Tag Archives: portal

Try harder? No.

by

Woah yet another blog post about me.

Well, if that’s not what you want, you’re kind of in the wrong place. Sorry and all.

Today we’re talking about my attitude to success!

And what might that be, Mitchell?

Why I’ll tell you, demanding heading.

I am an advocate of, if you fail, not trying harder, but instead…

Succeeding better.

Say what?

This is more a frame of mind than an actual route to success. I’ll admit it seems a bit wishy-washy, but it sometimes helps if you set yourself up to succeed rather than to maybe succeed possibly if the wind blow right and there are cacti. Or something.

It’s basically a reflection of my belief that most puzzles, most challenges can be defeated by sheer tenacity.

Merely tenacity, Mitchell?

Well, not quite. You probably need tenacity too.

(I jest)

(You actually need stubbornness as well) (Two ‘n’s? It doesn’t look right.)

Anyway, those are my two favourite qualities. Stubbornness and tenacity.

(Also, you know I have a first name, right?)

A really good yarn

by

Alright, alright! I admit it! I’ve been playing a lot of Portal and Portal 2 recently! And castle crashers… but less of that than the others really.

But maybe you might find that hard to understand. Obviously, I find it hard to understand why you find it hard to understand. But I will do my best to explain.

There are three things I love. Music, puzzles and stories. Do you see? Are you beginning to understand? No? Ok then.

So. Books generally fulfill the story aspect. It’d be a bit rubbish if they didn’t. Even non-fiction, actually, because then it’s a story (yay!) that happens to be true. Listening to and playing music works for the music aspect. And puzzles.. well, sudoku, crosswords, riddles etc. Puzzles. You know, puzzles?

But but but! What if you could combine two  those things? So… music and story. That’s a film. Or an audiobook, but I find those to be more irksome than they’re worth. Or a television programme, or … a podcast maybe. You get the point. Story and music. Music and story. I mean, have you ever listened to the Doctor Who soundtrack? It’s like having bits of the story in your head! But as music! (I know!)

Or you could do story and puzzle. That generally ends up being a game. Like Phoenix Wright. Or Professor Layton, although I’ve never played that and can’t actually comment. Probably a combination of story and puzzle though. It’s how they’re selling it.

But but but! What if you could combine all three?! So that’d be…. ooh, a computer game?! (Or a gamecube game. I’m not fussy) That’s where the Zelda games come in. They’ve got story, even if it is sort of the same story every game but with twists. They’ve got music (the soundtrack is actually quite emotive, for a game), and they’ve got puzzles. ish. They’re much better puzzles in skyward sword, even if the gaming aspect suffers a bit for the art. The art is really secondary to what I want out of a game.

And that leads me nicely to portal. So. Portal/portal 2. It fulfills all three requirements (story, check! music, hell yeah! puzzles… duh), and even if the gameplay is a bit repetitive sometimes, that’s ok. There’s lots of puzzle there for me to spend hours doing. And then when I know the puzzles back to front and inside and out, there’s still the story to puzzle over. And then there’s the music. And the exciting fact that at the beginning of the second game Chell somehow picks things up without touching them. (this is before she gets the portal gun, by the way) Amazing levitating weighted storage cube, check!

What more could you want?!