TEH. BEST. GAMES. EVAR.
By Andr~Af^A(c) Swartley

Issue #23
Portal
Developer: Valve Software
Publisher: Valve Software
Platform: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Rating: T for Teen

As I haven~Ac^a'not^a"ct reviewed any First-Person Shooter games in the entire run of this column, I hope you~Ac^a'not^a"cll forgive me a bit of historical background before I get to Portal. I spent much of my freshman year of high school secretly playing Id Software~Ac^a'not^a"cs classic, Wolfenstein 3D. As a kid who never owned a games console other than his dad~Ac^a'not^a"cs PC, I had mostly played point-and-click adventures and free platformers like Commander Keen. Wolfenstein introduced me and most of the gaming world to the First-Person Shooter (FPS) genre. I had to play it in secret because it was, at the time, terribly violent and my parents would have flipped out if they~Ac^a'not^a"cd seen me playing it.

What made this type of game so revolutionary was not that you could see the game world through your protagonist~Ac^a'not^a"cs eyes. Role playing games like Dragon Quest, Ultima, and Dungeons & Dragons had been employing a static first-person battle perspective for years. Wolfenstein broke important ground by allowing you to MOVE through the world in real time while seeing it through the protagonist~Ac^a'not^a"cs eyes. And also shoot Nazis who shouted things like ~Ac^a'notA"Guten Tag!~Ac^a'not^A