Damn... time to dust this place off and get to updating.
As usual, when I hit a roadbump in the Real World, side projects such as this one get put on hold for a while. In this case, it was a job change.
I've been playing quite a few games lately, and I'll try to get to each of them in turn. For now, let me cover the one that took most of my weekend and came from an Orange Box.
Portal
Before I get into the specifics of Portal, I must say that The Orange Box is one of the best bang-for-the-buck deals available for consoles. Packed with five full games, this thing could keep you busy for a long while. That's especially true for me, as I have not played Half Life 2, the Half Life episodes, or Team Fortress.
There is no denying that Portal is short. I played through then entirety of the game in under four hours. Then when I played it again for one of the achievements, I was done in under 90 minutes. And I played it yet again for the developers' commentary.
The first time through was suspenseful and thrilling. The puzzles were challenging but not overly so. This last feature is a good thing, as Portal is a puzzle game. The environment is fully rendered and realized in the manner of a first-person shooter, but it is essentially a platformer puzzle game. Perhaps the most engaging part of the game, besides the challenging nature of the puzzles, is the characters and the plot. Of those I will not mention further - I'll not spoil anything here.
Capping off the entire delicious sweet treat of Portal were the credits, thanks to a wonderful song by Jonathan Coulton, he of Code Monkey fame.
I've started through Half Life 2, and it seems to be all it should be. More on that later. In any case, I heartily recommend trying (and possibly buying) The Orange Box - it's more fun than a barrel of codeless monkeys.
No comments:
Post a Comment