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Portal is the most subversive game ever

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Portal is the most subversive game ever

This modern masterpiece shakes the FPS genre to the very core

Words: Joe McNeilly, GamesRadar US

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Chell is released from her tiny cell and put through a series of tests involving an experimental technology. Each test requires simply that she move to the exit, like a rat in a maze. She acquires a Portal Gun for use in these tests; interestingly, the gun's masculine symbolism is subverted by the fact that it shoots portals rather than bullets. Portals are oval-shaped openings that are visually and spatially connected; go in one and you'll come out the other. The Portal Gun creates connections rather than destroying life. It is through innovative placement of these connections, or portals, that goals are achieved or enemies overcome. A psychoanalytic reading would likely conclude that the portal is an image of the female sex organs: oval and receptive, and also a metaphorical birth canal through which the protagonist is constantly being born into new trials.

Another subversion of FPS norms takes place in the presentation of conflict. The primary antagonist is an unstable artificial intelligence named GLaDOS, a maternal female construct who administers the experiments. She antagonizes you/Chell not through physical brutality but through emotional manipulation. Some of Portal's best dialogue occurs when holes appear in GLaDOS' programming while she's in the midst of especially cloying or manipulative statements. In one example, GLaDOS congratulates Chell by saying, "You, subject name here, must be the pride of subject hometown here." These malfunctions call attention to the fact that GLaDOS was programmed to respond empathetically but doesn't actually feel emotions the way a human being does. As such, she comes to represent man's attempt to construct an idealized mother figure through the cold logic of science. The resulting entity is a jumbled mess of cross-purposes and psychic detritus who attaches more value to the Portal Gun than to human life. You must outsmart, rather than outgun, this enemy to escape with your life.

2 Comments

Kittie - 22 days 22 hours ago

Did this "guy" even play Portal? My brother, boyfriend, and I ALL played Portal together.

The turrets had FEMALE voices, OBVIOUS female voices. The woman who voiced GLaDoS also voiced the turrets. And how the hell was destroying the stupid companion cube a male figure? It was a pixelated box you needed to get through the level, so you HAD to depend on it, otherwise never get through the level.

And those who play first-person shooter games are not "forced" to like violence, it's how the game is designed. I'm female, and I've played Halo 1,2 and 3, Perfect Dark (N64 version), and Gears of War. I didn't love violence when I played those games, and I still don't love violence.

The game was anything BUT what this guy reviewed it as, and anyone who's looking for even a half-decent review should look elsewhere.

The guy who reviewed this needs to go back and actually play the game, then write a better review.

Portal was a fun and interesting game, not the feminist trash he reviewed it to be.

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low_growl - 15 days 18 hours ago

Alright. Last things first.

The guy above enjoyed Portal. He found it refreshing and a great take on today's gaming industry.He didn't say anythying about it being feminist trash. If you were implying that you thought the fact he thought the game was feminist, and therefore you think he degraded the game through your narrow standards, then your comment was voided by a subjected opinion without looking at both sides of the argument. Feminist isn't bad, it's just different.

The 'love for violence' thing was bringing attention to how a majority of new games involve simply killing the target, puzzles and entertainment restricted wihtin the gaming environment by how the game was designed, so, in part, you were correct. He was merely stating that he found Portal refreshing in that it didn't need to fall into menial stereotypes of what constitutes a 'good' game to entertain. In other words, you didn't just have to kill to have fun.

And the symbolism of the companion cube being male directly stipulates from the article, pulls itself from the already-discussed issues. It's a logical argument that anyone should be able to follow.

Personally, I really liked the article, even if I don't personally share all of the views. It was a clever and psychological approach to a clever and psychological game. I believe that, while some of the elements were present, the freudian approach to some of the views expressed above are a little outdated, and we live in a developing society with new ways of thinking emerging and the old 'sexist' and 'feminist' views are slowly begins to be uprooted by monogonous views that have no need to express sexuality.

The game itself was great, so all in all all three representatives have the same opinion, just in different thought scructures.

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