the cake is a lie

In terms of gaming concepts, Portal is one of the most innovative implementations I've ever seen. It's relatively short, but beautifully executed. Everything you want in a game is here: interesting puzzles, well developed physics, world immersion, and memorable characterization. Gameplay revolves around a gun that lets you create two portals, orange and blue. Entering any of the portals allows you to emerge outside the other. Simple concept...but here is where the game kicks your ass: the momentum and angle at which you enter a portal carries through to the other side.

In other words, depending on where you shoot these things and how you run/jump into them, your brain explodes.

Like this.



Insane physics aside, the world of Aperture Science Laboratories, where you are a test subject using the gun to solve navigation and escape puzzles, is lovingly rendered in stark white (for rooms where you're supposed to be) and industrial blight (for rooms where you clearly were not meant to go). Foreboding scribbles from past test subjects litter the environment and the graphics are nice but nothing spectacular. The world really comes alive due to a single factor: the calm, unnerving voiceover of GLaDOS, the AI guiding you through the testing facility.

I can't do GLaDOS justice. I can only give you quotes that provide insight into the character. Just imagine these lines delivered by a soft, computerized female voice, similar to an elevator recording or teleprompter:

"If at first you don't succeed, you fail. And the test will be terminated."

"Please note, we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck."

"Please be advised that a noticeable taste of blood is not part of any test protocol, but is an unintended side effect of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid, which may, in semi-rare cases, emancipate dental fillings, crowns, tooth enamel, and teeth."

"You should have turned left before. It's funny, actually, when you think about it."

And finally:

"I'm going to kill you, and all the cake is gone, you don't even care, do you?"

Not only does GLaDOS make this game incredibly entertaining (and a bit terrifying at times), she is the reason why the ending to Portal goes down as one of the best in gaming history.