Get Portal for free

http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/

by abraham • 16 years ago

172 65 16 years ago

store.steampowered.com

Cayenne• 16 years ago

So it's free for Mac and Windows... what about Linux?

michaelbuckbee2• 16 years ago

A Steam client for Linux isn't out yet ("shortly" is the official word).

johnswamps2• 16 years ago

You can get the game without steam installed (though you do need to sign up for an account on-line and you may need to give your CC info), so you may as well "purchase" it now. Worst case you never get to play it and are out 5 minutes of your time.

JadeNB2• 16 years ago

> You can get the game without steam installed (though you do need to sign up for an account on-line and you may need to give your CC info), so you may as well "purchase" it now.

How does this work? I don't see anything but a big red button that downloads Steam.

knome• 16 years ago

I run steam under wine to play Half Life II and Counterstrike occasionally. I'm hoping this one works as well.

dmn001• 16 years ago

good find. you need a steam account and steam installed though.

michaelbuckbee2• 16 years ago

I had some worries that it wouldn't work so hot, but it was decent playing on my MBP.

megablast• 16 years ago

Do I need steam, or can I just download the game?

Do I need to have internet access when I run the game?

I really don't like the new model of needing to know all this, a good reason I gave up on games along time ago.

icegreentea• 16 years ago

You need steam. You don't need internet access to run the game.

_cbsz• 16 years ago

Link is getting Error 324 (empty response) for me, using Chrome on Linux.

crocowhile• 16 years ago

same here. just hit reload a few times, it'll work.

henning• 16 years ago

Didn't we have some fun, though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye' and you were like 'NO WAY', and then I was all 'We pretended we were going to murder you'; that was great.

Gormo• 16 years ago

Is this a metaphorical commentary on the PC gaming industry?

ehsanul• 16 years ago

Nope. That's what GLaDOS, the AI you beat in Portal, says in one part of the game. GLaDOS is a psychotic AI who says hilarious things like that. It's only funny if you know what happens in the game though.

zitterbewegung• 16 years ago

This looks like a ploy to reward people for the mac beta.

MWinther• 16 years ago

I'm guessing more like getting people to install Steam on their Macs. Worked on me! installing

herdrick• 16 years ago

So, this is because it's an older game? Or are the going to be getting into the virtual goods business?

stevejohnson• 16 years ago

I would say it's a move to get new Steam users, particularly users with Macs.

ax0n• 16 years ago

The "Free" part will work for me. Although I dual boot my Mac with Windows 7, and I've always wanted to try Portal, I never really got into it. That will change when I get home.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

absolutely. Also, to rope in more Portal fans, because Portal 2 is being released soon-ish.

I imagine Portal downloads and purchases have also probably reached all-time lows. With the press coverage and meme-ification it got, there are probably very very few people left who would be willing to buy it, and have not because they haven't heard of it yet. Thus, by giving it away free to people who wouldn't have bought it anyway, no money lost.

timdorr• 16 years ago

2.5 years is "older"?

devinj• 16 years ago

Well it's older than any game released in the past slightly-less-than-2.5-years, sure.

jfoutz• 16 years ago

What do you call a movie that is not a new release? I'm not sure what the right terminology is. A catalog movie maybe?

old: 1 having lived for a long time; no longer young

portal is no longer young, older seems reasonable to me.

cracell• 16 years ago

It's a push for people to install the Mac version of Steam.

Secondly I would think they've decided most people that are going to buy it, have already. So why not try to pick up more fans before the second one comes out this fall.

msg3• 16 years ago

It's apt. APT!

http://xkcd.com/606/

MikeCapone6• 16 years ago

That's totally me. I never played portal, got very late into COD4. The only game that I'm likely to get when it's released is Starcraft 2.

msg3• 16 years ago

You should be able to get a beta key if you preorder it, and you could start right now...

DTrejo• 16 years ago

"The Steam servers are currently too busy to handle your request. Please try again in a few minutes"

MikeCapone6• 16 years ago

I don't even get that, just a blank screen :(

edit: It seems to be working now. I think I needed to go verify my email first. If you are also a new Steam user trying to download portal, go check your inbox first.

