Portal Companion Collection - Review
Valve Software have been making games since 1998 when they first released Half-Life and in the 24 years between then and now, they have never had a game hit any Nintendo platform. So seeing the Portal games come to Switch, it was akin to a miracle happening, if only because it was something we never thought possible. Now that they have arrived, 15 and 11 years later respectively, was the debut of Valve on a Nintendo platform worth the wait?
The inclusion of both Portal games makes this a wonderful collection, if you have never played them on any of the other platforms that they have been released on. That is not to say they are bad, in fact they are far better than I was expecting and I know, people will say that they should be good, given their original ages, but when you consider that other games released around the same era, still can’t perform well, it would be normal to be apprehensive. Even though the only way to get them is in the collection, the games download as individual titles, which I appreciate, so we will take a look at each on their own, starting with Portal.
The first game still only clocks in for a few hours of run time, if you don’t do the extra levels or play with the developer commentary on, but as always, it is a good time, just not a long one. On Switch the game plays just a well as you would hope, the controls are very similar to that of the Xbox 360 release, with the right trigger for the Blue portal and left for the Orange. In a nice addition, the game also supports motion controls, which allows you to aim things a little more accurately than you could with just the sticks and while it does take some getting used to, once you do, everything just runs that much smoother. Across the main maps and the escape portion, spoilers I know, the game never really has any issues with performance, I did spot the occasional hiccup when launch through portals in the later test chambers, but only for the briefest of moments.
The only real issue that the first game has is that of the loading of the game itself, most of the loading takes place between the test chambers, you usually get 2 or so before it requires a load. This is the same as the Xbox 360 and PC release as well, so you are not seeing anything special, what is different though is that the game goes to a hard loading screen, rather than displaying the word loading. Now again, between the test chambers that is not an issue, however when you are trying to get away from the facility, running through long tunnels and such, having the game throw up a loading screen, just feels wrong. I understand why it was done from a technical perspective and I am sure they tested a few ways of doing it, but it still sucks.
On Portal 2, the same things can be said here as for the first game, the controls are a little different by default, so if you spend hours in the first game and then jump into the second, you will either have to remap the controls or get used to the new ones. It would have been nice to see the controller settings carry across, ie if you enable motion control, but I get why that wasn’t possible, so you will need to turn that on here as well, if you desire. There is no way to deny it, but everything in Portal 2 is much bigger than the first game, not so much the test chambers, but the portions after that and while I was expecting them to look bad, they didn’t. There are times when you can see where the game has shaved off some visual detail to get things to run as smoothly as they do, but it is never at the expense of what the story is trying to tell you.
The same loading issues are present here, but as the rooms are larger and filled with more detail, you get a load screen between each test chamber and ever major room after that. When some of the earlier test chambers can be completed in mere seconds, especially if you know the solution, that means it ends up feeling like you are seeing more loading screens than playing screen. Of course, in the later portions when the playing space is massive, you can spend quite a while on them before you see a screen, so its only really at the start where it feels weirdly paced. Portal 2 has a lot more audio to enjoy that the first game, from GLaDOS to Cave Johnson and every personality core in between, and each sounds great here. I did encounter was weird cutting out of the audio from GLaDOS when she in her potato form, but it was only a few times and didn’t disrupt things to badly. The Switch version does have some weird issue with the sound balance though for those pre-recorded messages, if I wasn’t looking at the speaker, the quality and volume of them dropped. I get why, its behind you or out of sight, but it isn’t a gradual shift to it being quieter, rather a hard cut between the two, not game breaking, but weird.
Weird seems to be the theme here, both Portal and Portal 2 are amazing ports, they run smooth as butter, no matter the action on the screen. The inclusion of motion controls is amazing, if only because it more accurately recreates a PC experience, which is where I enjoyed the two games first and while it will take some fine tuning to get it working perfect for you, the effort is worth it. The weird comes in with the loading, neither game seems to want to keep any sort of momentum and considering that speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out is a core part of the games, the constant stoppage for loading is weird. Don’t get me wrong, if you have never played either of these games, then you really should, they are both fantastic and it will only take a moment, before you are thinking with portals.
The Score
8.5
The Pros
+Each game runs amazing, with controls that feel perfect for the Switch
+With a heap of extra maps, there is still plenty to do once you complete the main stories
The Cons
-The loading across both games is going to be frustrating for all
-It wasn’t released as part of the Orange Box on Switch
