Portal (Original)

By on September 6, 2012 2:11 pm

Portal (Original)

Portal was developed and published by Valve Corporation and is currently playable on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Mac and Windows PCs through Steam. Mostly regarded as a first-person puzzle-platform game, the player’s aim is to use directly linked, in/out “portals” or in inter-spatial holes between two flat surfaces to solve a series of puzzles. The ultimate goal is to outsmart and defeat the AI named GLaDOS in order to escape from the facility.

Real-Time Control

The individual mechanics in Portal are:

  • Looking (360 horizontal and vertical view)
  • Running (forward, back, left, right)
  • Ducking/Crouching
  • Jumping
  • Picking up and dropping up items
  • Shooting portals (orange, blue)

While all mechanics’ rates depend greatly upon the platform on which it is being played (especially at the time of the game’s release), the looking, controlled my mouse movements on PC, occurs within 100 ms and input is constantly being accepted with no lockout period. The character’s movement (running), as well as ducking/crouching, is much the same, also taking in constant input, definitely giving the movement mechanics the feel of real-time control.

The jumping mechanic adds a seemingly instantaneous upward force to the player, but does not impede the movement mechanics in any way (to include the improbable ability to move sideways through space after a straight upward jump). However, like with human motion regarding jumps, the player mechanic disregards other jumping input until the player has made contact with the ground again.

For the mechanic of shooting portals, the input is instantaneous, but the player cannot shoot another portal of the same color (designated by right and left mouse-clicks on PC) until the portal has made contact with an allowed flat surface and run through the animation of a portal opening up. There is no other restrictions on this mechanic and while it may take time to make contact with walls, floors, or ceilings, the mechanic does not feel slow or forced in any way.

All of these mechanics in combination have given the game the real-time control that has made the game so widely famous.

Spatial Simulation

The simulated space in portal is probably one of its greatest aspects. The player moves fluidly through the world (the facility), making contact with the ground, walls, and other objects. In addition, most objects of a certain size (smaller than a companion cube), can be picked up, dropped, and moved to other locations. With the portals, the player can teleport seamlessly from one location in the world to another. These interactions have a real-world quality and are perceived directly and actively by the player.

Polish

The game has plenty of polish and is another strong point of the game. Sound effects occur for much of the mechanics as well as the environment, including AI robots that follow the players movement and sometimes attempt to kill the player. The portals have probably the most polish as they are not static, but the rims of the holes flow with the respective color and the player can see through them as if they were already at the location on the other side of the portal. All interactions and movements are very clear and occur as one expects them to.

Conclusion

Portal does have game feel and sits fairly balanced between real-time control, spatial simulation, and polish.

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