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How Portal Outsmarted Everyone

BAG

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🔥 The smartest (and strangest) puzzle game ever made.
🎮 In this video, I revisit Portal — Valve’s legendary mind-bending classic. From GLaDOS’ dark humor and the Companion Cube, to portals, cake memes, and physics-breaking puzzles… this is puzzle-platforming at its most brilliant and unforgettable.

If you’re into Portal, Valve games, deep-dive gaming retrospectives, or just want to relive the weirdest and funniest moments in gaming history, you’re in the right place. And with Portal 2 still holding up as one of the greatest sequels ever, there’s no better time to look back at the original masterpiece that started it all.

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Editor Credits:
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📌 TAGS
#portal #glados #valve #thecakeisalie #portalretrospective #gamingretrospective #videogameessay #puzzleplatformer #physicsgames #companioncube #valvegames #gamingdeepdive #belowaveragegamer #bag #videogamestory #youtubegaming #legendarygames #gaminghistory #throwbackgaming

20 Comments

@BelowAverageGamerrr Creator 9 months ago Pinned

PORTAL 2 VIDEO OUT NOW https://youtu.be/Hu_xwLFEgXk

@brandonhelcher3691 1 year ago

I think the companion cube came about because playtesters kept leaving the box behind, when it was vital for the stage. So they emphasized it's importance.

@TheKasimkage 11 months ago

“Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out” and the following “Weeeeeee” are probably two of my most favourite lines in videogames.

@Lythiaren 1 year ago

I still love how the companion cube was birthed because playtesters didn't think to use it throughout the chamber, and died because those same playtesters then refused to let it go.

@NotLordAzhat 1 year ago

Fun fact the original version of the game did not actually have that part of you being dragged back in, it was actually you passing out. Right before portal two came out they added the dragging scene

@SpookyGhostpeppers 1 year ago

Playing Portal 1 and 2 for the first time about a year or two ago changed my brain chemistry. Its one of those games where I desperately wished I developed a sudden case of amnesia so I can re-experience it for the first time again. I knew it existed but I was way too young to have actually played it, and I can say that 18 years later it still holds up

@DiamondWolfX 1 year ago (edited)

I love the part where you get revenge for a square by doing the exact same thing to the square's creator four times

@MsSmilely 1 year ago

I had no idea that people were still making portal content! Im super glad people still are

@mikosoft 1 year ago

Ellen McLain is the vocal actress behind GLaDOS. She has won an award for her portrayal. As a bonus, she also sang both end credit songs for both Portal games.
By the way, the end credit song was also a completely original way to end a game at the time. Portal broke a lot of new ground, similar to Half-Life 10 years before it and all that at the time when we thought there will not be an original mainstream game (just incremental improvements).
When I first picked the game up, I knew almost nothing about it and I just couldn't stop. When P2 came I just had to play through and while it wasn't as surprising as the original, it was a very worthy sequel.
All in all, Portal games stand out for me as milestones in gaming industry, a tour de force in innovative game design.

@ChrisPBacon-yc4si 1 year ago

I put the cube into the incinerator IMMEDIATELY, so when she told me that I've done it the fastest, it was a butter sweet compliment lol

@coal_patch 1 year ago

i dont care who the facility staff sends, i am in love with the evil robot

@DragonFury4250 1 year ago

Anybody else enjoy just popping up behind a turret and putting as many as you can in timeout facing the wall, leaving them online and fully functional orrr...?

@wulf2121 1 year ago

One way it tricked me on my first playthrough was when it used environmental design in the escape sequence that are familiar in a gamer brain, subtly tricking me in thinking in ways other games make me think.
That room where it gives you stairs only to break them when you try to walk up looks familar if you played half-life 2 for example. So, how to get up there now? (a few seconds later) Wait, I'm dumb, I have a portal gun!
A fence with a lock? How to I break it? Wait...
A moving machine to get past that is a reminder of the obstacles in the Half-Life Chapter residue processing? But it moves too fast! Wait...

@Immortalman343 1 year ago (edited)

Me every time I see portal in my recommended: “Oh, it’s you.”

Me at 1k likes: "Tiny. Little. Wheatly. Did this."

@theinfamoustom 1 year ago

To help emphasize the brilliance of portal, my 11 year old daughter constantly refused to play "old, primitive games". I put her on Portal one day and she became immediately obsessed.

@partiallyparker 1 year ago

28:16 GLaDOS’ design also resembles a bound woman, which connects to the fact that Carolyn was forced to become glados (her mind was uploaded at the cost of her life) so glados is a copy of Carolyn that has effectively been made immortal and relentlessly tested and tortured by scientists, forced to run the whole facility etc.

@WhiteManBehindADesk 1 year ago

Breaking the 3.5th wall is such a good way of describing that moment. Like escaping the apartment in Prey.

@dylpil9789 1 year ago

i love how the fight with Wheatly is the complete opposite to glados fight in the first game instead of removing cores your putting cores on instead I always found that interesting

@kittenisageek 11 months ago (edited)

11:55 "The Cake is a Lie" is from an old table-top card-ish game "Paranoia." In the game you're all part of one or more mega corporations with varying levels of security clearance. The higher your clearance, the more you know of exactly what's going on. If you're entry level, you're a pawn. Your role can be that of a normal worker, a corporate spy, or a troubleshooter (find the spy). Periodic gatherings are often used to try and sus out details about the others. Are they on your team? Do they have higher clearance? Do they know something they shouldn't? Anyway, 'cake' at these gatherings is often used in a variety of ways. For example if the cake is poisoned either by the spy or the troubleshooter and your clearance allows you to know this, you can pass that information on to a lower-ranking player with a card that reads: "The cake is a lie."