Its hard to believe that a game that was released as part of a bundle package could be received so positively, especially when part of that bundle included Half-Life 2. However, Valves first-person platform-puzzler became such a success that a second game was commissioned and voiced by non-other than the witty genius Stephen Merchant. Portal follows Chell, a guinea pig testing the capabilities of the Aperture Science portal gun in a series of experimental rooms. The portal gun has very simple capabilities, in which it can fire a blue and orange portal - the combination of which are intrinsically tied and can be used as an entrance or exit and any direction - enter the blue, exit the orange... the rest is up to you - so, walking through a portal against a wall could have you dropping through a portal placed on the ceiling for example. The only other character in Portal is GLaDOS, an artificial intelligence who guides you through the puzzles of each level, before turning a tad insane and ordering you to incinerate yourself. This simple game not only presents an increasingly intelligent and challenging set of puzzles, a humorous robotic voiceover character but also a dark hidden backstory of which a former test subject has scrawled cryptic messages in hideaways hinting towards GLaDOSs true nature and her lies of a prized cake you may or may not actually get your hands on. Youll definitely have a hard time finding a more engaging and challenging puzzle game than portal. R.I.P Companion Cube.
