Hello World,
Ok, so my life seems to consist of just gaming and watching movies at this precise moment in time but hell, I’m having fun doing it so what does it matter? Anyway, have also recently been introduced to Valve’s Portal. When Portal first came our I was reluctant to purchase it as, on Steam on my PC, I already owned Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life Episode 1 and 2, Half-Lif e Deathmatch and Lost Coast, so basically 90% of The Orange Box and I wasn’t going to pay £17.99 for what seemed like a demo game. However, having met a guy here at Uni who had it downloaded on his 360, I saw the benefits of purchasing the game. After a quick peak on eBay, I stumbled across The Orange Box on the 360 for a mere £8.00 delivered; BARGIN I thought 
Portal: Still Alive
Have now played Portal through from beginning to end several times and it has to be said, what an awesome concept for a game! My only wish is that they could have made it longer and a much more intelligent story line similar to Half-Life 1 or 2. They definitaly should implement the idea into the 3rd HL2 episode – would make for a very interesting tool and I can only begin to imagine where the story could take you.
Anyway, moving on to the game itself. As you begin, the character is awakening in, what can only be described as, a confined room, isolated from any other existence. It soon becomes apparent you are nothing more than a lab rat in quite honestly, a maze of different tasks. At first I didn’t think much of the story, but you soon, or at least I did, grow suspicious of the computer that directs you through the different levels. Needless to say, these suspicions are soon heightened (don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil it for you). Story wise, there is much of ones to follow and in that respect, it is more of a demo than a game, but a ‘boss’ character has been implemented and there is a definitive ending.
The Portal Gun
So the idea of Portal is quite an advanced way of thinking; you can generate two portals in which you can use to move between. For instance I place a blue one on one side of the room and an orange on the other then I can walk through one or the other and end up the other side. Naturally, they’ve taken this further, building a set of stages that require you to use portals in an array of ways to navigate through the game. I particularly like the fact that if you go in at a high speed, you come out the other side at a high speed; this allows to you effectively turn yourself in a human projectile, literally throwing yourself hundreds of feet across obstacles (VERY useful in this game!). As I said, this game is highly intelligent and really makes use of a fantastic piece of technology. I would love to see this taken further, I really would.
I would highly recommend playing Portal at least once in your life even if you don’t buy your own copy, borrow it from some one and play it through! Granted, I wouldn’t pay £17.99 (or whatever it is on Steam now) but if you get the chance I would play it. As a quick rating, 8/10 for the graphics; whilst the portal effect is HUGELY impressive, the rest of the game is fairly standard. 8/10 for the sound as sometimes the computer voice can be somewhat incoherent (I know this is sometimes the desired effect…) and the lack of music irritates me sometimes. 10/10 for gameplay; the Portal idea itself is fantastic, but then to take it and turn it into a fully interactive game is even more wonderful. A true Valve masterpiece and I look forward to a future instalment or, indeed, seeing it in Episode 3.
Peace,
Chris
But I’m sure it will be epic and definately looking forward to it 
But yeah, am really getting in to it now and have 5 weeks to produce it; have already done a lot of our scripting, audio and character designs and I will most likely post a few examples of this over the next few days… we shall see how I’m feeling