*Beep Beep Beep* Startup code initiated.

Welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Guided Game Reviewing Enrichment Center.  You may be wondering where you are, but do not worry.  We have provided all necessary basic elements for human survival.  Please note: certain side effects associated with necessary basic elements for human survival dispensed by this facility are: discomfort, shortness of breath, nausea, restless leg syndrome, and death.  In today’s experiment you will be reading a review of the latest Valve videogame “Portal”.  At the end of the review, you will be treated to an overall numeric output representing the quality of the game, and there will be cake.  Please use your Aperture Science Official Web Browsing Device to start the experiment.  Also, please be advised that a feeling of Déjà vu while performing this experiment, is normal.

Portal is a simple game that provides hours of fun.  The game stars Chell, a prisoner *crackle static crackle* a volunteer research assistant in the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center.  Chell’s main goal is to test the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.  This device will be the only device you acquire over the course of the game.  There are no other guns *crackle* devices to switch to, as the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, is perfect.

The portal device has two important functions.  Its first function, is explained by its name.  It can create portals.  By firing the device at a specified Aperture Science Tiled Flat Surface, a portal will open up.  Only two portals may be open at a time, and they link to each other spatially.  Enter one portal, and you will come out the other.  Gravity only affects you when you have fully passed through a portal, so using portals allows you to perform several feats which laugh in the face of physics.  For example, if there is a platform you cannot jump to because it is too high, shoot a portal on your current floor and a portal on the ground a floor or two below you.  When you fall off your platform and enter the portal, your falling velocity will be retained, and you will rocket upwards out of the previous portal you opened, thus gaining the height to reach the new platform.  Please be advised, you will be equipped with Aperture Science Spring Based Leg Enhancement device, to prevent all damage that might occur from falling.

The second function of the device, is a gravity beam, which allows you to pick up and drop items such as radios, cameras, aggressive motion based gun turrets *crackle* not that we would include those in such a test, and of course, Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cubes.  You will need to use this function to place certain items on switches such as the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super Colliding Super Button.  Please be advice prolonged exposure to the button is not part of this experiment.  Doing so will aid you in solving puzzles *crackle* completing the experiments involved in the game.  You can also use this function to knock over and destroy the motion based gun turrets that do not exist in this test.

Portal is a game that plays out in First Person but it is most certainly not a first person shooter.  It is better described as a puzzle game.  You will be expected to use both functions of the Portal Device to find your way to an exit at the end of each experiment, getting you closer and closer to your cake.  All enemies that don’t exist are overcome via creative use of teleporting yourself and other objects across large distances.  At the end of the game, there is most certainly not (read: there definitely is) an epic boss battle.  It is just an experiment.

Perhaps the greatest thing about portal, is me, GLaDOS, the Enrichment Center’s Computer.  I provide helpful tips to aid you in your journey toward ultimate demise *crackle* ultimate cake.  I do so in an electronically dead pan voice as you are hearing now, or as you would be, if you were not actually simply reading this as text on Bonafidereviews.com.  That makes it so that some of the preprogrammed joke lines I deliver, are just that much funnier.  The writers and programmers that programmed me did an excellent job.  If there was one character in this game to take note of other than me, it is the Weighted Companion Cube who has one of the best written personalities of a videogame character of all time.  I cannot tell you any more about the Weighted Companion Cube, or any of the story, or else it would ruin it for you.  Please be noted that people who have experienced Story Ruination will be escorted to the Aperture Science Detention center to have their memory wiped so as to preserve the integrity of the story of Portal.  Then they will be euthanized.

Unfortunately, Portal is short, and can be beaten in less than two hours.  The first 15 levels are all largely tutorial levels, and the game only has 19 levels to begin with.  Luckily the game includes several advanced challenge modes, including least number of steps, least time, and least number of portals used.  The game also includes an ultra hard advanced challenge mode for people familiar with Aperture Science Technology.  In addition, several modding communities are already working on custom scenarios and modifications to enhance your portal experience.  Still the game could have stood to be longer, or to have a multiplayer.

Portal was originally simply a demo for a type of code that was being developed.  However Valve gave the programmers a budget to make it a full blown game.  The last time something like this happened, we received Katamari Damacy, and it was amazing.  Now we have something that is far better than Katamari Damacy ever was or ever will be, that is until Katamari Damacy is developed by Aperture Science Laboratories.  Portal is affordable, $20 dollars for the game alone, and $50 dollars for the entire Orange Box bundle, and either is well worth the price.

Congratulations.  You have reached the end of this Aperture Science Experiment.  You are now officially thinking with Portal.  Please scroll up to the top of the page and begin reading, to receive your endless eternity of reading this review *crackle* cake.