When talking to some fellow members of the site a month or so ago, someone told me that, as an undergraduate civil engineer (and thus professional solution-hunter), the primarily logic-based mechanics of Portal would be my slice of cake. Intrigued, and weeks away from turning 19, I put in a gift request. The Orange Box arrived at my dorm two weeks later. Eager to progress beyond the ten-level Portal: First Slice demo version, I began immediately. This blog (which, for the record, is nearly twice the length of anything I’ve done before) is my experience.

Anyone who is reading this has played Portal and thus knows the basic premise, so I won’t explain the rules here. Suffice it to say I had loads of fun. Portal was the first game I had played that had puzzle-solving as the main focus and the only game I had played that was fully first-person. Getting used to the WASD movement scheme and camera control took some time, but I had fun while I was at it.

As I played, I noticed a few flaws in the game design. All of these were cosmetic in nature, however, and had more to do with how I would have developed the game in contrast to Valve. Most of the time, I was intently focused on discovering the game’s true purpose. While I waited to find that particular reward, I amused myself detaching cameras from the walls and trying to make the Terminal Velocity achievement (which is a test of patience in addition to dexterity).

Then I hit the dreaded turret level. Ironically, I was looking forward to these robotic weapons, having seen them in the brief trailer for the game. When I first entered the door and one of the turrets began hopelessly firing at me through two panes of glass, it was almost funny. This elation went away fast, though. I had assumed the turrets would be easy to avoid and relatively harmless, the kind of thing more meant to block access than pose a real threat. When one of the turrets swiveled towards me, said “I see you” in a childish and vaguely disturbing voice, and fired a burst of rounds, I automatically fell back. Turning around, I looked on in visceral horror as blood, MY blood (thanks a lot, first-person perspective), stained the wall.

I later made a second run-through of the test chamber and was more successful this time. It did not, however, alleviate the issues I had with the design. I’m a very direct sort of person, and when being attacked, my instinct is to either run away or counterattack. In other words, I don’t want to dash out and try to place a portal on the ceiling; I want to dash out and BLOW THAT SHIT UP. Seriously, if I’m holding a device capable of breaching the fabric of space and time, would it be too much to ask to include some sort of weapons system? If it can tear holes in the universe, surely it can vaporize a turret.

The turrets weren’t difficult in concept. I managed to disable all of them (though I only found out you could pick up and drop them after some research), and anyone who doubts that should see my Steam achievements page. The difficulty was in accuracy. In several instances, I had to portal several cubes into the turret, sometimes manually shifting them when they got stuck in the portal itself, all because my initial portal shot, made in the half second you have before the turret locks on, was off by a few feet. It was just annoying.

The last of the puzzles had similar problems to the turret level. It was here that I realized something I hadn’t when writing an earlier blog about first-person games: reflexes and timing are far more critical in these genres than in many others. When I made it past the rapid-moving energy ball and unexplained partition, only to be cheerfully informed that my equipment could survive 4000-degree temperatures, I nearly panicked. Without the use of a decent pause function and only a limited amount of time to act, I attempted to place one portal on the faraway platform and another nearby where I could leap to safety. I died four times on that challenge, primarily because the WASD control scheme makes quick changes in direction counterintuitive for new players. I miss the Wii’s control stick.

Dying in the game didn’t bother me, and in fact I was killed many different times during the last three chambers. However, recall that dying simply places you at your last save or autosave. Since I save compulsively (in some games I rack up more saves than days playing) it meant dying placed you back 20 feet. That is both annoying and meaningless. Why should the game include anything that can kill you if it just means 30 seconds of repetition?

When I hit the first rocket launcher, I quit.

This is where the analysis began. There are very few games I have failed to complete, even when they became exceptionally difficult. What was different about Portal that made me (to be perfectly blunt) rage-quit a highly rated game? I went through an online walkthrough and the developer’s commentary, as well as making a second run of the game just past the turret level. After all this and several nights lying awake in bed, I came up with a few hypotheses. None of these are game-enders, but they did contribute to the feeling of pointlessness I began experiencing over time.

The first issue was that it didn’t seem like Portal was rewarding me either intellectually or emotionally. Yes, a game shouldn’t give you needless tidbits every level, but I felt in the last stages of Portal that the reverse was happening. While the protagonist did not improve at all, the challenges and dangers multiplied without bound. I just thought the risk-to-reward ratio was so high it made the game almost a parody. Because the game’s plotline trivialized accomplishments, my desire to continue was pretty much shot even before I made the decision to leave.

I’ve given a lot of thought to WHY we continue games, and why some games can be endlessly replayed and others discarded after a few hours. Obviously, constant reward is one way to do that, while long-term story and end goals are another. The issue is, I had no idea the ending for Portal was so incredible. Honestly, I suspected it would be the end credits overlaid with the loading screen music. The actual ending would be a significant reward, IF the player knew about it.

Second, I detested the later stages’ reliance on more than mental ability. Whether it was due to my inexperience in the first-person view or my spectacularly bad luck when it comes to anything physical, in many cases success or failure was determined by accuracy and speed, not intelligence. Practice will of course help, and I believe that to be true for all genres. As I said, I had a few issues with the WASD control interface, but again, nothing that some work won’t solve. I just was under the impression Portal was entirely puzzle-based, like Tetris (which has some reflexes involved, but not much).

Finally, Valve’s attempt to create an extensive backstory for Portal had no effect on me. Apparently, canon for the Portal universe references the world of Half-Life 2, including the existence of an entity called Black Mesa. But since I have never played Half-Life 2 and have only a limited interest in doing so, that history falls flat. Instead, the game appeared disconnected from any logical system, forcing the player to guess as to the events leading up to the game. I don’t know about you, but I really detest it when games refuse to reveal their secrets. In my system, an excellent game is never ambiguous.

Nevertheless, I’m going to give the game a second shot. It probably was an overreaction to stop in the first place, even if by that point I was feeling a little jaded. I just want everyone to be aware that, as I see it, Portal could have made a much better impression. It’s a very good game, to be sure. It just wasn’t the exact sort of cake I had ordered.