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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.
Are we talking about Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, or something else?
*Facepalm*
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
and aside from what the title itself gives, it's a one-trick pony. There is nothing "important" about Portal, and it doesn't have anything in terms of storytelling that games before it have not had.
The article is written so poorly for GWJ that I don't think I've ever read anything so banal. Between the -ism headers and massive Wikipedia rewrite, the only thing worse than it is the same old "Still Alive" annoyance that others have been spouting. It was funny, but that's where the line ends. It's not a work of art.
Of course, that's alright. I didn't expect the poster to have played any games with any meaning if the only reason he went to play Portal was because TF2 servers were full. I played through it, it was a muse, and it's just another game with a not-so-indepth storyline that people think has some deep, holy-shit-it's-the-twilight-zone twist to it. It's a gimmick, really.
Personally I'd be more inclined to read an article labeled "The Importance of Flashback: Quest for Identity" or "The Importance of Deus Ex" or hell even "The Importance of Mario," a game that barely has a story yet has attracted millions of players. The former two, in my opinion anyway, had a heavy storyline, and I found Flashback in particular to have a great way of telling a story. I'm sure Portal will do that.
I did approach this article with a lot of criticism, and it turned out to be shit just as I thought. There is nothing important about Portal.
The DRM the game comes with requires there to be an active internet connection every time you play (even though it isn't a MMO). It also robs you of your right of first sale.
Too bad they had to encumber such a great game with such a bad set of restrictions.
So it get to the end and i see the cake and then it dumps me in a pile of fire (so i understand the "lie" now).. i have to say that was a really lame ending, and it seemed really short too..
I hope they answer a lot of the questions from this one in a possible sequel...