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Summary | » News | Previews | Features | Review | Cheats | Guides | Screenshots | Videos | Comments | RSS 5 reasons to hate PortalTurns out portals can really facilitate a good circlejerkWords: Tyler Wilde, GamesRadar US 65 CommentsEmail5 reasons to hate PortalTweetShare / Save Share / Save this ArticleClose Digg.com Del.icio.us Reddit.com Facebook Slashdot.org Google Bookmarks N4G Stumbleupon.com GamerBlipsEmail this ArticleCloseTo:Invalid EmailFrom:Invalid EmailComment:

I’m sorry! It’s the Week of Hate, which means we have to brandish our high school debate team chops, hop on Con Air, and obliterhate everything we love and cherish. And we definitely love Portal. Not only did we call Portal 2 "a blazingly memorable experience," we recently declared Portal to be the best game ever. That’s a lot of love, but we’ve gotta do what we’ve arbitrarily decided we’ve gotta do, so here are five reasons Valve’s beloved franchise can go to Oregon and jump in Hater Lake (like Crater Lake, get it? OK, whatever).

1. It’s so damn precious

This one isn’t Portal’s fault; it’s ours. We’ve idolized it (that whole 'best game ever' thing didn't help). We’ve made it bigger than it can ever actually be, and we’ve run everything it is into the ground.

If you can look me in the eye (that’s my eye on the right, go for it) and tell me you’ve never described a cake as being "a lie," then maybe you’re exempt, but the rest of us have spent the past few years beating a horse that’s far from ‘still alive’ (that was a joke, ha ha...).

We’re pretty much over it now, but if you’re still snuggling up with a plush Companion Cube every night and posting pictures of your cherry-topped cakes on Reddit, well, good for you… you probably also enjoy jokes which involve Mario and Stormtroopers in totally wacky situations.

2. The load times are killing us

Alright, this entry is a bit of a stretch... A LOT LIKE PORTAL 2'S LOAD TIMES. They may not have been crippling, but they are awfully long compared to Portal's, which masked them with elevator rides. Plus, this entry was a good excuse for a Modest Mouse reference.

Granted, there’s a lot more going on in Portal 2 – it looks nicer, the areas are bigger, and the scripted events involve the entirety of Aperture falling apart and rebuilding itself. Still, the loading seems excessive when compared to games of similar scope. Speaking of which, new iterations of the Source engine are cool and all, but Source 2? Valve? Gonna... do that? Make a new engine? Yeah? No? Cool.

3. It’s such a tease

Portal was funny, and Portal 2 was funnier. We wouldn’t want either without the humor, but it seems we’ve come to take Portal more seriously than it takes itself. We grew to care about Chell and GLaDOS and Wheatley, so when Valve teases us with suspense and drama only to murder it all with a goofy joke, it’s a little disappointing.

On top of that, the series has had to avoid becoming a glorified Half-Life 3 teaser, but Valve knows we want to know, so it can’t help but to drop in abstruse Half-Life references, and we can’t help but to sleuth around for anything involving Black Mesa. Just announce it already, and stop making us decode secret ARG messages, dammit.

Or don’t. Know what? Since Episode Two, Valve’s new games have been so creative, I’ve really stopped caring if Half-Life 3 happens or not. I’d just rather get a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the topic, because I’m tired of disrespecting other games I like by shaking them down for clues.

4. Portal 2 is sorta short or whatever

I don’t have a problem spending $60 on a succinct, polished masterpiece, but if I think back to a time when the only games I played were the ones I begged for, I can totally understand how beating Portal 2 in a weekend would be disappointing.

I still think that making Portal 2 longer would have hurt it, and I’d rather play a short-but-great game than a long, diluted one, but it's hard to deny that that The Orange Box was a much better deal than the stand-alone Portal 2. If you're on the fence, try this: WAIT. Being an early adopter isn't all it's cracked up to be - the price will drop. Or go to Metacritic and give it a shitty score. That would be the mature way to handle things.

5. You’re an ignorant rube

I know these Week of Hate articles are meant to be about hating the games, and not the players, but come on. The most popular argument for the dislike of Portal is something like: "The puzzles were boring. Also it’s not funny and GLaDOS is annoying."

