10 Video Games That Are Best First Time Through

4. Portal

If you're looking for "Aha!" moments, you're looking for puzzle games. If you're looking for puzzle games, you're either looking for Portal, or have played Portal. This is science. What began as Valve's pet project has become one of gaming's defining cultural icons. It has also spawned one of the most abused one-liners in history, so it may actually net zero. In any case, Portal is an exceptional puzzler indeed. Its titular mechanic accomplishes in minutes what takes many puzzles hours, or at least a few laborious tutorials: teach the viewer to think differently. Screw Euclidean space, portals are the new age. Blue and orange are the answers to everything. But perhaps even more severely than with horror games, there's no room for imagination once you've cleared Portal. Commendably dark and humorous story aside, getting from point A to point B is the crux of the game. Charting a path, having that path fail horribly, and then trying again is where it's at. Once you know how to get that box through that hole and onto that platform, Portal is just a time trial.
 
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Contributor

A freelance games writer, you say? Typically battling his current RPG addiction and ceaseless perfectionism? A fan of horror but too big a sissy to play for more than a couple of hours? Spends far too much time on JRPGs and gets way too angry with card games? Well that doesn't sound anything like me.