If you jump down into a lower portion of a level, with the feeling that you won't be able to get back up, then you're almost always going the right way. Valve has always been good with this, even dating back to the first Half-Life.

I'm not sure what else to call it, so I'm going to call it that. What I mean is that it's always gently pushing you in the right direction, so you don't get lost and frustrated. The game is an exercise-no, a thesis-on signposting in video game design. More clever puzzles, more funny quips from robots, perhaps some new ways to interact with the environment. I guess I just assumed it would be more of the same. I didn't know how they were going to balance it, I didn't know how it wouldn't totally break the game or whether there would be situations where you would be stuck with just the portal gun, but I felt deeply that this would be the next step.įive years later and we haven't gotten a single word from Valve about the next stepping stone in the Half-Life series … but we do have Portal 2. I always kind of expected that Valve would incorporate the portal gun into HL2: Episode 3. The thing that amazed me was that everybody began to love Portal like an aborted baby that plopped into their lap and needed love. Oh, yes, Team Fortress 2 has gone on to define the amazing ways in which a developer can continue to add content to a game and encourage folks to rack up thousands of hours, and HL2: E2 certainly had its share of praise, but Portal was this fantastic shining thing that you could play through with your girlfriend or your mom and giggle and scratch your heads and smile very much about. It was short, but also gloriously sweet. Such a unique concept, such a great implementation of ideas and challenges, and such a funny, funny ending (as we all know).

Portal gun in half life 2