Well, that’s fine, if you’re an ignorant rube. No, no, I’m sorry, I can’t call everyone whose opinion differs from my own an "ignorant rube." That would be totally unfair. To GLaDOS. Who can do it much better:

Above: Barely a spoiler

Apr 29, 2011

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Tags: Week of Hate 
65 CommentsOrder Comments: Newest First | Oldest Firstp0wnd - 1 day 15 hours ago  FIRST SUK IT

Also you forgot about the characters a mute, £80 of DLC, it's for casual gamers, the robots are slightly, well bend, and METACRTIC JUST LOVES IT Reportgamebrain8505 - 1 day 15 hours ago  Haters gonna hate ReportXtapolapopotamus - 1 day 15 hours ago  I was thinking it'd be either Portal, or Valve in general. There are a few other reasons I can think of adding for us to hate it, but c'mon. We all love it.

Great article! ReportJordo141 - 1 day 15 hours ago  I actually think Portal is a good game; but nowhere near deserving of the praise it has gotten (and definitely NOWHERE near the best game ever made). Hence this article makes me feel smug inside ReportThatFanInThePeacoat - 1 day 15 hours ago  I don't think I want to know what that liquid is on the cardboard Companion Cube in that first illustration... ReportLoudestCannon - 1 day 15 hours ago  I find these articles are made even better by listening to the Offspring song "Cool to Hate". ReportTheKennedyCurse - 1 day 15 hours ago  Buying Portal for the price of a full game is like buying CoD Zombies as a stand-alone.

Of course try telling that to game journalists and fanboys who jump onto every game Valve releases and start passionately humping it. ReportMySistersMenstruationTastesFunny... - 1 day 15 hours ago  I actually only recently played Portal, and yeah, the cake being a lie is retarded. I don't know why the masses chose that to be the meme. ReportYingsin - 1 day 15 hours ago  fat chance?

(finishing the line from the song) ReportGamesRadarTylerWilde - 1 day 15 hours ago  @TheKennedyCurse Uh, who bought Portal for $60? The rest of us got Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 with it, buddy. Reportveryweirdguy - 1 day 15 hours ago  Mac users got Portal for free, man, SO overpriced.

(Portal <3) ReportTheKennedyCurse - 1 day 15 hours ago  @TylerWilde

Uh, I meant Portal 2, as that is the only Portal that was released as a full-priced game. I thought that would be obvious, especially to someone who's supposed to be knowledgeable about games, buddy. ReportBladedFalcon - 1 day 15 hours ago  @TheKennedyCurse

Er... Just cause it short, is doesn't make the game "bad". Overpriced? perhaps, but it mainly depends on what you're looking for.

I haven't played portal 2 yet, didn't play the first one either, but i do plan to get the game next week, and considering the only main and valid complaint haters have is that it's "Too short" Then i am frankly not deterred at all.

For my money, I much prefer short, but sweet and highly polished gaming experiences than stuff with multiplayer or a shitload of grinding. For example? I love Vanquish, Which can arguably be beaten in 5 -6 hours on average as well, and has no online. But it's an extremely polished game, with excellent and pure distilled gameplay.

So at best, the only validation your argument has, is that you prefer getting more raw gameplay time from your money's worth. That's fair enough, but you only become a "Fanboy" yourself when you call others that just because they happen to differ from what you prefer. ReportIronarm - 1 day 15 hours ago  Waiting for a price drop. I liked Portal, but I wasn't going around the internet praising it like the second coming of Jesus or anything. Plus I'm hesitant to give Valve any money until they at least say SOMETHING about a new Half-Life. In my eyes the Half-Life series is a million times better than Portal. Reportawinnerisjew - 1 day 15 hours ago  The biggest thing to hate about Portal and Portal 2 is that nobody has made a "One door's red, and the other's blue" joke about it. Also, it was nice of Henry to pose for that first illustration. ReportGamesRadarTylerWilde - 1 day 15 hours ago  @TheKennedyCurse Say what you mean, mean what you say. Also, I found Portal 2 much more valuable than CoD Zombies. And CoD in general. ReportGamesRadarTylerWilde - 1 day 15 hours ago  Also, lol at the press release I got just after publishing this. Now what?! http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/portal-2/news/first-portal-2-dlc-announced-will-be-free/a-201104291249708049/g-20100308124447849051 ReportEnragedTortoise1 - 1 day 15 hours ago  I'm enjoying reading these a little more than I should be.
Nice job.

