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Portal: Valve’s Masterpiece Franchise

Valve has always been known as the developer whose games are always great, but are few and far between. We’re also convinced they can’t count to 3. But a newly released virtual reality demo shows they are still hard at work with the titles we know and love. In order to showcase their knew VR handset, the Knuckles EV2 for the HTC Vive, Valve took us back to the beloved Portal universe. The demo, called Moondust, had the Aperture Science logo sprawled out over the spacial setting with the familiar blue and orange colors taking over the Heads-Up Display. The goal of the demo was to show how the Knuckles controller could recognize all five of your fingers, allowing you to grip and squeeze objects in the alternate reality with more precision and accuracy than ever before.

With the release of this tech demo, it gives us gamers an opportunity to relive just how great the Portal franchise is. While the original puzzle game was only a few hours long, it introduced us to Glad0s, a character we would quickly fall in love with despite her distorted, computerized voice always taunting us to our demise. We got to roam the halls of Aperture Science Labs, where the stark layout was joined with one of the greatest puzzle mechanics in gaming history: portals. For those unfamiliar, the game gave you a “portal gun” with which you could shoot white surfaces, generating a portal. Once two portals are created, the player, a female test subject named Chell, can travel between the two locations, manipulate objects and beams through the rifts, and use gravity to her advantage to traverse dangerous test chambers.

The game was followed up with a groundbreaking sequel, complete with an amazing and hilarious story, a co-op mode, and new features such as the speed and bounce gels, which all culminated into one of the best gaming experiences I have ever encountered, and one I can go back to at any time and still enjoy. The puzzles always feel fresh, no matter how many times you solve them. The atmosphere is so well done, the voice acting and dialogue is clever and witty, everything about the Portal franchise makes me so happy. And if we are to see a resurgence of any Valve titles, I hope dearly it’s this one.

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