MikeCapone6• 16 years ago

Steam is being a huge pain so far. I was downloading portal and it crashed. I relaunched it but it didn't resume downloading, yet I couldn't play the game, and didn't find a way to restart the download. Ended up deleting the whole thing and I'm now trying again from the start... sigh

edit: Great, I re-installed but it still lists Portal in my "library", and I don't see any way to re-download it or delete it or anything. This sucks.

adriand• 16 years ago

I've got the blank screen too, on a Mac. Verifying my email didn't help.

fairlyodd2• 16 years ago

AAh! Thank you!

davidmathers• 16 years ago

This is a triumph.

I'm being so sincere right now.

marvin• 16 years ago

Nice try, GLaDOS. I'm not touching that 1500 megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-colliding Super-button.

TrevorBurnham• 16 years ago

Easily one of the best games ever made. It takes a mere four hours to play through, but I call that a feature, not a bug. Most games keep going long after they've became repetitive and dull. Portal is a pure pleasure from start to finish.

jfi• 16 years ago

"Now these points of data make a beautiful line and we're out of beta we're releasing on time" ... my favorite video game song ever. Full lyrics here: http://www.lyricsera.com/513316-lyric-Valve-Still+Alive+port...

sp332• 16 years ago

Put a spoiler alert on that link. The lyrics refer to events late in the game.

mkramlich2• 16 years ago

I'm making a note here, "Huge success."

EDIT: corrected the quote

davidalln• 16 years ago

(ahem) the correct quote is "huge success"

mkramlich2• 16 years ago

I installed Steam on my Mac, started download of Portal, then Steam crashed to desktop. Upon restarting it prompted me for my root password so that it could update itself. The combination of crashiness and needing my root password earned it an immediate delete. I'll try again in a year or two.

zweben• 16 years ago

I installed Steam on my Mac, started download of Portal. It saturated my 15 megabit internet connection for nearly the entire download. Portal launched just fine and ran very smoothly at 1920x1200. I already beat portal on Xbox 360. Mac version is easily as good if not better.

oomkiller2• 16 years ago

Note that the ending changed since we all first played it!

borism• 16 years ago

how?

oomkiller2• 16 years ago

You now get hauled off at the end.

Deestan2• 16 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7lgqS-yq88

Deestan2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the tip! Just re-downloaded and played through again. Not a big change, but well worth it. :)

fairlyodd2• 16 years ago

Well, this is a great way to get the Steam store on to my computer.

spudlyo• 16 years ago

Tip for OSX: If steam complains that it needs to be on a case insensitive file system, you can go to the disk utility and select 'New Image' from the toolbar and create a files system, make sure it's case insensitive, and mount it in /Volumes/SteamDisk.

Then you have to make some symbolic links to this file system, like:

~/Documents/Steam Content -> /Volumes/SteamDisk/Steam Content

~/Library/Application Support/Steam -> /Volumes/SteamDisk/Steam

Once you've got that set up, you should be able to drag the steam icon over to the /Volumes/SteamDisk and then run it.

tel• 16 years ago

Free Mac play testing before releasing the entire platform?

DLWormwood2• 16 years ago

I'm officially disappointed in Portal, and glad I got it for free. Everybody in the trade press said it was this extraordinary thing: a short but sweet puzzler. Sadly, the game/dev's roots as a FPS house really shows here. Not all of us (especially us older people) have the reflexes anymore to do some of the real time tricks required to solve the last couple of stages. sigh

maushu• 16 years ago

Funnily enough, the game developers are not from Valve if that is what you are implying by "FPS house" since they are team that attended Digipen and made a similar game called Narbacular Drop (also a fps). You should check it out.

DLWormwood2• 16 years ago

It know this is late, but...

I really wanted to try Drop first, but that's probably never going to be ported to the Mac. (I have Parallels, but no Windows license to install it with.) I want to play "Devil's Tuning Fork" for a similar reason.

I now better understand the love Portal got. The final level (including the boss sequence) made up for most of the frustrations of the last couple of test chambers. According to Portal's commentary track, the developers realized that real time and complicated puzzles needs separation, and this game design made the last level much more enjoyable.

jokermatt999• 16 years ago

To any hackers who haven't played this game, I highly recommend it. Even if you aren't the gaming type, it's a short and highly enjoyable experience. The writing is great, the gameplay is fun, and the puzzles will get you to use your brain (if not in the main game, then in the challenges). It's only a few hours long, and you could potentially beat it in a few hours. Above all, it's free. Try it out; there's no reason not to.

Get Portal for free

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