The Race: A Review of the Portal Demo and Some Other Stuff

As it seems quite unnecessary, I will make my first post a race... which will finish first: my portal demo download or a couple thousand items in the trash being safely removed...

Wait, crap, this sucks. Maybe this is why I haven't gotten a blog until now. Oh well.

So, quite off topic, another rant will come to y'all. I've downloaded the iphone app SDK from apple like 5-6 times now, and it's been failing miserably to install every time (yes, I have a mac, I'm not that sterpid) 

Ok, and the competition is over...the trash won. And now, for my review of portal (the demo, I'll give the whole review sometime around next week.

Okay, so for the demo.

A couple questions: what the heck is this freaky thing in the loading screens. I know that's not what my character looks like...so, Valve, what exactly is that?

Okay, really the demo (first eight levels) was actually pretty cool. The first couple levels were a bit drab, and included picking up boxes and setting them down on buttons. That's why there's only one picture.

But, then I got into the next five levels, and I got super pumped. With the portals, you can see yourself looking at yourself at yourself, etc., creating inception graphics. I would like to claim the honor of being probably the only player of this game to manage to hit himself over the head with a falling camera. Sadly, I did not get a screenshot of that.

To put it frankly, the physics of this game are incredible. The eight and last level of the demo really demonstrates that, as it is jumping into portals, and being flung out the other portal to higher ground. Also, if you are put out of a portal upside-down, you do a little barrel roll, and become normal again.

Another question I forgot to ask about the game is this: HOW FREAKING BIG IS THIS PLACE! Yes, I know, when you finish the game you kind of see it, but seriously. 19 levels: 19 elevators.  Each elevator is like 15 seconds long. That's almost a 5 minute ride to the top, or about as long as it takes to get to the top of the arch. LOOK AT THE AMOUNT OF TIME I WAS IN AN ELEVATOR! PEOPLE DO NOT MAKE SCREENSHOTS JUST FOR FUN!

I have more screenshots, but nobody wants to stare at elevator pics anyway.

And, maybe by next week, when I get the full game (probably) and beat it, I'll post my review on that too. Oh, yeah, and this gets a 3.5/5 

Why? To short. Yes it's a demo, but that still applies. That's what the.5 is for. I don't like elevators, also known as long load times, although they are still relatively good.

I leave you now with all of the portal screenshots remaining.

To download Portal, by Valve studios, click here. Have fun!