[This is a review of a free mod for Valve's Portal.  It is not made by, or licensed by Valve ]

The only bad thing about 2007’s surprise  hit, Portal, was its lack of length.  Most people upon completing Portal wanted more, and once you’ve done the advanced test chambers, and the challenges, all you’ve got left to do is wait for portal 2, or try some user made content, and that’s where Portal: Prelude comes in.

Portal: Prelude is a free mod for Portal, which provides you with a new story set within the Portal universe, as well as a selection of challenging test chambers.  The primary aim of Portal: Prelude was to make a complete Portal mod, with a story that takes about the same amount of time as Portal to complete.  Set in a time before GLaDOS was installed in the Enrichment Center,  you play as Abby, a test subject going through the Aperture Science test chambers while guided by the scientists that work there.

When you first start Portal: Prelude you instantly hear it’s biggest fault, the voice acting, or the lack there of.  Rather than having proper voice acting, Portal: Prelude instead uses text-to-voice programs for all the non-playable characters.  Now, I understand that Portal: Prelude was made by a small group of modders, and that doing voice acting can be time consuming, as well as expensive, but at times the game suffers from having the obviously artificial voices.  The dialogue at times can be a little odd, and while I liked it because it made me think that if these are the people that programmed GLaDOS, no wonder she’s so messed up, I could never decide if it was on purpose, or if it was translation mistakes as the main modder behind the mod was French.

Portal: Prelude gives you access to another 19 test chambers, most of which are quite difficult compared to Portal’s test chambers.  Many of them require you to be very accurate when placing portals and if you are off by even a little it could mean not being able to reach a high ledge, which can get frustrating after 10 to 20 attempts.  One test chamber I found impossible to do, and it was only by going online that I found that there was another way to do it, which was clearly not the way I was supposed to, but it was the only way I could get it to work.  At the end of the day most of the test chambers are satisfying  to solve, and if you loved playing though portal, you should enjoy most of Portal: Prelude’s test chambers.

The last section of Portal: Prelude is out of the test chambers, just like the end of the original Portal.  I wont get into details, so I wont spoil anything,  but overall it was my least favourite part of the mod, and while it does have some nice moments, I didn’t enjoy it as much as doing the Test Chamber parts.

Conclusion

While Portal: Prelude is not perfect and has a lot of ruff edges, it is possible to forget about them and just enjoy it for what it is.  If your a fan of Portal it’s worth giving Portal: Prelude a go, as its the same gameplay with a few new tricks up it’s sleeve.  Some will get frustrated by getting stuck on some puzzles but if you keep trying you should be able to get them all eventually.

Rating:  

You can download Portal: Prelude for free here. [812 MB Download]

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