Portal: Prelude, as its name implies, is an unofficial prequel to the game Portal. Its story revolves around the pre-GlaDOS epoch way before she was plugged in. Back then, test subjects were still monitored by real Aperture Science employees, a tedious, dull, and repetitive job. One of the reasons why they decided to build a great artificial intelligence that could both replace them for these complex tasks and also take responsibility for many other functions within the complex while competing with Black Mesa's superiority. All employees of the Aperture Science complex are now eagerly awaiting GlaDOS. A little too eagerly maybe, as the unfolding events will tell... This game is totally free. It offers a bit more gameplay hours than the original Portal, with 8 chapters, 19 test chambers, 48 challenges, 6 advanced maps, a brand new storyline and more than 400 lines of English dialogue with dozens of subtitles languages.
Reviews (0 - 10 of 721)
It must be admitted that if you take nothing else from this mod, its sheer scale is quite exceptional. With new characters, voicework, puzzles and approximately double the length of the original portal (not to mention its difficulty in places) it is hard to den the dedication and hard work that has gone into this mod.
The storyline is fairly solid – although I expected the malice of on of the observers to continue – which is impressive and a testament to what can happen if a mod team sit down with a plot in mind. The plot in Prelude is simple enough, you are one of the first few test subjects at Aperture Science, and are set upon to complete the chambers in order to finally see the first run of the new GLaDOS system.
The test chambers themselves are not exceptional in terms of visual but what they do provide is an extension to the game play once you have completed the original game, the storyline ties in quite well as so as a prelude it seems to fit almost to the point where can feel Valve’s wicked sense of humour creeping through.
The puzzles themselves lead you through in much the same way as the original, giving you all the instruction you need in order to succeed in some of the trickier chambers to follow.
As you progress you will find that the difficulty ramps up rather quickly and far surpasses the original game, this is perfect for those who have just (disappointedly) finished the too-short 3 hours of portal and now want more and harder.
Sure, go on and hate my rating and me but I couldn't enjoy this mod because it was anything like Portal.
After fisnishing Portal + advanced chambers in no time I was looking for more difficult challenges but Prelude is just about knowing the maps and do some tricks as fast and as timed as possible.
Thinking with Portals? Well, kinda
Thinking with the map layout? Certainly yes
Being annoyed by all kind of death traps comming closer? yeah
It's just lame that the developer had to add challenge by making the game just less comfortable instead of making challenge based on logic.
I see this mod is pretty popular but maybe it's just because people like try (save) and error (load) instead of actually using their brain how to solve difficult puzzles. Be sure to hate my review because it's the truth!
I had to cheat so 4/10
Definitely a solid mod for those who want more Portal, but with more challenges, just be warned, there is no difficulty curve and the puzzles get tough really fast.
My biggest problem is the mod's poor narrative and crappy voice acting, which doesn't come close to the original game and underwhelming conclusion.
Kind of disappointing. The story is not all that great and the puzzles are difficult but in the wrong way. By that I mean that it's easy to figure out what to do but actually doing it can be pretty hard.
Portal: Prelude and Blue Portals apparently have something in common: They both revolve around fling puzzles instead of puzzles that actually make you think hard. The difficulty in Portal: Prelude is mainly caused by this excessive amount of momentum-focused test chambers. However, Portal: Prelude is one of the few mods for this game to actually have an interesting story. The story is the greatest part of this mod, and is worth playing for that reason.
Good gameplay with very challenging test chambers.
A little hard. Maybe a little too hard. But the plot deserves 9/10.
Verry good game. A lot challenging. Exellent.
Impressive for such a small team. However the human voices sound too much like text to speech and the puzzles are non-intuitive: too hard for me. I had to give up frustrated. Also the game crashed several times eating lots of resources although the graphics were simple (I was in a corridor made out of squares) with 2 portals. I then skipped right to the ending where I was killed all the time in the finale. Sorry, I had much more fun with the original Portal.