This game is very fun, and even educational to some extent! The real-world physics in this game are incredible, and playing around with the Portal gun is a blast. But for littler kids, it might be wise to steer clear. This is a puzzle game, meaning that violence is kept to a minimum. However, the player is always in danger of falling to his/her death, being riddled by inanimate turrets, or being vaporized by an energy ball. Whenever the player gets hit by one of the turrets (Who are really only in a few levels) blood splatters appear on the wall or ground behind. You can't really kill anything, but instead, you just knock over the cute little gun turrets. Portal is a fun game, and family friendly for kids 10 and up, but know your kid's maturity level and use your good judgment. Now enter the internet. Portal uses the Source game engine, which means that mods can be downloaded for it from the program that runs Portal, Steam. If your child has a Steam account, this means that he/she has access to many demos and mods to download. Mods are like add-ons to a game. Basically it's a ton of bloody games that your child would have at the click of a button if they own both Portal and Steam. He could download a brutal, bloody medieval mod, or download a grotesque zombie survival mod, or maybe even a western mod. If you want to keep your child away from these mods, keep taps on what they are doing on their Steam account, and pay attention to the game that they are playing. Know your kid, know what he/she is doing.

This game is one where you need to use logic skills rather than violence to win. The whole game is basically about how to get from point A to point B without running into C, D, or E. The puzzles get gradually harder as you go on, but everything is explained to you in the early levels. The antagonist of the game threatens to kill you at several points, and tries first to lower you into a pit of fire and, later on, to fill the room with neurotoxin. Because of this, I'd say that the game is not okay for children younger than 11 or so. Younger players might have a hard time with some of the puzzles, but there is no time pressure except in the boss fight. Overall, this is a fun, challenging game that makes you use your head.

i think this is a great game! although after the 17 room GLaDOS does say "android hell is a real place you will be sent at the first sign of defiance. there is some blood and ending with death threats and jokes about cake. the end fight is funny although there is a rocket turret. the puzzles were challenging and sometimes glados encourages you to keep trying. with a little "caaake" of course i give this game a double thumbs up!!

Portal is a great game, even besides the story, it makes you think in a very different then normal way to solve the puzzles, with portals. One idea used many times in the puzzles is that momentum is conserved through portals, if you go in one fast you go out the other at the same speed, or as the computer said "in layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out". Additionally to that it has great charecter developement of the computor, the only charecter in the game, its personality (or at least the players perception of its personaliy) slowly changes throughout the game until it is completely different. The plot is fairly hard to grasp, since the only scource of information is a computor that may or may not be lying to you, but it is a great one. On top of all of these it has extremely hilarious but very dark humor (mainly the humor is the computors great underestimate of human intelligence, it thinks its outsmarting you the whole time when its not.) Overall, great game!!

This game isnt like other first-person-shooters. you don't kill anyone or destroy anything. The turrets that shoot at you arent supposed to be for the violence, they are for the puzzle to increase difficulty.

This is an absolutely gorgeous game. Great $$$, short, sweet, to the point, no lose ends, great gameplay, great challenge yet not too hard...I literally played the whole thing through in 5 hours (it would probably take a kid longer because the puzzles are quite hard). This game is subtly creepy in the very best way possible; not a slasher, very little blood, but there's a constant feeling of unease, of threat, of being trapped and watched. And you are trapped and watched. I don't think it would really scare a kid though....the creepiness is subtle enough that I'm pretty sure a five year old could watch it and the creepiness would go right over their heads without even touching them. Gave me chills sometimes though! But this game is one of those that is going to go down in gaming history. It will be remembered forever, just like the companion cube, in our fondest memories.

Okay, this game is truly fun. I was instantly drawn to it. GLaDOS is very funny, and I looove humorous games. But, last night I was on wikipedia, and I saw an article on GLaDOS. I (of course) clicked on it, and found interesting facts. But, then, I clicked on a sound file of her transition from Bad to Creepy and EVIL. It was unsettling, and I was trembling for a few moments after hearing it. Now, I also saw some footage of the game. It too, is creepy. Not to mention all those Rat Man sub-plots. Don't get me wrong; this game is brilliant. It is well done. But I believe that it is rated Teen for a reason, and kids under thirteen should steer clear of this game, and stick to safer FPS games (e.g. Link's Crossbow Training, Star Wars Battlefront, ETC.).