MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

Jomolungma — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:04:35 GMT

I agree wholeheartedly with Stephen's comment about playing. I haven't had as much fun simply playing in a game in a vary long time. I think there are a few reasons for this. First, nobody was shooting at me so I actually had time to play around. Second, the portal technology was so new to me that I couldn't help but mess around with it and see what happened. And third, the somewhat playful nature of the opening of the game (GLaDOS is still a nice "person" at that point and generally encouraging of you and your efforts to explore) got me into the playing mood. If GLaDOS started out confrontational I think I would have been immediately on my guard and focused more on beating the game than playing with it.

Also, though, Portal is an open-ended puzzle-based game. While there are lots of different types of puzzles, whenever I tackle a puzzle in a stress-free situation (unlike, say, BioShock's hacking puzzles) I come at it from a playing point of view. Maybe I was just raised this way, but I enjoy playing around with puzzles, holding them, flipping them around, exploring the various ways to work the puzzle and to solve it. I think this is a big reason why I had so much fun with Portal. In the end, throughout the entire game, I think I was just playing around with this puzzle, testing its limits, testing my brain, doing stupid stuff like falling for countless feet and minutes, etc. That's really why I found it so endearing. GLaDOS and the story mechanic simply added to my enjoyment.

Also, how do I know when a game is great? When I hear the end-credits song on its own, at the end of a podcast, and I get a little choked up thinking back to the first time I heard that song and the amazing experience I had leading up to it. That's awesome.

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

vermouth81 — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:00:34 GMT

Isn't that puzzle-like storytelling technique sort of Valve's m.o. that most everyone else isn't really using. Like if you play Half-Life 2 there's almost no detail about the years between HL1 and HL2 explicitly presented in the story. Like there often very little in the way of speciffic details given to the player unless he hunts them down and looks for the clues that are scattered throughout the game on lots of questions. I can't really imagine developers ignoring it with Half-Life 2 only to suddenly start emulating it with Portal.

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

SuperEffective — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:01:31 GMT

I have a very hard time believing that the emotional spell of Portal could be replicated in a multiplayer/co-op setting.

And the real reason, I think, that the industry isn't going to think 'we need a Portal' is because it is so self-contained. It is a small idea executed perfectly, and that doesn't really call out for a sequel. Shadow of the Colossus and Manhunt were pretty sequel-proof, too. (Cheap shot on my part, but MH2 is going to tank primarily because it's unnecessary. The first game covered the subject pretty well.)

If there's a viable Portal 2, it would have to have a *new* physics puzzle system in a lab setting with an ambiguous teacher/proctor figure. Which is tall order.

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

ColbyCheese — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:16:41 GMT

For me personally, I know that a movie, book, piece of music, or game is good when I actually go out and look for more information about it in wikipedia or google. Who was involved in making it? Have there been any deconstructionist type examinations of the work?

When I'm willing to spend time looking for more info about the work, then you can be sure that it has had a favorable impression on me. I never bothered to look any further into the back story of a Tomb Raider game or Saints Row. Those just weren't paradigm changing titles for me.

I can especially tell that I've just experienced something "grand" whenever I'm "haunted" by phrases, sounds, and imagery from the work. I can still hear the closing song in my head from Portal, and I've a chocolate cake thing going on for the last two weeks. Additionally, I never felt compelled to take Valve up on their offer to enlighten me with in game "Directors Commentary" until Portal landed on my desk.

And, for the record, I opted for the PC version of the Orange Box, because I have a feeling that it will be "easier" to play 5 years from now, compared to my 360.

