|
Portal |  | From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
Buy New: $63.49
as of 9/4/2010 13:17 CDT details
New (4) Used (4) from $48.00
Seller: bookscoutfinds
Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 10336
Format: DVD-ROM
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Genre: shooter_action_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows 2000
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 1
Direct Download Release
MPN: 9871
Model: 9871
UPC: 014633098716
EAN: 0014633098716
ASIN: B00140P9G0
Release Date: April 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | Award-winning, innovative gameplay | | • | The first first-person puzzle action adventure game | | • | Two bonus games introduce new play challenges | | • | Support for level editing and mod creation - build your own Portal puzzles | | • | Hours of single player gaming |
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Orange Box- Portal PC
Amazon.com
Portal is an action/puzzle video game from Valve, creators of Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. The winner of over 40 awards, including 15 Game of the Year honors, it is one of the most original games on any platform in years and offers gamers hours of unique gameplay. Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, Portal is designed to change the way players approach, manipulate and surmise the possibilities in a given environment; similar to how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun innovated new ways to leverage an object in any given situation. Players must solve physical puzzles and challenges by opening portals to maneuver objects, and themselves, through space.
Use the portal gun to create your path.
View larger. | 
Every portal has two ends.
View larger. | 
Toss companion cubes through portals.
View larger. |
The Story
Portal contains only two characters, the player-controlled Chell and GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), a computer AI that monitors, directs and misleads Chell in a kind of twisted experiment. It's not exactly a match made in heavenRegardless, Chell must rely on information provided by GLaDOS to survive as she navigates through a series of mostly doorless rooms using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device ("portal gun"). The portal gun creates two portal ends, one orange and the other blue. Both are simultaneously a potential entrance and exit and objects, alive or otherwise, that travel through one end will exit the other at the same speed. In addition, portals create a visual and physical connection between two different locations in 3D space. Their ends are restricted to planar surfaces, but if the portal ends are on nonparallel planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur as the player character is immediately reoriented to be upright with respect to gravity after leaving a portal. Chell can pass through open portals at will, but barriers, known as "Material Emancipation Grids" or 'fizzlers' prevent players from carrying objects beyond them. Luckily certain objects, known as 'companion cubes' can be tossed through. Once through these can then be used as the player wishes. Passage through these fields also closes any open portals, so it's important to look before you leap. It's Chell's challenge and yours to survive the hazards of the portals, including bobby traps, hidden gun turrets and the treachery of GLaDOS in the search for eventual freedom. Features- Award-winning, innovative gameplay.
- The first first-person puzzle action adventure game.
- Two bonus games introduce new play challenges.
- Support for level editing and mod creation - build your own Portal puzzles.
- Hours of single player gaming.
- Makes you feel smart!
System Requirements: | Minimum Specifications: | Recommended Specifications: | | OS: | Windows Vista/XP/2000 | | Processor: | 1.7 Ghz Processor | Pentium 4 Processor (3.0 Ghz or better) | | RAM: | 512 MB RAM | 1 GB RAM | | Video Card: | DirectX 8 level Graphics card | DirectX 9 level Graphics card | | Other: | DVD-ROM Drive/Mouse/Keyboard/Internet Connection |
| |
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 48
 Valve makes yet another original game October 10, 2008
Blackout (California ,USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Portal is one of the best games I've played in a long time. When you first start the game it opens up with you waking in a small room with walls of blue glass and strange (happy) music playing and you really do wonder where am I?
...that was just to get you started, but here's the real review.
Now you have to understand that unlike other puzzle games portal is not frustrating, what do I mean by that? Well let's take a game like mist for example. When you play mist, unless you're a super genius you're going to be throwing down your mouse every couple seconds. But now with portal, Valve makes the chambers just easy enough for you to not get frustrated. (don't get me wrong they take some skill to learn. But if you think they're too easy then play the advanced chambers that you unlock at the end.)
For the first 15 chambers the game seems to have no other story then that you're some lady participating in a test at a laboratory. But then we come to the 16'th chamber (your training for turrets) now I'm not going to spoil what happens but the game suddenly takes a humorous and somewhat disturbing turn in the story. Also you may have heard about some references to the Half-Life games and curiously wondered what they were. It's not really a big deal in this game though, but Valve has stated that in the future Portal games there will be more hints at Half-life.
Sadly portal is a somewhat short game and even though Valve has achievements, advanced maps, (which I will tell about later) and even challenges (which I couldn't complete) the game just falls short of replay value. So I would suggest that you purchase Portal in The Orange Box as you'll be playing a series if games (not just portal) like Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and of course the long awaited Half-life 2: Episode 2.
