Thinking about Portals

I've played Portal 2 recently. Long story short, I enjoyed it a lot. The gameplay was as unique as the first, the puzzles offered just the right amount of challenge - not too easy, not rage quit material - and the narrative was immersive and interesting, with great characters and witty dialogue (I always find it funny that one of the most important game franchises right now is essentially a comedy). It was a bit short, but that really just meant it wasn't over-long. All round, it was a good time.

However, it did make me think back to my original opinions on the first game. That was good too, which was of course surprising for something that was basically tagged onto two more important games in the Orange Box. In fact, I'd say one of the reasons I played Portal was because it came with Team Fortress 2 (same reason I played Half Life 2 at all, no not to completion). It's the other reason that worries me: because I had to.

In nearly all things, particularly the media, there are certain things that crop up that you can't ignore. They are there, like it or loath it, and if you don't watch/read/play, then you are officially BEHIND THE TIMES. I played Portal for a similar reason to why I dragged my self through the DVD of Twilight (rest assured, I didn't go back for New Moon): if I hadn't, I wouldn't have had a handle on something important in modern media. Yes, I said it, Twilight is important, if only in the sense that you need to have engaged in it in some way to get where the rest of the world is at.

It's the same with Portal (and many other games, I should add, but I don't want to develop too big a tangent here). Portal was and still is a big thing, everyone knows it, and even if you don't work in the games industry (and I hope to one day) if you have even a passing interest in games then you need to know what Portal is. I went into playing it knowing this, and I have to say it's what egged me on. If I didn't do this, I wouldn't be able to keep a handle on the state of my industry.

Does that strike anyone else as odd? I've always maintained that if something you want to do ever becomes something you only have to do, you should stop doing it. If a hobby becomes a joyless commitment, you should get out. And sure, I enjoyed the experience, but at the end of the day I was playing Portal because I felt I had to. Surely that's not how you approach a game?

I came into Portal 2 with a similar mindset. "Play this, finish it, because everyone one your course will have done so, and that makes it important." Damn, that's just cynical, to the point at which I'm thankful the game was as (really) good as it turned out, otherwise I might have spent the rest of the week in a state of misanthropic sulking, which isn't good when you're running a Friday D&D game.

I could point to the over-hype from the Portal fandom as a cause for this attitude (jeez guys, it's good but it ain't "the perfect game"), but that would be the easy way. Plus, it would mark it as a problem, when really it's kind of how it works in commercial media. If you want to work in any industry, then damn it, you have to make the effort to keep up. I'm just hoping it doesn't take the fun out of it one day.

What about you? Have you ever felt that keeping up with your professional interests was taking the fun out of it? Comment, by all means :)

Portal, Portal 2, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and The Orange Box are the property of Valve. Twilight and New Moon belong to Stephanie Meyer.