Portal 64, An N64 Demake of Valve's Classic, Now Has a Playable 'First Slice'

Programmer James Lambert has been working on a demake of Valve's Portal puzzle game for the Nintendo N64. After several years of development, Portal 64: The First Slice is now out of beta with two-thirds of the game's test chambers available to play. PC Gamer reports: In the announcement video Lambert goes through some of the new features in the latest build, including a seriously impressive visual rework on the portal gun itself. The video also showcases just how much of Portal's feel this manages to successfully capture, in particular the mind-bending effects of observing rooms and Chell through the portals themselves. I once called this the most impressive homebrew game I've ever seen and, while admittedly the N64 nostalgia helps, I'd stick by that. While this is obviously the first slice (geddit) and there's more to come, it's an incredible achievement in its own right: The first 13 test chambers of the game all present-and-correct. Portal has 19 test chambers, and Portal: Still Alive (which unbelievably has never seen an official PC release) added a further 14, so Lambert's well on his way to completing a vanilla version of Portal 64. You can follow the Portal 64 project on YouTube and download the game here.

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