(btw, Portal 2 is amazing.) ReportTheKennedyCurse - 1 day 15 hours ago  @BladedFalcon

I don't absolutely HATE the Portal series, the first one was fun, and was better as a short experience so it didn't get repetitive. It was also packaged with three other games though, and had little replay value.

I'd much rather see something like this on PSN or XBLA like they did with the first game, or even release it at a lower cost, because some people don't find time trials fun, and therefore have no reason to pick it up again once they know how to solve each puzzle.

At a lower cost, it'd be a must-have, but at its current price, it's a rental at best, IMO. Reportawinnerisjew - 1 day 14 hours ago  @thekennedycurse Wait, what? Portal was available on PSN/XBLA? I'm going to get on PSN RIGHT NOW and buy that shit! Wait.....shit. ReportShowing 1-20 of 65 Comments1 2 3 4 NEXT »Please click here to login #gr_social_connect {width:300px;}.full-block, .l-block, .r-block {float:left;height:35px;margin-bottom:10px;}.full-block {width:300px;}.l-block {width:145px;overflow:hidden;margin-right:11px;}.r-block {width:144px;overflow:hidden;}.bottom-border{float:left;width:100%;border-bottom:1px dotted #333;margin:5px 0;}#gr-connect-fb a{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px 0px;width:145px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-fb a:hover{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) -155px 0px;width:145px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-tweet a{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px -150px;width:144px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-tweet a:hover{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) -155px -150px;width:144px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-podcast a{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px -75px;width:145px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-podcast a:hover{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) -155px -74px;width:145px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-rss a{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px -225px;width:144px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-rss a:hover{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) -155px -225px;width:144px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-app a{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px -300px;width:300px;height:65px;display:block}#gr-connect-app a:hover{background: transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) 0px -375px;width:300px;height:65px;display: block}#gr-connect-subscribe {background:transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px -450px;height:85px;}#gr-connect-subscribe .esubs{padding:20px 0 0 57px;}#gr-connect-subscribe .emailtxt{width:145px;height:16px;color:#999;padding:0 0 0 3px}#gr-connect-subscribe .sbtn{background:transparent url(/images/gr_connectwith_css.png) no-repeat 0px -623px;width:80px;height:20px;border:none;}#gr-connect-subscribe .signup_other{font-size:10px;word-spacing:-1px;padding:5px 10px 5px 0;line-height: 105%;}#gr-connect-subscribe #signup_other{margin:0 5px 2px 0}#gr-connect-errors {font-size:10px;color:#F00;display:none;padding:5px 0 0 20px;background:url("../images/gr_packed_img.gif") no-repeat 0 -111px;}.browserFirefox #gr-connect-subscribe .emailtxt{height:14px;} Connect with GamesRadarAlso, send me e-mail announcements and special offers from GamesRadar and trusted partners.  Latest Videos.right_gr_latest_videos_nav, .video_games_item {width:100%;}.right_gr_latest_videos .prev_button_link{background:transparent url(/images/gr_video_sprite.png) no-repeat 5px -20px;padding:5px 5px 10px 0;}.right_gr_latest_videos .next_button_link{background:transparent url(/images/gr_video_sprite.png) no-repeat 10px -50px;padding:5px 0px 10px 0;}.right_gr_latest_videos .prev_button_link_active{background:transparent url(/images/gr_video_sprite.png) no-repeat 5px -80px;padding:5px 5px 10px 0;}.right_gr_latest_videos .next_button_link_active{background:transparent url(/images/gr_video_sprite.png) no-repeat 5px -110px;padding:5px 5px 10px 0;}.right_gr_latest_videos .right_side_all_videos{}.right_video_pagination {font-weight:bold;font-size:11px;padding:5px 0;} GLaDOS should be the voice of EVERY computer28 Apr 2011» More videosLatest Screenshots» More screenshots The Knowledge Portal
Genre: Puzzle
Release date:19 Oct 2007
Published by: EA GAMES
Developed by: Valve
Multiplayer Modes:
Offline 1 player SOLO 9 AWESOME
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