The Cake, the Lie, and the Warmest Killer Ever Written

Two ovals — one orange, one blue — and the space between them. Portal took a mechanic simple enough to explain in a sentence and built one of the tightest, funniest, most quietly sinister stories in games. You are Chell, a test subject in the spotless chambers of Aperture Science, and the voice guiding you, GLaDOS, promises cake at the end.

The game was a student project grown up, bundled almost as an afterthought into 2007's Orange Box — and it stole the show. Its puzzles taught themselves, its writing landed every joke, and its ending song, sung by the murderous AI you just defeated, became the first great video game singalong. The cake is a lie; the game is not.

There is a strange coziness to Portal's clean white rooms, the hum of the portal gun, the Weighted Companion Cube you are asked to love and then to lose. It proved a game could be three hours long, mechanically perfect, and quoted at dinner parties forever. Still alive, indeed.