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Rule number one of Backlog Club: Work through your pile of unplayed video games one at a time, and discuss them with other people. Rule number two of Backlog Club: Don’t talk about Backlog Club.
Just kidding! Tell everyone. Please.
This article is part of our new experimental series, Backlog Club, where we (Nintendo Life!) pick a game that’s likely to be on our list of “games we should get around to playing”, and then we (NL + you!) spend the next month playing that game. August’s pick, as voted for by you lot, is something we’ve been putting off for a long time…
I remember when The Orange Box first came out. I was an avid reader of magazines, but not an avid player of games — I had the GameCube and the Wii, but my PC was a shared family one, and only really capable of running the most basic games. Usually educational ones or the kinds that came in cereal boxes. Am I showing my age?
So I didn’t play Portal when it came out in that Orange Box, alongside Half-Life and Team Fortress, but thanks to video game magazines raving about it, I knew it was special. I would go to my local game store and pick it up, in the hopes that people would see me telling my brother it was a “seminal work in the novel genre of first-person puzzle games” or something equally cribbed from whichever mag I’d memorised that morning, and would think to themselves, “now, there’s a girl who’s definitely played this game.”
But it was all a terrible lie. A farce, designed to make me look more knowledgeable than I was. And now — 15 years later — Valve has finally teamed up with Nintendo to make me an honest woman. No, not like that. I mean literally. I am going to play Portal.
And so are you! Presumably! After all, you are here, at this meeting of Backlog Club, the book club for your backlog. Listen, there’s no shame in going so long without playing the (checks notes) seminal work in the novel genre of first-person puzzle games that is Portal. It was fifteen years ago. Some of you were probably busy. Some of you might have been babies. Here at Backlog Club, ours is not to judge; it is to make things right.
So, thanks to your votes, we’re all going to be playing Portal: Companion Collection. At last.
How and where to buy Portal
Note: The Steam prices are for Portal + Portal 2 combined.
| Storefront | Price | Free with subscription? |
|---|---|---|
| Nintendo Switch eShop | $19.99 / € 18,99 / £13.49 | NSO: ❌ |
| Steam | $19.98 / € 16,38 / £14.38 | N/A |
FAQ
Do I have to finish the game?
Usually, we’d say no, but Portal is short. So this time, YES.
Should I play Portal 2?
I mean, if you’ve bought the
on Switch, you might as well. Plus, I’m probably going to be talking about it in my Backlog Club catchups later this month!
Can I join in if I’ve already played it?
Absolutely! All are welcome in Backlog Club. Just don’t post spoilers.
What is the point of Backlog Club?
We’ve all got a backlog. We needed a reason to start working on ours. You can join us, if you want — and vote for which games we play, too!
Catch up on previous months of Backlog Club right here
, and something something the cake is a lie.
Excited to finally catch up on Valve’s finest game? Tell us in the comments!