Requires a Mac with an Intel processor.

By Brad Cook

If I’m going to make any sense of this, I need to start from the top. My name is Chell, and I woke up in a stasis bed — it may be a cliché, but I honestly don’t remember how I wound up there in the first place. I was in a sterile lab environment, and this computer voice started talking to me from overhead. She seemed nice enough at the time, although I could tell something wasn’t working right. Her name was GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System).

Portal

GLaDOS wanted me to take some tests: a portal would open in one wall, and I would step through it and come out a portal in another wall. Pick up a box, put it on a switch, and open the door. Simple enough, right? Then I entered a room where I was given my own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (ASHPD) — a handheld gun that could shoot a portal anywhere I wanted. Well, almost anywhere; I soon discovered that some surfaces wouldn’t accept portals. And I had no control over where the exit portal was placed, although it was usually in a spot that worked to my advantage.

Speedy is as Speedy Does

With no way to turn back, I made my way through 19 tests, each one featuring a series of puzzles more fiendishly difficult than the last. GLaDOS promised me cake when I was done, but she also said grief counseling would be available. Yes, the second part put me on edge, but what could I do?

Eventually I received another ASHPD, one that could shoot both entrance and exit portals. It came in handy, since later puzzles often required me to place portals in just the right spots. And it wasn’t just me who could pass through the portals: I could use them to drop boxes onto turret guns, or redirect energy pellets so they struck their intended targets. The turret guns fired real bullets and the energy pellets were just as deadly, so I had to use my wits to survive.

I soon figured out how to use the portals to access hard-to-reach areas. As GLaDOS said at one point: “In layman’s terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.” I could place a portal near where I wanted to go, then shoot another one far below me, so that when I fell through it, my momentum would propel me through the other one and zip me toward my destination. It took a little practice to figure it out, but it came in handy during tests filled with pools of acid.

Don’t Fear the Reaper

Some of the test areas had walls I could slip behind, and I found a few dark, dirty places where someone had scrawled things. “Not in cruelty, not in wrath/The Reaper came today/The Angel visited this gray path/And took the cake away,” said one. Someone had quoted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Reaper and the Flowers,” swapping “the green earth” for “this gray path” and “flowers” for “cake.” Below was a crude drawing of a Weighted Companion Cube as an angel.

Ah, yes, my Weighted Companion Cube. Like those who came before me, I was given one. It helped me overcome treacherous obstacles, but GLaDOS forced me to drop it in an incinerator. I was sad.

She gave me no time to mourn, however, and I pressed on. Eventually I came to the end of the nineteenth test, and I discovered the cruel fate that GLaDOS planned for me. Surviving what came next was not easy. I’m still exhausted by my experiences, so I’m going to end this entry now. I will explain the rest later. In the meantime, I’ll pass along something I found during my adventure.

Game Hardware
Check out our systems for your best gaming experience.

Recommended Systems For Gamers

Rectangular room with multiple levels.

Escheresque. Looking at you looking at yourself.

Walls with graffiti and pictures on them.

Break Room. There’s a fascinating back story here.

Robot firing a lazer accross the room.

Just Doing His Job. It’s not hard to use portals to eliminate the turrets; luckily, they won’t hold a grudge.

If you liked this game, check out:

System Requirements:

 
Portrait of Cave Johnson

Those damn bean counters brought this to my attention again today. I told them, hey, I’m busy cheating death right now, so could you hold your horses? No, sir, they could not, so I had to drop everything and attend to this here matter.

The following is some information that I’ve been told could assist our test subjects, if they were to find out about it. That would seriously impair the scientific value of what we’re doing here at Aperture Science, to say nothing of the harm it would do to our profits, so I’m sending this warning to all members of my executive team. If I find out that you have disseminated the following to anyone, for any reason, you will become our next test subject.

That is all.

Walkthroughs

You can find a video walkthrough of Portal at YouTube, as well as a comprehensive text walkthrough at GameFAQs.

Developer Commentary and Achievements

After you complete a test area, you can replay it with developer commentary turned on. Press the use (E) key while pointing at a text balloon to listen to some thoughts from a member of Valve’s development team.

And don’t forget to keep Portal’s achievements in mind while playing. They include advanced versions of some of the later test areas, as if those weren’t difficult enough.

Woman running through a portal.

Cheat If You Must

To activate Portal’s available cheats, click Options in the main menu. Select the Keyboard tab, then click “Advanced…” and check the box next to “Enable developer console.” While playing the game, press the tilde (~) key to bring up the developer console. Type “sv_cheats 1” (without the quotes) and press Return to turn cheats on. Then type a code and press Return to activate it.

Note that the “npc_create” codes may require you to be in third person view for them to work.

If you want to summon a previously-entered cheat, simply press the up or down arrow key. That’s an easy way to enter different cheats that have the same words in them.

The Codes

ent_create_portal_metal_sphere — A metal ball appears; it bounces, for some reason

ent_create_portal_weight_box — A box appears

thirdperson — Switch to third person view

firstperson — Switch back to first person view

impulse 101 — Get a whole bunch of cool weapons, including some from Half-Life 2

give weapon_portalgun — Get the basic portal gun

upgrade_portalgun — Upgrade the basic portal gun to the one that creates both types of portals

npc_create npc_headcrab_fast — Summon a fast head crab

npc_create npc_poisonheadcrab — Summon a poison head crab

npc_create npc_zombine — Summon a scary flashing error sign

npc_create npc_alyx — Summon Half-Life 2 character Alyx Vance

npc_create npc_headcrab — Summon a regular ol’ head crab

npc_create npc_combine_s — Summon a Combine Soldier from Half-Life 2

npc_create npc_gman — Summon the mysterious G-Man from the Half-Life games

npc_create npc_fastzombie — Summon a fast zombie

npc_create npc_metropolice — Summon a Metropoliceman

notarget — Turrets won’t shoot at you (but they’ll still sigh with deep understanding when you knock them over)

buddha — You can take damage but you won’t die

god — God mode

noclip — You can move through walls, fly through ceilings, and drop through floors; it’s an easy way to get to an inaccessible area, if you can’t figure it out otherwise

sv_portal_placement_never_fail 1 — turn on the ability to place portals anywhere (substitute 0 for 1 to turn this off)

 
Do you have comments for this game article? Send us a note.