Thinking With Portals
Picture this. You’re planted in your most comfortable chair, it’s a Friday night and you’ve got no place to go. After triple checking your non-existent phone notifications you decide to load up that one series or game you’ve been thinking of getting to. That weekend you spend most of your time playing/watching your select choice of media. Monday comes and right as rain you’re back in school doing school things, the memory of that one game or series slowly fading after your initial experience. Soon the thought of it is a blur, replaced by the more important thoughts at hand. But once in a while you play that one game and as those days roll on by, you find yourself thinking back to that one experience. You might think I’m describing an addiction but hear me out. You know you aren’t hooked, you don’t find yourself putting your academics on hold for this. You aren’t skipping classes or pushing people away. That one game delivered an experience with characters who thought and felt, an immersive world never before seen, and beautifully crafted atmosphere that brought the world to life. The one game that stuck with me was Portal 2.
Portal 2 is a first-person perspective puzzle game. The player takes the role of Chell, in the single-player campaign. In co-op mode the player takes control of Atlas and P-Body, humanoid robots made for the purpose of testing. Chell with her trusty portal gun navigates through the labyrinth that is the Aperture Science facility.
The protagonist, Chell, is awakened in relaxation chamber by Wheatley, a personality core, after an indeterminable amount of time. The two team up to escape the crumbling Aperture Science facility. On their way out the pair accidentally reactivate GLaDOS, the A.I. antagonist from the previous game. Chell and Wheatley are separated and GLaDOS subjects Chell to a series of tests meant to run continuously until death. Meanwhile, Wheatley attempts to disable GLaDOS defensive capabilities with the help of Chell. They reunite and return to GLaDOS to initiate a core transfer. The two are successful and Wheatley takes control of the facility and is immediately corrupted by the power he gains. He powers GLaDOS with a potato battery and throws Chell and GLaDOS down an elevator shaft. The two find themselves in the remnants of old Aperture. GLaDOS reveals to Chell that Wheatley’s A.I. was designed to make extremely poor decisions, in order to neutralize GLaDOS’ capabilities. With Wheatley at the helm of the entirety of Aperture, everything would fall into disarray resulting in the death of everyone and everything inside. The two make their way up the old facility to remove Wheatley from power. After making their way to Wheatley, a fight ensues, GLaDOS and Chell manage to corrupt Wheatley and remove him from power. With GLaDOS now in-charge, she finally releases Chell from captivity, sending her on an elevator to the surface. The game ends with the elevator making its way up to a wheat field.
GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System)
GLaDOS is a Artificial Superintelligent Computer System. GLaDOS is responsible for testing and maintenance in the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center. She is often described as being narcissistic, passive-aggressive, sinister, and witty. Often compared to HAL 9000 and SHODAN. Critically acclaimed and frequently cited as one of the best video game villains of all time.
Wheatley (Intelligence Dampening Sphere)
Wheatley also impudently known as the Intelligence Dampening Sphere. He guides Chell through out the game. Wheatley was designed to inhibit the mental capacity of GLaDOS with and “endless stream of terrible ideas.” He initially served as comedy relief to Chell during the first half of Portal 2, He then becomes the main antagonist of the second half as he takes GLaDOS’ place and runs the facility into the ground.
Chell (Aperture Science Test Subject #1498)
Chell is the silent protagonist of the game, much like her Half Life counterpart Gordon Freeman. Waking up in a Relaxation chamber after an undeterminable amount of time, she is determined to escape. With the use of the portal gun, she navigates through the different puzzles and and areas in between her and her freedom. Relatively little is known about her personality, but what is known is that she’s “abnormally stubborn” and “never gives-up. Ever. ”
Portal 2 takes place inside the Aperture Science computer-aided Enrichment Center. The main character moves through different sections of the facility such as the Extended Relaxation Area, numerous test chambers and offices, maintenance areas, the central A.I. chamber. Easily the most interesting locations would be the deeper chambers of Aperture, the facilities made during the 1940’s. The scale of these facilities and the level of detail the developers were able to squeeze into these locations is absolutely mind boggling. This is where the game truly comes into its own. The echo of machinery rumbling in the distance paired with astounding era visuals, make these underground chambers feel alive. It invokes a certain sense of dread and despair, but also curiosity and, well, life. We make our way though the different era’s of Aperture Science until we make our way back the top. No other game I’ve played has come close to replicating the quality of Portal 2’s atmosphere or the level of immersion it brings.
Portal Gun (Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device\Aperture Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device)
Developed by Aperture Science in the 1950s, the Portal Gun is an experimental tool used to — as the name states — create portals. It allows an object to pass in-between the two portals. It has the ability to “launch” a portal at ridiculous distances, with the player being able to effectively open a portal on the moon. The portals can be opened on any surface made of refined moon rock. The device can only create two portals at a time. The Portal Gun also has a zero-point energy field manipulator, or in other words it can pick stuff up.
Long Fall Boots
Developed by Aperture interestingly not to save lives but to prevent test subjects from inadvertently damaging the Portal Gun from drops of extreme heights. Long Fall Boots have some sort of gyroscopic device that assures users always land on their feet no matter their orientation. This item saved our protagonist from a 4 kilometer fall.
Portal 2 essentially had no HUD. Aside from a very minimalistic crosshair that would tell you what portals are active, no other information would plague the corners of your screen. Playing without the crosshair would be possible too as the Portal Gun itself glows in the color of the portal you shot last. Some important in-game information is also relayed to you by other characters.
As stated in the title the main gameplay mechanic used are portals. The most common problem you often find yourself facing is, “how do I get from point A to point B?” The game slowly ramps up the complexity of the puzzles, mixing in a couple of killer machine gun turrets here and there. Some light bridges, vats of acid, gels with different properties in between you and your destination to keep gameplay fresh. The game focuses heavily on its narrative which keeps in more linear, but it allows for an extremely polished bug-free experience.
In conclusion,
Portal 2 is that one game that I keep thinking about. The experience didn’t fade away as usual games do. I always keep going back to once aspect of what I loved about the game, and that was its atmosphere and immersion. The developers did a fantastic job of making you feel like you were actually there, exploring this labyrinthian scientific facility. Something so awe inspiring and vast yet so grounded in reality.
