Fallin' through a hole in the sky

Portal. If you haven't heard about it, you can't consider yourself a gamer. It's part of Valves' Orange Box, and although it's shortest of the plethora of games on offer here (just beating out Episode 1, because you have to actually stop and think), it's far and away my favourite. Oh sure, Episode 2 is a great single-player experience, but it's more of the same - nothing new is brought to the table. Team Fortress 2 is deliriously fun multiplayer action, and looks and plays fantastically - but it's also just a slightly different take on an existing formula, simplified a bit (undoubtably to make it more accesible for the console gamers).

On the other hand, Portal takes a relatively original idea of allowing the player to create two portals in walls and floors -an entrance and an exit- and pass between them, and creates a number of fiendish puzzles and mind-bending connundrums around it. Although the idea was first explored in the freeware Narbacular Drop, Portal takes it, runs past several defenders, nutmegs the goalie and scores a stunner.

It's superb. The level design is excellent, the puzzles slowly become more and more complex. It has a great atmosphere that mixes the uncertainty of blindly following orders from a disembodied computerised voice for the promise of cake, and the feeling of utter isolation and helplessness. There's no combat in the game, and you can't directly deal with the gun turrets you come across - you've got to figure out a way past them, or somehow deactivate them.

In short, this is the best lateral-thinking puzzle game I've played since Crush (why, oh why did you people not buy it?). Although it's a touch short (clocking in at under 4 hours - I would have liked to have seen an additional 5-10 levels), the Advanced versions and Challenge modes that become available go some way to extending the life of the game - and believe me, you'll be sitting scratching your head at them for a while.

I can't wait for the 3rd party levels - I'm rather looking forward to seeing what new challenges the modding community can come up with.