So, I basically play first-person shooters. Anything else and I am not happy.

Having played Half Life and Half Life 2 over the years, of course I was keen to get Valve's compilation "The Orange Box", which, in a moment of marketing brilliance includes not only Half Life 2, Half Life 2 episodes 1 and 2 and Team Fortress, it also contains a little gem in the form of Portal. I have to admit, I have no interest in Team Fortress, and although I did want to get episodes 1 and 2, it was really Portal that had peaked my interest and led to my purchase. And I was utterly surprised to find that this little add-on game is probably the best game I have played, ever, without exception.

So how does this little first-person puzzle game shine brighter than the other games in the compilation? In fact, how does it manage to find a special place in my heart and beat the socks off the staples of my addiction - Halo, and shooting Nazis? In all honesty, I am not really sure.

Originally written as a student project and titled "Narbacular Drop", Portal is a short and incredibly simple game. The premise is straightforward: you play Chell, a female test subject at the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center*. You wake up in a sterile chamber in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, and from here start your testing, and your relationship with what seems to be the centre's AI called GLaDOS, her haunting yet captivating voice coming, it seems, from everywhere.

Simply put, your role is to (seemingly against your will) take part in a number of tests that utilise the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device: a device that creates (or "shoots") portals onto certain surfaces in each test room. Portals are blue or orange, and only one of each can exist at a time. You are able to use these portals to move both yourself and inanimate objects through - so if you shoot a blue portal on the floor, and an orange portal on the ceiling, then when you step into the blue portal you instantly pop out the orange one on the ceiling and drop to the floor.

Each test room presents a puzzle to you - get through a seemingly blocked route, place a weighted cube on a switch to activate a door and so on, and each room has a look and feel that is clean and clinical - leaving you with the feeling that you really are taking part in some sort of experiment, that you are a human lab-rat.

The tasks start off at a simple level, gently introducing you into the idea of portals, and how to use them to your advantage. Gradually, over the first few rooms, you are shown different uses and applications of the portal gun, until eventually you are using all the skills you have learned to solve more and more complex problems.

This all sounds fairly clinical, but despite the lack of any other characters in the game, save for you and the ever-present voioce of GLaDOS, the game manages to ooze character and charm from every pore. This is partially due to the writing and script - GLaDOS's comments are very darkly funny - and the story that unfolds as you play. For such a simple premise and a starkly cold setting, the game elicits real feelings of anger, fondness, concern, fear and humor as it plays out. And, surprisingly, despite the fact that the game only really lasts about three to four hours on first play-through, there is an incredibly deep backstory that is hinted at - subtly, and sometimes not so subtly - all the way through. Half-Life fans will also appreciate the references to Black Mesa here and there - seemingly Aperture Science's main competitor.

The designers have created a fantastic puzzle game with something that most others do not have - an engaging and captivating story and setting that really does draw you in, hook, line and sinker. As an example of that skill, consider this: all the effort that Bungie went to to make you feel shock and sadness when Sergeant Johnson is killed in Halo 3 - the action, the cheesy lines, the stirring music and facial expressions - Portal is able to do with a box. That's it. An inanimate box. The Weighted Companion Cube , to be exact. A box that does absolutely nothing whatsoever and is different to the myriad of other boxes only in that it has a pink heart painted on it. I won't give anything away, but you will find yourself feeling sadness and remorse. For a box.

And that's not even to mention the automated turrets, who I feel are the best game characters ever designed. They are adorable! How can an automated turret be adorable? Well, for a start, when you pick one up and drop it, and it tells you "I don't hate you", you know they are something special.

Once you complete the short main game, challenges and advanced options open up for you, where you can carry out some of the experiments as before but with restrictions on time taken, portals used or footsteps taken.

So, we have a small, simple game that grabbed me (and I enjoyed playing) more than any other game ever. Valve were incredibly clever to pick up the team of students that made Narbacular Drop, and with the application of the same Havok Physics engine seen in Half Life 2, Portal becomes one of those games that, if you haven't played it, you just can't call yourself a gamer.


For those who have finished the game, here's the end credits: I know I keep using this phrase, but this whole sequence?

Best. Credits. Ever.

* to get into the Aperture Science website, do some research - there lots of fun to be had there