Look, yeah, I loved Portal for its gameplay. It’s definitely on my ‘Top 10 Games of All Time’. In other words I think it’s awesome, so I don’t want you thinking I’m attacking the game as a whole.
But really, this whole thing about Portal with its “black humor” and “companion cube dur hurrrrr”
ugh.
Look, it wasn’t funny. At all. And I am not a humorless person. I love comedy.
But this shit isn’t funny. I’m sorry. It just isn’t.
I remember going into a bathroom stall where I work and someone had written “the cake is a lie” on the wall with a Sharpie.
ugh.
Ugh.
UGH
God damn that shit is brutally nerdy and just not funny. It’s not funny. It’s not funny!
I know this qualifies as a “post your unpopular opinion about a video game” type deal. And it is. I know this is an unpopular opinion. But I’ve seen too many people post unpopular opinions just because they’re trying to be edgy. Those people are just contrarian assholes.
I’m not trying to be one of those contrarian assholes… That isn’t me. I am posting this because I want to find other people out there that played Portal and just didn’t find any of that Cake shit funny. Please, I am just trying to find someone else who is like me. There has to be someone else out there.
I didn’t find it funny. But by the time I played Portal it had been out for a while and I’d read/heard “The cake is a lie” countless times so by the time I played it my reaction was more “oh so that’s where that’s from” than anything else.
I don’t know if I would’ve found it funny had I played Portal earlier but I rather doubt it, at least not much, certainly not enough to go quoting it all over the damned place but then *nothing *should be quoted like that damned line was. That’ll ruin anything. Although I did find the little song/poem at the end a bit funny.
It wasn’t uproariously funny, but it’s clever and irreverent, and the level design made it darkly amusing. You’re in this clean, sterile testing facility, with its aloof and corporate antagonist, but you start seeing tears in the fabric behind some of the walls, and in the end you’re trying to escape through this dingy background area of the facility while the murderous computer is trying to sooth and appease you.
Portal was funny. But not the part you’re complaining about. That’s just a meme.
For example, this is funny:
“Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck!”
“While safety is one of many Enrichment Center goals, the Aperture Science High-Energy Pellets seen to the left of the chamber can and have caused permanent disabilities, such as vaporization. Please be careful.”
“You’re doing very well. Please be advised that a noticeable taste of blood is not part of any test protocol, but is an unintended side effect of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grille, which may, in semi-rare cases, emancipate dental fillings, crowns, tooth enamel, and teeth.”
I’m not a big fan of endless repetition of the “Cake is a lie” meme either, but there were things I found funny in the game. For example when Glados says this:
Remember that time we tried to kill you by putting you on fire and you were like “NO WAY!” That was great.
I never got the fascination with the Companion Cube. It was… just a cube. You carried the damn thing around on a level. Throw it in the fire when done. I love GLaDOS and her insane quotes!
“Fantastic. You remained resolute and resourceful in an atmosphere of extreme pessimism.”
“The Enrichment Center promises to always provide safe testing environments. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it.”
“Momentum; A function of mass and velocity; is conserved between portals. In layman’s terms: Speedy-thing goes in, Speedy-thing comes out.”
“Huh! There isn’t enough neurotoxin to kill you, so I guess you win. Ha! I’m making more. That’s going to take a few minutes though. Meanwhile, oh, look, it’s your old pal, the Rocket Turret.”
“Neurotoxin… cough So deadly… coughs Choking… Hahahaha… I’m kidding. When I said ‘deadly neurotoxin’, the ‘deadly’ was in massive sarcasm quotes. I could take a bath in this stuff, put it on cereal, rub it right into my eyes. Honestly, it’s not deadly at all. To me. You, on the other hand, are going to find the deadliness a lot less funny.”
