Valve's Portal series is well known for its comedy and inventiveness, but underneath its puzzle mechanics lies a horror story. Consider supporting on Patreon: / screentakes Twitter: / screen_takes
Knowing how Portal 1 is happening around the same time as HL2, It's sorta understandable that there are no people, however, It makes it even scarier when you realise that Chell might as well be the only survivour of this game left alive here, because the combine couldn't find her.
Even if she would have made it out, she undoubtedly would have been enslaved like the rest of humanity. "I have an infinite capacity for knowledge and im not even sure whats going on out there. All i know is Im the thing standing between us and THEM. Well. I was." -GLaDOS
not to mention the “things have changed since you left the building, whats going on out there will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge and even i don’t completely know whats happening. What I know for sure is I’m the only keeping us between you and them…”
Have you heard of the Portal 2 Core Hub beta era? It's very much like what you're describing. Chell wakes up, gets transported to the old testing track, goes through it, then finds GLaDOS' chamber where she is completely destroyed and has amnesia, then you have to go through different testing tracks to repair her. There's a mod coming soon called Portal 2: Project 2009 that aims to recreate it!
I will never forget the first time I played Portal and I heard the track "Self-Esteem Fund" play. To this day I get chills when I hear that song. The feeling of pure isolation I got when I heard that synthesizer made me feel something primal. That loneliness, that need to just see another person to not feel like Im trapped, I got all from that moment and it stuck with me. Even today, if I listen to that song, I have to get up and just go into a room with people it it just to feel safe. True horror, in a game about portals, a genocidal AI, a lie about cake.
I remember the first portal experience I ever had was with the orange box. It scared the crap outa me. Since it wasn’t on computer, I couldn’t just switch tabs and talk to friends or whatever, I was just and only playing portal. Nobody around. In the game? Nobody around. Man, it was great fun with the testing, but I always felt so disconnected. Wonderful game.
This came up in my recommended and I wasn’t disappointed. Gave me a new perspective on a game I’ve played multiple times over. Which I find interesting and pretty accurate.
I actually found portal 2 scarier, during the part where you do tests in the 1960s themed area and how it’s abandoned, makes it creepy, but also with how large everything is to you makes you feel so small and helpless which adds to that factor.
Me too. Except for me, it was definitely the first bit where everything was rotting/reclaimed by Mother Nature. The background noises (NOT THE MUSIC) was kind of unsettling… I don’t think anyone thinks about this, but during some of the maps, a faint siren noise can be heard in some of the tests.
One part of me wishes I had experienced Portal before seeing the memes. But it's funny, my first contact with Portal was through a somewhat horror-tinged video with the Companion Cube following you in Gmod. And I feel like Portal might've helped inspire what I like to call the "twist horror" era of indie games, a moment around 2008-2010 where games that seem innocent but then turn disturbing, like Eversion and Luna Game (that last one has screamers) were having their moment. It was also around this time that Yume Nikki had a surge in popularity. And this then turned into the era of short, free horror games meant to be reacted to, like Imscared and I See You, propped by popular RU-vidrs. And many of these feature a liminal feeling that is reminiscent of Portal at times.
I remember in the final fight with GLaDOs, she says somethings that make us think: What's happening outside? "Are you trying to escape? Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here." Because Portal 1 and Half Life 2 take place in the same time, or around the same time- so... Is GLaDOs aware, and trying to keep Chell inside Aperture?? "I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on outside."
I've been OBSESSED with Portal for multiple years now and I have always pondered this but I could never properly put it into words. I watched a Portal Retrospective by Liam Triforce and he mentioned the exact same thing regarding the atmosphere of Portal 1. It made you feel alone but someone's with you at the same time. I loved this little analysis of Portal 1 and I thank you for it :)
i honestly prefer Portal 1 just for its atmosphere alone. Portal 2 is genuinely funny and has more polished gameplay, but the first game nails the dread of being isolated
okay okay portal 1 is scary portal 2 is funny BUT THE INTROS OF PORTAL GAMES AND VALVE ON GENERAL.. im 16 rn and when i was 7 almost 8 in 2016 i first played portal 1 on 100% volume and oh my god that intro scared me so much that i didnt played it alone for over a month cuz i got scared so much.. a few days ago i got back to portal, finished every portal 1 achivement and "speedrun" the game in under 45 mins! portal 2 can come
I wish this had more views, as it explained perfectly what i have thought about Portal and its story when I first played it about two months ago. Everything about this facility feels wrong and even immmoral, as empty rooms filled with monitors watch your every step, while you try to ignore the empty, soulless voice on the background. The more you discover about this place, the more it becomes unconfortable, now seeing the old and rusty behind-the-scenes as the creepy robot starts to feel scared of what you might do. After many hours inside this horrible place, you are able to catch a glimpse of the natural world you haven't seen for a long time, only for an unknown being to push you back to the white slabs and metal doors. Awesome video!
love this video. Im glad there are more people with the take. I personally even found Portal 2, unnerving. But yeah in general the games have a very "trapped" claustrophobic feel to it at time where it suddenly dawns on me where I am, and I just want to "leave the facility" as fast as I can. The fact that you are a test subject trapped in a purgatory of constant testing, while there are supposedly normal people somewhere else having normal lives is very eerie and tragic. I feel bad for Chell almost, she's a grown woman who's lived her entire life in a lab, only to be brought to the surface and brough back down, and in the second game, left to just kind of "live" in a completely alien environment. Meanwhile, the Ratman is still stuck down there. Very creepy!
Bravo dude. I was literally thinking of making a video just like this after my recent play through. I was so shocked how this game was colored by my love of portal 2 and its tone. That I forgot how terrifying this game was. Such an excellent little package and you described it perfectly. Well done
Portal is a horror game. Portal 2 is a bullshit parody of the predecessor. And it actually kinda sucks. Portal 2 ruins people's perception of the original, and feels so detached from the Half-Life universe that it feels like a live action cartoon.
@@KiiBon The weirdest part is you're not even wrong. It just doesn't match the tone of its predecessor at all, which bothers me to no end. Must be my suspension of disbelief getting thrown out the window.
