Portal

This has been a great week in San Francisco. Although perhaps not for the reason most people would expect. On Monday I discovered (well it was not hidden very well) a game called Portal.

The basic premise is that you have a "gun" that shoots portal entrances and when you have two of them you can travel between two points. It is a really fun puzzle based game and I played it straight though (I have not done that for a long time). It is not long, but is a huge amount of fun.

Anyway, so why am I blogging about it? Well first of it was a fun game. The second is that it won a whole load of awards at the Game Developers Choice awards this week. I wont go into all the awards it won, but they are on the awards website. What is even more inspiring is that the lead designer, Kim Swift, got a job with Valve straight out of school two years ago. You can read an interview on IGN with Kim for more information, but wow, cudos to her and her team.

Portal is part of the Valve Orange box which you can get from most game shops, or for $20 you get download it from steam.

Alasdair

P.S. Sid Meir the inventor of Civilization and many other great games got a well deserved lifetime achievement award, I just hope he keeps on making great games in the future.