For those of you who are unfamiliar with Portal, this game is a first-person perspective puzzle game involving creating portals. However, this is not your mindless coloured square matching game you spend a few hours with a friend doing kind of puzzle game. This game is a commitment to a series of complex, thought provoking traps which feel like a real human experience and evoke questions about the human experience and survival. Not exactly something you see in your average Bubble Bobble. The main character, which goes nameless in the game but is otherwise referred to as Chell, undergoes testing in a science lab. She is expected to progress through a series of puzzles. At first the puzzles are simple and the test is a harmless series of rewarding experiences, but as mysterious messages appear and the test progresses, the player comes to realise there is something much more sinister going on...

The graphics of this game are simple and not too elaborate. They serve their purpose, however, emphasizing the fact that the lab is a controlled environment. After so many hours of playing in a gray and white environment, you come to understand the isolation and desolation of the prisoner of the labyrinth. You come to wonder if there will ever be a world outside the lab in the game, or if the entire universe of your character is this depressing.

When the player finally encounters an object which is inconsistent with the controlled environment, such as graffiti from what we can only assume is another test subject, it evokes a strong reaction and a great deal of reflective thought: "How many others have gone through this labyrinth?" One might be able to guess the number of times your own character has died is a reliable estimate, but when we account for the fact that many deaths were required in order to learn information about the environment, it is likely far more than the number of deaths of your character have passed through these same puzzles. It certainly is sad to think that so many people have endured this endless torture and wondered when they would finally leave the labyrinth and see their friends and family. Another questions the player may ask is, "who is this other test subject, is there a possibility of seeing him or her?" This question makes us realise how isolated the main character of the game must be. The player has had the opportunity to get up and leave the game, to talk to friends and family and go outside, to even take month long breaks out of frustration and horror of turrets, but the main character has been trapped in that gray labyrinth for an eternity, the only comfort present being the robotic comments of GLaDOS, attempting to sound human with her overly logic thoughts and the quiet yet helpful companion cube. Certainly the graphics themselves do not demand much, but the subtle role they play in the gamers experience is played very effectively. The nerdy and/or overly philosophical gamer is forced to see the message these simple graphics evoke: technology will never replace the simple comfort only another human can offer-- certainly an important message to the hardcore gaming audience.

Sound played an equally subtle yet incredibly effective role. Very little music, save for a theme used at the beginning and end of the game, was present. For the majority of the game, soundtrack was distant, echoing, clanking, and humming of machinery, which was absolutely terrifying. It was the aural equivalent to when you are walking in the dark, and the presence of the darkness convinces you there is something right in front of your face which you will smack into with every step. Without any distinct sound to guide you on your path, paranoia sets in and you are convinced that around every corner there is a turret ready to play a deadly game of peek-a-boo that paralyses you in panic. Like graphics, sound played a role in helping you to understand the isolation and horror of the main character as they attempt to survive this horrid labyrinth.

With every level, every obstacle conquered, not only did frustration and terror and isolation and depression accumulate, but so did your passion to have your revenge on the overseer of your torture: that harmonic voice that occasionally sounded from seemingly nowhere to give mysterious and vague advice, GLaDOS. So despite how much you hated the labyrinth, you loved the game because every puzzle was a step closer to having your revenge. The only reason you had to endure the endless failure, death and frustration was to reach and destroy the one responsible for your suffering. There were many times when I thought I quit Portal for good but defeating GLaDOS, and seeing the ending which had received so much praise, kept bringing me back until finally I reached the room where GLaDOS was, not only in voice but also in hardware.

I don't really think the ending was as "existential" as many claimed it to be. Certainly the dialogue dealt a great deal with coming to terms with one's own death and the meaninglessness of pushing one's way through the labyrinth when the only possible end was destruction, but I was so furious, so emblazed with the thought of killing GLaDOS, that I really wasn't interested in her lecture. I guess you could say I was resolute in a Heideggerian sense, because I knew exactly what I wanted for myself and was willing to confront my own death to get it, but killing GLaDOS didn't move me the same way as what happened after the explosion: I finally saw a patch of blue sky. For a second, could confirm I was out of the labyrinth and free. It wasn't the dramatic final battle, but that patch of blue sky that made tears well in my eyes.