For many gamers, sometimes it’s hard to beat a classic. Despite the range of improvements and directions made with the Portal sequel, Portal 2, players still have a soft spot for the original Portal game, and defend some of its innovative design. There are players out there who see Portal as better than its sequel, and there’s a competent argument as to why.
Although there is nothing inherently wrong with Portal 2, and its audience and critical reception speak for itself, sometimes players simply prefer the first. After all, one doesn’t forget their first love, and the puzzles in Portal were unique by design and conception.
6 GLaDOS Reveal
Throughout the majority of the first Portal game, GLaDOS was just a voice, a strangely disconnected voice that sounded almost robotic. However, players just assumed that whoever was behind this voice didn’t have the best microphone in the world. That was until it was revealed that GLaDOS was a rogue AI computer that had done some fairly messed up things.
The reveal of GLaDOS as the villain, and a mechanical one at that who had been judging, berating, and annoying Chel and the player throughout the test chambers made it all the more shocking. This unique villain may have returned for Portal 2, but the shock of her appearance could only be replicated in the first Portal game.
5 Immersion
The solitude of Portal helps to make it a unique experience. The game is quiet, and it assists the title by doing so. The playable protagonist Chel does not speak, and the only words they can ever hear are from GLaDOS. It’s not like Valve’s other titles, and players will have a world to immerse themselves in, with no voice able to speak through to them and their actions.
Not only did the audio assist with the immersion of the original Portal game, but the visuals did too. The test chambers were grimy, disgusting, and abandoned, begging the question of what happened here, and where here is. There was a beauty to the isolation and the entrapment within these test chambers that seemed nigh on endless.
4 Training Chambers
By far, Portal is a shorter game than its sequel. This works to the advantage of Portal, as it acts more as an experience than a game. In the shortness of Portal, players are in no rush to solve the puzzles before them, and the very lack of puzzles makes each room more mysterious and challenging than the last to keep that game time up.
The training chambers in Portal seem far more difficult than they were in Portal 2. Not only is this because this was the players’ first entry into the franchise and its mechanics but because there was more time and care dedicated to each room, rather than Chel running across an abandoned factory.
3 The Cake Is A Lie
A phrase that has seemingly died in the gaming community, left behind in the obscurity of early gaming culture is “The cake is a lie”. This cake was a large motivational factor for the player, as GLaDOS promised it as a reward for completing the challenges. However, the phrase itself indicates that GLaDOS is not what she seems, and is a liar to be warned of, and feared.
“The cake is a lie” has been used in other various media, and although the phrase is as stale as a cake would be from 2007, it’s still nice to recognize this iconic phrase from gaming culture all those years ago, which has seen some popularity in even games like Dragon Age and Minecraft as a result of the infamous cake from Portal.
2 Portal Humor
The writing team behind one of Valve’s best games balanced the tones of humor and suspense well. There are a lot of jokes in Portal, and some of which may very well go over the players’ heads due to their tongue-in-cheek nature, and dry style. The humor in Portal may not be to everyone’s taste, but it's bitterness and unapologetically dark tones made for a clever sense of humor that is respected still to this day.
No one can deny that the humor in Portal 2 is good, it's just that the humor is somewhat more obnoxious and loud, thanks to characters like Cave Johnson and Wheatley. The humor is more absurdist than what was originally conceived in Portal 1. However, humor is subjective after all.
1 Simpler Tools
There were far simpler inventions and odds that players had to use and face in Portal. Armed with nothing but the mysterious and genius invention of the portal gun, players had to make their way through the test chambers by using the white materials to get through. They could also somewhat ‘cheat’ by using turrets and other cubes to their imagination.
However, in Portal 2, players have more mechanics to worry about, such as the many different colors and functions of slime, sludge, and goo. These elements may deter players for their strange nature, whereas Portal allowed players to get by with just a simple tool of a portal gun.