No Longer Behind The Times: Figure Five Finally Plays Portal

Today the First Mate and I celebrated the fact that we both had a Sunday off in much the same manner as two-toed sloths: We spent the day eating, sleeping, and playing Portal. (Okay, I'm assuming these two-toed sloths all have PCs and remarkably flexible claws.) I normally do my gaming with a bulging bag of many-sided dice and a binder full of stat sheets, so I was a little leery. I don't really have anything against electronic gaming, but I am really uncoordinated. As such, it tends to make me feel pretty terrible about myself when I spend fully 75% of play trying not to run into walls, and failing at it most of that time. Portal came very highly recommended to me, though, so I figured I would give it a shot.

I didn't get up until seven hours later. It was one of the more engrossing entertainment experiences I've ever had. The concept is ingenious, and it's really well implemented in the game. Andy and I traded off levels, and I conscripted him to go through some of the more fiddly bits of mine, but even so, gameplay was smooth and intuitive enough that even I could manage it. Most importantly to me, the writing shines. The whole thing was so clever I was practically clapping my hands with delight. (And yes, fine, I did place two portals immediately facing each other and then spend five minutes running an infinite loop and yelling "WEEEEE!" Shut up.) When we made it through the whole thing, we decided that celebration was in order.

 Pictured: Celebration. Not Pictured: Companion Cube tribute montage.

So the point is, I suppose, that now that I've finally decided to get into more technologically advanced geekery I'll have to pick up some of that damned hand-eye coordination I spent my childhood avoiding. The other point is that if you're one of the other people who was living under a rock when Portal came out, go download it now. It's even free until May 24th, so you really have no excuse.