Portal was originally part of The Orange Box game pack bundle from Valve and it was quite an interesting addition. Taking a FPS game engine and making it into a twisting and mind bending puzzle game with some real laugh out loud moments. When I first played it I found it a bit dull and didn’t come back to it until long after I’d finished all the Half Life episodes, but on my second play of it I became engrossed and began to appreciate what Valve had done. I must admit I was pretty poor at the game and the last level took me an age but upon completion I had a feeling of satisfaction but also yearning to be tested further.

 If you don’t know much about Portal then here’s a quick brief: you are a test subject (or human lab rat) in an Aperture Science research facility. Here a new teleportation device is being tested that can fire space bending ‘portals’ onto solid objects, you can then use these portals to move around the level. You are released from your sell by an automated machine and are then put through a series of tests using the teleportation device. Some of the tests can have fatal endings, but it’s all done with a humorous twist. To be it seemed like one of the Cube movies crossed with Monty Python.

 So a year later the original Portal is back but this time for returning players it has been extended by an extra 14 levels and also another 12 achievements, it also comes with a hefty price tag of 1200 points. Seeing as I loved the first one though I am prepared to look past the price, if you never played it then I strongly recommend that you get it as it’s probably one of the most original and intuitive games available for XBLA . For those of you who didn’t think much of it in the Orange Box bundle then I’d give this new version a miss.