And then bitch that the game is “too short.”

Nowadays in games you gotta put your money shot right up front. Most reviewers write their reviews based on the first 3 levels.

Take for instance the screenshot from Episode 2 at the top of this post; in most games that’d be your money shot, put in at the climax. In Ep 2, it’s an establishing shot at the beginning of the game in a section designed to move you along and away from it as quickly as possible. And then they take shots like that and put a whole Combine army marching across, that you can only see through your super zoom binoculars, a subtle thing that makes you feel like you’re really there and wouldn’t be obvious when you’re just playing through. I’ve already been through three more “daaaaaaammmmn!” moments in Episode 2 (including when you first meet an Advisor) that prove they’ve got the technical stuff down; they’re focused on how to push a game further into genuine storytelling.

And if Portal had just been a college project, it still would’ve been a really neat and compelling game. The genius was applying art and comedy and storytelling to that.

Just felt the need to reiterate on that, since elsewhere in real life and on the internets I’ve had people shocked that I would dare to criticize Portal.

But I’d still be willing to write PR, if it helps get the expansion packs & sequels & puzzle sets done faster.

Portal, on the other hand, is giving me something I didn’t even know I wanted. But now that I completed it, I definitely want more. The biggest compliment I can give Portal is that it has that old Nintendo vibe at moments — that “Wow, I can’t believe I did that!” feeling of newness when you do something that sounds relatively simple. Not because I just got a headshot or blew up three tanks, but because I just jumped through a portal at the correct spot. (In fact, it’s when things start blowing up in Portal that it becomes less interesting.)

So I don’t know what’s after “Pixar of Videogames” — “Google of Videogames”? The latter company is certainly capable of delivering apps which I had no idea I wanted, and also employs a lot of really smart people. Or in Portal’s case, a few really smart kids who just got out of college.

–Matt