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

sirchode — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:01:31 GMT

N'Gai's comment about mystery being more immersive than exposition is something that hit particularly close to home with me as it made me recall playing through Ico with my then-eight-year-old niece. It was the first time she'd actually sat down and played a game with me but she was just enamored with the entire thing, not only for its simplistic and inviting environmental puzzles but because she would constantly turn around to me asking questions like "Why was the girl in that cage?" or "Why was the boy taken to the castle?" The game was, as we know, intentionally minimalistic so I obviously didn't have answers for her... But it was very endearing to see her, in the absence of a proper story, come up with a story all her own. I now forget the details of why Yorda was in the cage or why Ico was taken to the castle or who the shadow people were, but by the end of the game she was entirely wrapped in her own version of the game's universe and she loved it. To this day, that game stands as one of my all-time favorites simply because of the wonderful experience it was to play through it with her as she filled in the blanks and personalized it.

Regarding Portal, I feel like I missed something. The gameplay "gimmick" -- as Stephen calls it -- was certainly clever but for some reason I never really got the feeling that it evolved into the next phase. I went through the game waiting for it to blow me away with a should-have-been-obvious feature or specific utilization that I couldn't have expected in a million years but it never came, so I ended up feeling pretty ho-hum about the game. I certainly appreciate the character and personality throughout the game ("Still Alive" is the first non-standard ringtone I've ever used on my cell phone and I grinned like an idiot through the entirety of the linked turret video), but I still feel like it didn't grab me as I'd hoped. My first thought as I walked away from the game was that, in terms of innovative gameplay mechanics, Crush on the PSP actually did a better job of blowing me away.

But then again I also didn't have any problem throwing my Weighted Companion Cube right into the incinerator so maybe I'm just calloused.

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

perrinbar — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:11:01 GMT

I have to say I agree with Stephen on the whole Bioshock emulation vs Portal emulation. Given the industry's desire for big sales numbers, it seems unlikely any marketing minds will pin the success of the Orange Box solely on Portal, which is a good call to be fair. I think it is probably for the best though as how can one really recapture the greatness of Portal without being heavily derivative?

The moment I knew Portal was a great game was when I forced myself to stop after 16 levels because I didn't want it to end in my first session with the game. Not often do I stop so that I can savor the last morsels of a game, but Portal forced me to. If I had finished it in one sitting, it would have been sad.

To some of your points N'Gai, I think it is very difficult for most anyone that isn't Valve to get away with the level of polish and minimalism in this game. Firstly, who else can offer a game as bite-sized as portal in a value proposition like the Orange Box? Despite Stephen's comments, I doubt most people would have paid full price for Portal alone and without the inclusion word of mouth might not have been the force it has been to this point. Also Valve was able to take a long, long time to get this product out. I remember hearing about Portal shortly after the Narbacular Drop team was hired by Valve and that was several years ago. Not too many games of this type can afford that level of loving care and that much time before releasing. Which is a shame. Hopefully this game will continue to open the doors for creative game ideas to bring themselves to the masses.

Also, any time someone references Brecht in the U.S. I smile a little on the inside. :)

re: MTV News' Stephen Totilo Vs. Level Up's N'Gai Croal on Portal. Round 1--Fight!

Evan Narcisse — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:51:50 GMT

Stephen, your points about the possibe business ripples are eerily prescient.

The one thing I found surprising about Portal was that it became a great co-op experience. I played through it with a friend, passing the controller back and forth. Figuring out the rooms and executing the steps turned into a collaborative experience. It didn't necessarily make things go faster, but it was an interesting Rorshach-type experience to track who saw which solution.

Playing Portal generates the same effect as staring at those Magic Eye puzzles. It asks you to reconfigure the way you look at your surroundings and when you exit that frame of reference, you have to force yourself not to apply that same lens to the real world. Sadly, I cannot teleport my trash to the curb.

Sorry, N'Gai, but I've gotta go with Stephen on the idea that there's story in the game. I read GlaDOS as a vengeful virtual secretary, chained to her desk and doomed to never go outside and experience the world. Her only joy comes from "Science," which, in her definition, include mind-f***ery as a matter of course.

Am I the only one reminded of THX-1138 by the game's art style? Am i the only one who wants a karaoke version of "Still Alive"?