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I don’t play many games. Partly it’s because I they don’t stack high on my priority list of “things to do when I have free time”. And it’s also because I don’t really enjoy it anymore – which probably strikes people as weird. To be honest, I did enjoy playing games when I was young, like “Myst”, “Lost Eden”, and similar titles. I think video games may have lost their creativity as the mass audience starting growing. That’s why so many titles are just clones of the same shooting formula which I was never really that interested in. There aren’t many titles that can really dazzle the viewer and make them glad that they experience it. It’s the same distinction which applies to excellent films – they make the user feel as if he/she is better off for having experienced it. That it has affected them more than simple entertainment.

I started playing Portal recently. Portal is an original, unique, and fun game. I wouldn’t say that it fulfills the ideal that I was rambling about in the previous paragraph, but it’s still enjoyable. Rather than obsessing over making the best-looking graphics, Valve came up with some pretty interesting technology that allows for the use of portals – basically doorways that can appear anywhere and lead to anywhere else. For example, there could be a portal on one side of the room and that leads to a portal on the top of the room. So you run through the portal, and then come flying down from the roof into the same room. There was a game called “Prey” which used this as well, but in a much more boring way – just the same typical shooting game, except with portals.

Portal, though, is a puzzle game where the player can manipulate these puzzles, attempting to solve different “tests”. They involve different things – trying to reach an area by manipulating portals, or trying to guide a small “ball” into a specific area by making it pass through different portals. There’s a lot of really cool concepts in this game that are absolutely fun to experience. This is the first time I’ve looked forward to having some free time to play a game. The only problem is that it is too short. I was playing through the levels, really enjoying the new concepts, and thinking that it was all just preparation for the “real” levels, where you’d be put to different tests all of which required you to use all the tools you had been given so far…but the game ended soon after. Still, I definitely recommend that you pick this game up. It’s very original and very satisfying.