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The Importance of Portal
Team Fortress 2 and Episode Two may have been more anticipated elements of Valve's Orange Box offering, but it's the charmingly small Portal that's been getting a lot of attention in the last few days. MTV's Multiplayer blog thinks the game has the move of the year, and the Gamers with Jobs site offers up a convincing argument why Portal represents a significant step forward for storytelling in games: "Portal is an object lesson in interactive storytelling. We in the media are so fond of shaking our heads, scratching our beards and looking for the "art" in videogames. Well it's time for us all to shut the hell up. This is it. It's in this finely crafted, lovingly rendered piece of short-story literature. Honestly, I'd be surprised if the authors themselves see it as the accomplishment it is. It's a simple set of mechanics, a few pages of sound-booth dialog, a handful of textures and repetitive level designs. But then, a novel is only made up of 26 letters, black ink and white paper. And most artists of lasting brilliance don't recognize the importance of their own work. And how many now-revered musicians and painters died unknown and broke?" If you still haven't heard it, Jonathan Coulton's 'Still Alive' (the ending theme to Portal) has been in my head for over a week now. Just try to get it out of yours.
The thing I hate to see is that most review sites are docking points off their arbitrary number scales for its length. I normally wouldn't care how someone "scores" a game (and I rarely read reviews to begin with), but I fear it is indicative of a group of people who just don't get it. I've seen similar thinking kill games and good franchises in the past. Luckily it seems most people do see the genius at work and we'll be seeing more from the Portal universe.
If you can't see how a small team creating a fun, unique, and interesting game relying on mechanics instead of thousands of man-hours worth of art might be important to an industry currently weighted down by a thousand similar "next gen" "HD" games that play like bad renditions of the same things we played ten years ago, you need to rethink your hobbies.
For the last ten years or so the gaming industry has seemed to be all about franchises, once-a-year iterations of games with little content and less innovation.
Portal isn't about the plot--the plot helps it be endearing, but as you say it's "not-so-indepth." That doesn't mean it's bad (as you seem to imply), it just means that it's light. It's a humorous game. Nobody is claiming it's Faulkner. What it is is a capably done small-team game with mechanics which can lead to a thousand iterations of interesting puzzles (there are already a few custom maps with interesting puzzles involved). There are already several custom maps.
There is no video game written as well as East of Eden or Blood Meridian. That's not the point of video games; the point of video games is gameplay, and Portal is an absolute masterpiece of gameplay in an industry where that virtue has been forgotten. It's challenging (try the advanced levels and extra challenges if you don't think so) and unique. In addition to that, it's got a well-presented, witty storyline with more funny-per-minute than any game I've played--without resorting to the asinine juvenile humor most "funny" games rely on.
Hiding in your last statement, of course, there's a lesson about preconceptions. I leave that for you to find.
The story is subtle and slowly revealed -- from the growing realization that no human is watching you to see test areas that are broken down to finally wandering behind the scenes and getting the hints of what happened at the facility and the occasional clues that the computer is lying to you. Then there's the gleefully sociopathic devolution of her behavior towards you as it becomes more and more apparent that she sees you as a rodent to run though a maze an euthanize when it's all over.
The way the madness of the computer slowly becomes apparent and the way that she relentlessly screws with your mind -- from telling you that the Weighted Companion Cube will not stab you and cannot talk, but if it does you should just ignore it to the whole cake obsession to the callous way in which she highlights unnecessarily deadly parts of the test and so on -- are both masterful examples of storytelling.
It's good because it doesn't slap you in the face with what's going on. It's also a great example of good dark comedy writing.
"Have I lied to you? I mean, in this room? Trust me."
"That thing you broke isn't important to me. Not any more. It's the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit; it makes shoes for orphans. Nice job breaking it, hero."
"Cake, and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test. Thank you for helping us help you help us all!"
"Although the euthanizing process is remarkably painful, 8 out of 10 Aperture Science engineers believe that the companion cube is most likely incapable of feeling much pain."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").