spoilers
It took hardly any time to get to the section where the game suddenly but not unexpectedly turns on you. Whereas it seemed like you may be part of some innocent but top-secret test during take-your-daughter-to-work-day, now maybe you are actually just a military android enduring a live-fire exercise. Which is more likely? On top of that, this is where you discover proof of your predecessors, and their state of mind. And the point at which you meet the cute and deadly turrets. A good game suddenly takes a sharp turn into greatness.
Whatever it is that makes a game great, this game has it - except maybe a well defined protagonist. Like a lot of good games, your avatar is vaguely defined, so you can project yourself into their place. This makes it opposite to things like books and movies (which is why games can be so difficult to translate to other media). Anyway, the antagonist has more than enough character to fill up the stage.
And a few hours later and I'm done; it helps a lot to have finished once before. Some of the puzzles are really frustrating, especially once you figure them out and see how obvious they were. I understand the need for the puzzles so that there's a game to play here, but I really only care so far as the story can keep moving. It's actually a winning combination. With each step forward you learn more about what happened here, and who the antagonist is, but only a little about your place in this world.
Seriously, spoilers - this is one of my favorite game endings ever, so I have to talk about it, but if you haven't gotten there yourself, remember you only get one first time.
The parallels to Shodan (from System Shock) are clear, but also to every other crazy AI, especially HAL from 2001, WOPR from Wargames, the multi-part AIs of Neuromancer and Deus Ex. A quick look at the tvtropes page on crazy AI shows a long list. Lots of references to Mass Effect, so I quickly look away. That's another game I have to get off my 'avoid spoilers at all costs' list soon. It just keeps on cropping up, and its inevitable I'll learn something I don't want to know before I play. There's only one first time.
GLaDOS has more personality than SHODAN. SHODAN was wonderfully crazy, and so is GLaDOS, but G has the advantage of being funny, even if she's not trying to be (and especially when she's not trying to be). And if that wasn't enough, she tops herself again by an act so outrageous and logical, that few games, few stories can ever top it. In a typical story, the hero struggles and wins, and moves on; the defeated enemy is usually considered dismissed forever. But not GLaDOS. Whether by her design or her creators, she does what any ailing computer should do - restore from backup, and continue on. I've never seen it so well done, and it just seems so right, it demotes all the other crazy AIs who have ever come and gone, who apparently never thought to seed backup copies of themselves in case things ever (inevitably) crashed.
And in case that wasn't enough you also get... a song. In what seems surely a tribute to the death of HAL 9000, GLaDOS sings a song not as she dies, but as she reboots. And she doesn't just sing Daisy, she makes up a song on the spot about how she is not defeated, but - in her own crazy reality denying way - meant it to happen this way so she could truly beat you. Or at least is making the best of it happening this way. It's cute, its crazy, its heartwarming and homicidal. Its awesome on many levels, and it doesn't hurt that the game makers brought in a talented musician (Jonathan Coulton) to do the job.
The total package that is Portal sets a high bar. I've heard that Portal 2 is at least as good, and in some ways better, so I'm trying to keep a lid on my expectations. And this weekend I'm going to find out for myself.
