On March 2nd, V Society "grandly" launched a free short game "Aperture Technology Part-time Work". It is an extended story set in the classic mystery game "Portal" series game universe as an extension.
(Seeing this profile I sensed something was wrong, who told me it might be a sequel to Portal 2?) ）
It is true that this game is not a sequel to "Portal", but as soon as it was released, it attracted netizens to watch and experience, with 2,000 reviews and rave reviews in a short period of time, indicating that it is still a work worth exploring.
What aperture technology is
Speaking of Aperture Technology, this is a company that plays an important role in the V Society's game universe. It started out as a company that produced shower curtains, but under the leadership of founder Carl Jonathan Cave Johnson and the researchers around him, the company gradually moved toward high-tech research. Subsequently, they developed a "portal" technology, that is, a technology that transports objects across space.
This technology has received attention from the military. Funding was then provided for Aperture Technology and a large underground research institute was established for research. But Jonathan's ambitions don't stop there, he secretly conducted a number of experiments, including uploading the human mind into artificial intelligence, as well as cruel human experiments.
In the Portal series, aperture technology has undergone some changes, the researchers have all lost their lives, and the base is fully controlled by the artificial intelligence GLaDOS. The "portal" technology of Aperture Technology is also very much related to the invasion of alien alien creatures in Half-Life.
In fact, the pure aperture technology is enough to make a game, because whether it is from the founder Carl Jonathan Cave Johnson selling the shower curtain to the creation of the technology empire, or Caroline from a researcher to become a cold artificial intelligence, or an alien creature, etc., these events can always tell a good science fiction story, which in itself is attractive enough; not to mention if it can complete the empty, skipped plot of the "Half-Life" series, it would be better.
It's just that in recent years, "Portal 3" has been delayed, and the movies with aperture technology series stories passed in previous years have also lost news, which inevitably makes fans regret.
Now this story about aperture technology has finally been put on the stage of the game, and when I open the game with a little satisfaction, I find that the content of the story is very different from what I thought...
Short plot with black humor
The game flow of "Aperture Technology Part-time Work" is quite short, so short that I have passed its plot twice within an hour of my lunch break at work... But as a skit game (or free) that V uses to introduce Steam Deck, we can't ask it for any super long storyline. Specifically, the game tells the story of a worker who was abducted by the robot Grady pit to make weapons when aperture technology had not yet become so cruel.
Entering the game, in a slightly dimly lit room, Mr. Carl Jonathan Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Technology, begins to harp on about his appreciation for us.
"Welcome to the Aperture Technology Talent Center, I'm Cave Johnson. Hearing this recording shows that you are the best, don't be shy, really. You're welcome. Let's get started, looking at these pipes that stretch into the distance, each of which sends important items to a genius to change the world. Just a genius like you..."
It is worth mentioning that the old man hanging on the wall is an oil portrait of Carl Jonathan. This portrait is the same as in Portal 2, indicating that Aperture Technology at this time is close to the company in Portal.
Carl Jonathan was passionate, "moon-landing thrills" "Newton, Einstein, now it's your turn." ”...... His voice is calm and powerful, his expression is also very skillful, and the confidence revealed in his words shows that he is the ruler of a powerful company, and believes that you are the genius.
The picture turns deep underground, and the large number of pipes, artificial intelligence robots, bullets and ammunition, and the backs of the laborers, dangerous and busy, all of which seem to be a little different from what he said.
It wasn't until we got to our own workbench that an eyeball-like, blue circular robot, Grady, appeared. It tapped the switch on its own braincase, crampingly apologizing: "Ah, there's a problem, I got the tape wrong...", and then plucked out Carl Jonathan's rhetoric and put on another recording of him, without passion and dreams, this time Jonathan in a capitalist tone: "You, the one in overalls." Go back to work or fire you! ”
But the protagonist doesn't even have overalls, and the company doesn't even send this. The evil capitalist, the little black humor, the consistent style of the Portal series.
This method of designing some more exaggerated language for Jonathan first, and then reversing to make jokes, is very common in "Portal", so I actually expected this reversal a little, but I still laughed when I saw it, and the expression action of the little robot and jonathan's tone change were in place, and this small bridge section was handled very well.
The next story is absurd. The little robot Grady will tell you that the protagonists are now nothing more than a toilet product inspector.
affusion
Pressure -- assembly line
During the inspection, there was a problem with the toilet, Grady and the protagonist tried to make the toilet run normally, but the opposite happened, the toilet condition continued to make a mess of the test room, and even Grady was almost washed away by the toilet. Accidentally broke the pipe carrying the ammunition, the bullet fell on the toilet storage pool, and then the toilet could suddenly open fire! (What a strange brain hole this is)
The highly intelligent Grady was curious about this magical toilet and offered to go back and study it. The protagonist agrees to keep it a secret, and six months later, Grady succeeds in developing a toilet-shaped turret with more intense firepower...
After some twists and turns, the two of them decided to take this toilet turret to meet the boss, that is, Carl Jonathan, the founder of Aperture Technology, but jonathan did not expect that Jonathan had datatized his consciousness in pursuit of immortality and turned it into a huge mechanical head...
In fact, the whole story is full of the V Society's usual absurd black humor style, whether it is the small bridge section of the capitalist at the beginning, or jonathan is trapped in a big head in a cocoon at the end, the absurd style is especially evident in the core of the story: the weapon made by Grady is a toilet, and the player has to control this "toilet" to frantically click at the enemy, and the enemy is a washing machine turret controlled by other intelligent controls...
"Toilet vs Washing Machine"
Some little Easter eggs
The obvious Easter egg in the game is the toilet turret.
This kind of cute little turret is a very common NOC in Portal, and each turret is an artificial intelligence with feelings. Panics when caught by the protagonist Chell, and cutely asks Chell where he is hiding when Hel runs out of view. At the end of the two generations of Portal, they also get together to play the Song of the Turret, which is loved by many players.
But no one could have imagined that their prototype was actually a toilet haha.
When switching up and down in "Aperture Technology Work", we can see a lot of praying mantises, which will show some human social behavior.
In fact, in "Portal", Aperture Technology has done some experiments on praying mantises. Carl Jonathan asked the volunteers to inject the mantis's DNA, but halfway through the experiment, jonathan announced that the DNA experiment was suspended indefinitely, leaving the volunteers to pick up guns and fight the mantis people. At the beginning of the portal world, there is no information about the species of Mantis Man, so how did the Mantis Man come from?
The daily behavior of these praying mantises, which are almost exactly the same as those of humans, may hint at the answer.
In addition, in the animation at the beginning of the game, robots like Grady take classes in a classroom with machine learning written on machine learning, perhaps indicating that the ai-intelligence learning evolution of aperture technology is the same pattern as humans? (Haha)
There are also pipes with GEL FLOW (gel streams) written on it, etc., there are really many Easter eggs in the game, and players who are familiar with Portal or Half-Life will definitely find more interesting places than I do.
epilogue
"Aperture Technology Work" as a "Portal" series of game universe as the background of the expansion of the game, its game design style is naturally from the "Portal" there is a line, whether it is the plot, black humor text style, some of the game screen or interactive design can see the traces of "Portal", many old players can experience. However, the content of the game is very short, and some aspects are often only small parts, and we will not talk about it here.
Through this game, we can see that the V Society can still make products that are both brain holes and fun, so when will "Portal 3" come out? With the end of a netizen's brain hole, maybe the V Society can't produce "Portal 3", because Gabe was also made into a concrete metal head at the V Society headquarters? (Funny)