Zen Studios’ Portal pinball table is pretty faithful, and fun

Not going to make a ‘you monster’ joke

I’m not as crazy about pinball as say, Chad Concelmo, but with the right theme, I’m on board. The South Park Pinball pack hit the spot with numerous references to the show, and more recently, the Portal board has its hooks in me.

It’s a nice amalgamation of both Portal games, featuring the iconic GLaDOS egging you on with taunts, as well as Wheatley with some words of encouragement. One of the coolest bits has to be the ongoing quest during each session, where you’re tasked with leading Chell throughout the board with her Handheld Portal Device.

Other events will open up the middle of the board itself (Test Chambers), putting you into a miniature challenge rooms, some of which are littered with those adorable Turrets. If you complete all of them, you’ll get to battle GLaDOS. