Portal, The Orange Box's puzzling suprise

I took advantage of Steam’s weekend deal and finally brought myself to buying The Orange Box, a collection of six amazing games published by Valve, three of which are new content, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. The first one I played and the one I was most looking forward to was Portal. Here are my thoughts.

Portal is a first person puzzle game. You play as a test subject in Aperture Science and the goal is to get from A to B by shooting portals that let you travel from one place to another. There are a total of 20 (00 – 19) stages, which may sound like very little, but each one is elaborate and unique. The game is actually pretty short, and I played it to completion in about 3 hours. As a stand alone game, this would be unacceptable, but as part of The Orange Box, this is actually very good value and an amazing component of the package.

The story is very good and the GlaDOS character very funny. You never really know when she’s being sarcastic or serious. The closing song, Still Alive, really wraps things up perfectly.

Graphics are good, though not amazing. I had a few framerate problems at time, but it was probably just my relatively crappy 8400M graphics card being stubborn. Loading times were awful, though, but that seems to be a problem with all Valve games, so I won’t specifically blame Portal for that.

The gameplay itself is the heart of it all. There are obviouly the portals, but there are also cubes and buttons. As with other Source games, the physics engine is outstanding and all sorts of manuevers can be done by falling through portals.

All in all, this is an amazing game and a great addition to The Orange Box. If you like puzzle games, shooters, and good stories, this is the game for you.

Portal is available on its own on Steam, or as part of The Orange Box on Steam, Xbox 360, and PS3.

Please fix me!!

When I first played Braid, the game ran extremely slowly. After hunting down the issue for a while, it seems to have something to do with vertical sync and Nvidia graphics cards (here’s the story in the official Braid blog). Here’s how I fixed it.

1. Open the Nvidia control panel. (Right-click on the desktop)

2. Go to 3D Settings » Manage 3D settings. Go to the Program Settings tab and click the Add button.

3. Navigate to the Braid installation folder (by default it should be C:Program FilesBraid) and double-click on the braid.exe file.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the settings list and on the very last item, Vertical sync, change the setting to Forced on.

5. Click the apply button and close the control panel. Launch Braid and enjoy!

This worked for me with the Greenhouse version of Braid and an Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS. Did it work for you? Please leave a comment!

Braid has finally been released for the PC!

Braid, the beautiful and award-winning Xbox Live Arcade title released last year, has finally been released for the PC. I bought it, I played it, and I loved it.

The game seems like you typical platformer on the surface. You run, you jump, and you kill enemies by stomping them. However, the interesting part comes up in its unique gameplay element: time manipulation.

You go around the level collection puzzle pieces that you later use to assemble a full puzzle. There are 5 different worlds and each one has its own different way of playing with time. Some levels in different worlds might look similar, but the mechanics of each world make every puzzle unique and challenging.

And the game sure is challenging. Some puzzles look very difficult. It takes a lot of patience to solve them all. I’m not a huge fan of puzzles, but I have to admit that Braid’s mixture of challenge, simplicity and cleverness makes it worth tearing my brain apart. :D

Probably what I like most about Braid is its art style. It’s very paintery and reminds me a lot of the kind of paintings you see in an impressionist gallery at an art museum. The animations are done wonderfully, so you really have to see the game in play to admire its full artistic prowess. I also like that the game pays homage to other famous platformers like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros.

A really nice touch about the game is that there is no loading screen, no title screen, and no game selection screen. When you start the game, you take off immediately outside the door of the level where you left off. This is great for impatient gamers like me. ;)

Braid's beautiful art style is unique and plays homage to classic games like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong.

My veredict: Beautiful game, tough a bit short and very difficult at times. Highly recommended if you love puzzles and have a bit of patience. I don’t generally like puzzle games, but I loved this game, and if you’re like me, maybe you’ll love it too!

Braid is available on Steam, Greenhouse, Impulse and Gamersgate for $15. Demos are available, so no excuses for not trying it out!

Braid trailer from David Hellman on Vimeo.