FREE maps for your FREE copy of Portal

Our favorite add-ons for one of the best games of all time

Words: GamesRadarTylerNagata on May 17, 2010

In case you missed the news, Portal will be free for the Mac and PC until May 24th on Steam. Since so many people are playing this great game for the first time, we thought it’d be fun to highlight some of our favorite add-ons for the first-person puzzler.

Portal: Prelude

Download Portal: Prelude

Portal: Prelude is more than a mappack. The unofficial prequel features more hours of gameplay than the original Portal, tons of new challenges, and over 400 lines of speech with both English and French subtitles.

According to the game’s creators, “Its story revolves around the pre-GlaDOS epoch, even before she was plugged in. At this time, test subjects were monitored by real Aperture Science employees, whose work was tedious, lengthy and repetitive.” It’s a brilliant idea for a premise that helps explain why Aperture Science needed GlaDOS to watch over test subjects in the original.

Above: Once you’ve beaten Portal, Portal: Prelude should be the next item on your list of games to play

Above: The trailer for Portal: Prelude

Portal: The Flash Version Mappack

Download Portal: The Flash Version Mappack

When Portal was first announced, self-proclaimed Valve fanboys Hen Mazolski and Ido Tal couldn’t wait to play the game. In fact, they were so excited that they started work on a 2D Flash version of Portal before it even released. It turned out that their 2D take on Valve’s game was incredibly fun. Since then, the browser-based game has won various awards.

The team’s next project was a popular mappack with the 40 levels featured in Portal: The Flash Version. Some of the new content in the Xbox LIVE arcade game Portal: Still Alive was based on the levels featured in this fan-made mappack.

Above: Portal: The Flash version. If you’ve never played it, check it out

Above: Portal: The Flash Version Mappack gives you lots of extra portals to play with. It includes all 40 levels from the Flash version

Got any other favorites that we missed? Share your links with us below.

May 17, 2010

Gaming PaperCraft
Create your own Companion Cube, Gordon Freeman, Vault-Boy, and Big Daddy with our printable origami cutouts

Aperture Science getting ready for Portal 2
Recruitment video celebrates the free release of Portal

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Bantha_Fodder - April 22, 2011 4:47 a.m.

I downloaded Prelude today... it's... alright so far... some of the puzzles are just cheap... they rely much more on "shoot portals EVERYWHERE and see what happens" luck as opposed to Portal's "look over the environment and use lateral thinking" skill. it's decent so far, but I don't get the same feeling of accomplishment in Prelude as I do for solving a hardass puzzle in Portal
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MrDuracraft - May 23, 2010 1:41 a.m.

I say this sadly, but I think we can chalk this article up as a fail. One of them doesn't work with the free version of Portal, and the other requires Half-Life 2 to be installed (which is not free)
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epicdominican91 - May 20, 2010 9:35 p.m.

@moates19 thanks for the info....GODDAMIT!!!!!!!!!
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moates19 - May 20, 2010 5:09 a.m.

It looks like the free version does not come with the Source SDK Base which is needed to play the mods. You have to have a paid version of another Steam game (that includes the SDK Base) for it to work as you cannot download the SDK Base separately (legally). Huge bummer!
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Drawed - May 18, 2010 11:45 p.m.

Prelude wont work for me. It lays through the intro video and then disappears.
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0vonix0 - May 18, 2010 9:43 p.m.

NONE OF THESE WORK ON MAC!
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festafreak - May 18, 2010 4:47 p.m.

Cool thanks. I played the Flash map pack years ago and I just recently was looking for others. Thanks. Anyone else find any others? I found "maybe black mesa" but it is only 3-4 levels. Still kind of tough though. And black mesa has a cool new gravity system.
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0vonix0 - May 18, 2010 12:55 p.m.

Do you need HL2 to use the flash maps?
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philipshaw - May 18, 2010 11:36 a.m.

Got my free copy of Portal but my Laptop can only run it at medium settings
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JohnnyApplesperm - May 18, 2010 4:29 a.m.

Those are the 2 mappacks that I liked the most as well. Probably because they have more content than most maps. I believe both were actually longer than Portal itself. The voices in Prelude were a bit.. goofy to say the least, but I still loved the game. And WTF is with this spammer.. ugh.
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Ridgley - May 18, 2010 3:02 a.m.

Trying prelude now. THANK YOU TNAG.
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DrillurSimpson - May 18, 2010 2:19 a.m.

1: Sweet, can connect to Facebook now. 2: No links? : (
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CH3BURASHKA - May 18, 2010 1:01 a.m.

All this Portal talk is making me salivate over the sequel. Mmm... portals...
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Ded - May 17, 2010 11:23 p.m.

The thing I didn't like about Prelude was the story (and the creepy synthesized voices). Probably for the same reason I don't like fanfics.. I just hope Valve don't decide to take it as canon in the future...
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Jacob816 - May 17, 2010 11:12 p.m.

@ClusterShart Mind enlightening the rest of us Mac users on how to do this?
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purple_omlet - May 17, 2010 11 p.m.

still alive DS is fun if you have a flash cart. otherwise, overlook it.
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valance23322 - May 17, 2010 10:47 p.m.

does prelude work on mac
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ClusterShart - May 17, 2010 10:46 p.m.

Never mind, it is the same as windows.
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DrDevious - May 17, 2010 10:45 p.m.

the flash ones do if you put em in portal/portal/maps and in game open up the console and type map [map name] which will load the map
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