it's... certainly something. definitely not the best portal mod i've played, but certainly not as bad as its reputation.

ultimately, it feels like a fantastic tech-demo or early beta. both story-wise and chamber design-wise, i feel it would have benefited from being two or three shorter mods, with much more development time.

it's definitely worth playing if you're looking for an interesting portal mod, but expect to use noclip and maybe have to look up a guide occasionally

• interesting story ideas (tying into portal 2)
  
• lots of innovative and original puzzle elements
  
• some really good puzzles
  
• most of the custom assets are really nicely done (e.g. posters, s.a.i.c. core, black hole effects, &c) (weapon models aren't though - i like that they use turret legs and therefore look aperture-y, but they don't look that great)
  
  • outdoor rain effect and skybox is nice
• going through portal 1 chambers with the paint gun is cool
  
• really good custom music
  
• some good voice acting

• some ideas that seem good on paper but just aren't fun (e.g. non-euclidean backrooms area, overly tight aperture tag-esque escape sequence)
  
• a couple of terrible puzzles (e.g. halved test chamber after keycard requiring unintuitive backtracking, orange gel room requiring bunny-hopping)
  
• very janky (e.g. using physics instead of scripted motion for the four falling walls (meaning they can fall inward and kill you, or not fall at all), lightbridges not turning on fast enough to catch player when pulling with gravity gun, weapon viewmodels not properly tied to player and occasionally drifting to the wrong location)
  
• many puzzle elements aren't used to their full potential, some are only used once (e.g. sparkly white jump boosts, time gun)
  
• weird æsthetic incoherence between chambers with no explanation (particularly using the surface elevator model at the end of one of the early chambers for no reason, then in the next chamber arriving in a normal chamber lift model).
  
• some poorly written story beats (e.g. final boss being the morality core with no foreshadowing, glados destroying the facility for no reason)
  
• some pretty poor voice acting

it's... certainly something. definitely not the best portal mod i've played, but certainly not as bad as its reputation. ultimately, it feels like a fantastic tech-demo or early beta. both story-wise and chamber design-wise, i feel it would have benefited from being two or three shorter mods, with much more development time. it's definitely worth playing if you're looking for an interesting portal mod, but expect to use noclip and maybe have to look up a guide occasionally [h3]positives[/h3] [list] [*]interesting story ideas ([spoiler]tying into portal 2[/spoiler]) [*]lots of innovative and original puzzle elements [*]some [i]really[/i] good puzzles [*]most of the custom assets are really nicely done (e.g. posters, s.a.i.c. core, [spoiler]black hole effects[/spoiler], &c) ([spoiler]weapon models aren't though - i like that they use turret legs and therefore look aperture-y, but they don't look that great[/spoiler]) [list] [*][spoiler]outdoor rain effect and skybox is nice[/spoiler] [/list] [*][spoiler]going through portal 1 chambers with the paint gun is cool[/spoiler] [*]really good custom music [*]some good voice acting [/list] [h3]negatives[/h3] [list] [*]some ideas that seem good on paper but just aren't fun (e.g. [spoiler]non-euclidean backrooms area[/spoiler], [spoiler]overly tight aperture tag-esque escape sequence[/spoiler]) [*]a couple of [i]terrible[/i] puzzles (e.g. [spoiler]halved test chamber after keycard requiring unintuitive backtracking[/spoiler], [spoiler]orange gel room requiring bunny-hopping[/spoiler]) [*]very janky (e.g. [spoiler]using physics instead of scripted motion for the four falling walls (meaning they can fall inward and kill you, or not fall at all)[/spoiler], [spoiler]lightbridges not turning on fast enough to catch player when pulling with gravity gun[/spoiler], [spoiler]weapon viewmodels not properly tied to player and occasionally drifting to the wrong location[/spoiler]) [*]many puzzle elements aren't used to their full potential, some are only used once (e.g. [spoiler]sparkly white jump boosts[/spoiler], [spoiler]time gun[/spoiler]) [*]weird æsthetic incoherence between chambers with no explanation ([spoiler]particularly using the surface elevator model at the end of one of the early chambers for no reason, then in the next chamber arriving in a normal chamber lift model[/spoiler]). [*]some poorly written story beats (e.g. [spoiler]final boss being the morality core with no foreshadowing[/spoiler], [spoiler]glados destroying the facility for no reason[/spoiler]) [*]some pretty poor voice acting [/list]