Got some time to complete the orange box game Portal today. For those who never heard of the game, it’s one kinda unique first person shooters (FPS) meets puzzle games. Portal is developed by Valve, the same company which brought the world Half-life and brought the game Counter-strike into the retail channels.
The staff on the Portal project were previously students of the DigiPen Istitute of Technology who created an independent game freeware game Narbacular Drop in 2005. Portal is based largely on the original Narbacular Drop concept considering that the team are now all employed at Valve.
Certain elements have been retained from Narbacular Drop, such as the system of identifying the two unique portal endpoints with the colors orange and blue. A key difference in the signature portal mechanic between the two games however is that Portal’s “portal gun” cannot create a portal through an existing portal unlike in Narbacular Drop. Portal took approximately two years and four months to complete after the DigiPen team was brought into Valve, and no more than ten people were involved thus the rather small, short yet very funny gameplay portal offers.
Portal involves people going through 19 levels of the Aperture science enrichment test center, guided by a super intelligent computer by the name of GLaDOS, voiced by Ellen McLain, who also and the commentator voice in TF2.
About GlaDOS in Portal
GlaDOS is cool, I mean, she something like a near-perfect a biological operating system- she is a research computer who had hrashly overtook the Aperture facility by releasing a neuto-toxin gas, killing and evacuating everybody in the complex- She have only one purpose and ablity- develop the portal gun autonomously by means of volunteer tests subjects going through the enrichment test center- promising tasty and moist “Cake” at the end of the series of camber tests.
The mission ends with GlaDOS wanting to “murder you”, but you escape and put your familiarity of the portal gun to good test as you make you way from chamber 19 through the facilities research and industrial areas into GlaDOS central area, where she tries very comically to kill you just as how navie she is always in the game. Here is the last part of the last boss fight with GLaDOS damn funny speech:
I was not until I completed the game where I came to know that the eyes you throw into the fire actually speak- In the video you will see 4 different ball “modules” GlaDOS is made up of a central AI system which is hot-plugged with several control chip sphere to provide her with her various traits and/or to control her, with an explanation of each:
1) Purple (Quiet) – Morality eye – A hotfix install preventing the re-occurring release of the deadly toxin
2) Orange– The inquisitive eye which builds GlaDOS intelligence
3) Blue (Video with some overlapping content from other eyes)- The knowledge core of GlaDOS who is obsessed with “Cake”
4) Red The angry thing – The part with expresses anger and revenge
Portal will definitely be one of the most humorous games I’ve played. Now after playing portal I am so into my companion cube, I want one!
Here are more of an archive of GlaDOS voices through the game
Speech Part 2
Speech Part 3
And of course not forgetting the adorable sentry turrets as well.
