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I can’t discuss Portal without mentioning the now iconic ending song Still Alive by Jonathon Coulton, one of my favorite songwriters. Thanks to the mandatory first person point of view, you can’t even see what your own character looks like until you can use the dual portals later in the game, and even then it’s often just a flash (sidenote: I think it was a surprise to many when they realized Chell was actually a woman, and it’s a testament to the boldness of Valve as a company that they didn’t shine a light on her gender). But that goes back to the simplicity of the game - it really is just you alone with the crazy computer program that holds your life in its hands. The lack of any other dialogue (even from Chell herself) made for a very authentic alienation. I realize there is more to the classic Kubrick film than just that character, but when two characters are so similar and so wonderful in their conceptions, why is one’s media seen as art while the other’s isn’t? I don’t think it’s too far a leap to suggest the parallels between GLaDOS and 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s HAL. There’s also a sort of serious concept within the game: the dangers of giving technology too much power. “As part of an optional test protocol, we are pleased to present an amusing fact: the device is now more valuable than the organs and combined incomes of everyone in *subject hometown here*.” Most people go to the cake quotes first, but my favorites are when she is just starting to act askew, i.e. The slow reveal of her homicidal nature through her dialogue was a wonderful treat, one that I got to savor more and more as the game went on. Sure, the gameplay itself was a huge reason for the game’s success - who didn’t love the physics bending portals? - but the real treasure of the game was the bloodthirstily deadpan GLaDOS, voiced to perfection by Ellen McLain. I think many would say the original Portal on its own was evidence for the “gaming can be art” argument. (Fair warning: while I’m not going into specifics about the sequel, there might be some slight spoilers regarding Portal 2.

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Still, after playing through this lovely sequel, I feel like the Portal series is a huge leap forward for video games to be seen as legitimate art, and in this particular case, a cinematic experience. The discussion itself is subjective, so I can’t necessarily fault him for having a differing opinion (and I know he revised his statement in a later post). But throughout the whole day, I was reminded of the rather infamous article Roger Ebert wrote a year ago this week that stated video games could never be art. I’m writing this at 11 PM, and my brain is pretty fried from hours of jumping on platforms, taking down turrets, breaking the laws of physics and listening to an emotionally damaged and homicidal computer program make fun of me (among other things). I spent the large majority of today playing the newly-released Portal 2 (on PC, for those who are curious) from beginning to end.

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