal 2 / Half Life 3 has begun. PCGameshardware.de, March 2, 2010, accessed on May 15, 2010 (forum topic on the timing of the ARG).
- ↑ Portal 2 receives a cross-system license. Krautgaming.de, accessed on January 18, 2011 .
- ↑ Portal 2 Again with a song by Jonathan Coulton. Gamezone.de, accessed on March 17, 2011 .
