Critical Hit: GLaDOS Sucks
This week’s edition of Critical Hit on GameKrib is all about GLaDOS’ chamber in Portal.
It didn’t occur to me until well after I beat it, however, that the final chamber you confront GLaDOS in has to be some of Valve’s laziest work ever. It only attests to how good the game is that no one really noticed, or even cared.
Now I’m not really bringing this up because I want to pick a hole in the game. It’s solid, it’s two or three hours, and it is fun from beginning to end. That this only occurred to me around three to four years after is a testament to how solid and immersive the game is, especially considering how no one else seems to have brought this up (no one I’ve spoken to, at least). Maybe it’s a symptom of “Valve can do no wrongâ€, I dunno.
Thing is, Aperture Science in general doesn’t make sense. The testing chambers and observation rooms? Sure. Once you get past that, however, it’s just a big labyrinth of massive pistons and tubes transporting weighted storage cubes everywhere. Why is there a giant empty chamber with several rows of doors containing nothing but defense turrets? Because it made for a pretty fun room to play in, that’s why. The player is so absorbed into the game that they never think just what the purpose of the room they’re in is.
I finally got my copy of Portal 2 this weekend, and in all truth I think Valve accidentally created one of gaming’s most memorable villains completely by accident. I don’t just mean as a gag reel, either. Yeah, everyone remembers GLaDOS because of her quirky sense of humor and interactions. However, she’s not the stereotypical villain out to conquer/destroy the world/galaxy/city/locality. She’s merely an antagonist towards you. That she’s flooded the entire Aperture Science building with toxin is just additional reason to fear her. She’s a psychotic robot, but her machinations are limited. In the first game her sole focus is on observing you, causing you torment and by the end trying to kill you.
Which is what makes her work so well in the second game. Her goals in the first game were simply sadistic, but now she is fueled by a vengeful hate. In truth, she’s the first major game villain where the goals and interactions of the protagonist and antagonist are purely personal. There is no outside world, nothing epic is at stake. It is purely you trying to survive and kill an antagonist that, for the most part, feels the same way about you. It is a genuine rivalry.
The last villain of this style I really knew in games was Piggy from EarthBound, and most of the time he was just a joke. As a result, every word spoken by GLaDOS, every line she has, becomes a more monumental event than in other games. Things are truly personal, and even though she makes you laugh you’d just love to see nothing more than that bitch dead.
And to think that people are still saying story doesn’t matter in video games.
