PC Critic Reviews

Just as Valve's Half-Life 2 is the moody loner to Halo 3's high-school quarterback, Portal is smarter, cooler, funnier, and more sinister than almost any game this year.

Portal can be bought separately or as part of the Orange Box package – Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, and Team Fortress 2 – but either way you get one of the best gaming experiences of the year.

Portal, tucked neatly alongside four other games, outshines them all and ensures itself a place in posterity.

From beginning to end, it's hard to find something not to like about Portal. Everything from the gameplay to the presentation are top-notch.

Putting Portal into the Orange Box package was a great idea on Valve's part.

One of the best single-player experiences of the year.

Portal is a magnificent puzzle game. The titillating wrongness of every solution and the wonky thinking required to get there make you feel like a space-folding genius, and yet you'll almost never get stuck.

It may be the least hyped part of the Orange Box but Portal is a strong addition to the lineup and really stands out on its own.

Portal is a sum of contradictions: it’s an FPS game with no weapons, no human characters, no complex scenery, but one that uses a simple and incredibly fun concept, with a well thought-of story and accessible to people of all ages (given they have minimal notions of moving the character around with the mouse and keyboard).

I was completely impressed with Portal. It’s a great game that’s innovative, fun, and contains a humorous storyline. My only real complaint was that it was too short, and I want more.