Now I've almost finished my review, (my second shortest yet) I come to one of the most important parts of my review (I stress that.) *drum roll* THE HORRIBLE INSTALLATION!!!! Now if you have played other valve games you will understand that you must both install portal and the program (that we hate for the first few months) called Steam. Now Steam isn't bad software(no spyware no spam...nothing) it's just that being forced to install steam them download the game and finally play it while connected to the internet is somewhat frustrating to some people. But when you start to realize the potential steam has you slowly change your mind. You might ask "what the heck is "steam"??" well it's a program where you download games off the internet, like Call of Duty and Crisis. (NOTE: That's only a few of the games available on Steam.) There's so many things to do on Steam that your head will spin. For instance, the Steam Community and Free mods to download. So all though you'll be frustrated for a while you'll soon realize that Steam is great.
-Have fun playing
Blackout (that's my steam community name)
Surprisingly Fun June 10, 2008
M. Anderson (Colorado Springs, CO USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
By the time you read this review, you will have already learned that Portal is a very short game. However, I can tell you that you should invest the modest price for the game and play it. It's a very fun and fresh concept. The game is entertaining; both in terms of actual gameplay and the undercurrent of humor. I haven't had this much fun with the non-play portion of the game since the No One Lives Forever franchise.
As for the shortness of the game. I actually found this to be fine. Had I paid $50 for Portal, I would have been disappointed... but of course, I did not. Had the game been priced higher with 3x the amount of game play, it would have become tiresome, but as it was, I was left wanting more at the end. In comparison, another game I liked a lot was the massive Oblivion (a game which also featured portals, but of a different variety). However, that game was so big, that I actually was getting tired of the game before I completed it. It has had no replay value and I've avoided the add-on/expansion packs. Portal, by comparison, never grew old at all, was fun and challenging throughout and had a fun and tidy conclusion. In many ways, this game left me wanting more games that are equally short and cheap.
Now, about the gameplay. This game is a FPPS (First Person Puzzle Solver). I must admit that that concept wouldn't be my type of thing normally. For me, when I'm engaged in a fun FPS game and then come to an obviously contrived puzzle that I must solve, I find it a frustrating and annoying divergence from the purpose of the game. However, in Portal, I never had that feeling. I embraced it whole-heartedly and enjoyed the experience. Although I'm not a great puzzle solver, I found nothing here to be so hard as to force me to look to external resources for solutions. I feel smarter having played the game, yet never felt like I was solving arbitrary meaningless puzzles. In other words, Portal is a game of puzzles, but it doesn't play or feel that way. For me, this is the great strength of the effort.
The bottom line for me is that I found Portal to be a very pleasant surprise and would recommend it to FPS players looking for a fun diversion.
Great game! October 27, 2008
Runa Zaman (Charlottesville, VA, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Portal is simply amazing. The characters, although really, there are only two (unless you count the companion cube =P) are very well thought out and really interesting, you'll get pulled into the story and won't want to stop until you figure out what is what. (And even by the end, there's still loose ends that make you really want more). Great game, great story, let's just hope to death that there's a SEQUEL!
An incredibly funny head trip. March 5, 2010
Reggie (San Diego, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If any one reading this remembers the tv show from the 70's called "The Bionic Woman," there is an episode in this show called "Doomsday is Tomorrow" (you can watch it on youtube) where the Bionic Woman is trapped in a building and has to outsmart and fight against a super computer named Alex 700. As I played Portal, it gave me the sense of being placed in this kind of deadly situation just as the Bionic Woman was in. Portal is a very cool gaming experience, and once you figure out what you can do to advance through the game while creating portals, you will feel really smart and good about yourself. A brilliantly funny head trip that is short and sweet. When Valve finally come out with Half Life 2 episode 3, I hope that they surprise me by incorporating the portal gun along with the gravity gun. I can't imagine what kind of creative mayhem I could get away with by using both technology together, but I can imagine that it would be fun. Which is what games are meant to be.... fun. Just as Portal is. Kudos to the team that put this one together. Well done.
Perfect. May 18, 2010
Jason A. Sterle
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
a long time, old-school console gamer here and very new to PC gaming. i downloaded Steam from Valve's site a few days ago to take advantage of the free download of Portal and my... God... this game is flawless. i'm not kidding and not prone to hyperbole. (every one thinks i'm a pessimist and i'm inclined to agree)
let me qualify this by saying that my favorite film of all time is The Fifth Element. obviously i love sci-fi and this game feels like the best of every sci-fi film rolled into a completely unique gaming mechanism. using the portals is what this game is all about NOT shooting robots or demons. you truly are a human lab rat armed with an inter-dimensional travel facilitating device.
especially sweet is navigating the background structure outside of the testing chambers. that aspect of the game feels like Doom with it's something-to-kill-you-just-around-the-corner feel.
if you have a hard time wrapping your head around physics, don't worry. the first dozen stages are a 101 course that needs to be in every high school curriculum. that said, just looking at the game made my wife's head hurt. it is truly mind-bending in the best possible way.
WILL be purchasing Portal 2... looks like Valves diabolical plan worked.; )
Showing reviews 1-5 of 48
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. www.assetsforcoyouth.org | |
