Portal

This was a triumph. Playing it is a delight from start to finish. Interesting puzzles and new ways of thinking, dark clever comedy, cognitive and reflexes tests in a first person shooter that has no violence per se, no real physical enemies. Just you, your trusty portal gun, and the oh so friendly GladOS.

Last night I finished the game for the second time, surprisingly it was still rewarding and I was still stranded for a little while in a couple of final puzzles. Even after beating the game once I couldn’t remember all the solutions. My so-called eidetic memory is as much of a sham as the proverbial cake.

After finishing the game I tried the advanced levels again, these I could remember easily (too much time stuck in some of them the first time hehe), even the crazy last level which made me a vanilla crazy cake. On a related note, my girlfriend got to lvl14 in her first attempt, and she has never played a FPS before, the game is just that intuitive; and well, she’s smart too. I’m gladly waiting for portal 2 now.

This little gem is hidden, waiting for you inside the orange box, it is more than hype now: it is endless intertubes memes.