Portal (PS3) Review

Date purchased: Sept. 5, 2016
Price paid: $29.99
Dates played: Mar. 30-31, 2020
Playtime: 9h 26m
Date reviewed: Mar. 31, 2020
Date posted: Feb. 18, 2023
Rating: 7/10

I liked the first half of the game (the tests), but really disliked the second half (escaping the facility) to where I ended up looking up a walkthough at that point just to finish it off. If the entire game was like the first half, it probably would be a 9 for me. There were a couple places where, as far as I could tell, you can easily get into an "unwinnable" situation, requiring a reload (assuming you aren't only using one save file and save inside that situation, at which point you'd need to restart) -- I spent probably over an hour in the last test in one of these spots until I figured out what else was on a timer. For the few places with platforming, it was a bit on the tough side for me to tell exactly where I was -- and when you're near an edge, look straight down, and it appears that you're standing off the edge in midair, it doesn't help in this regard. Needing to push over the turrets is a bit iffy, as there were many times when I thought I was lined up, only to "slide" around to its business end and take damage (this reminded me of the combat in Jurassic Park on Sega CD, as the game doesn't seem to me to be built around this aspect). If they were going for humor with the dialog, it completely fell flat, as it didn't even get a chuckle out of me, and I pretty much started ignoring it. The end boss is one of the more annoying that I've encountered -- it wasn't that tough as it took me maybe 10 tries, and most of those were running out of time trying to find the pieces that fall out of it. I never got the hang of the left analog stick being strafe rather than turning.

I don't see myself ever going back to it to do the advanced tests, or whatever.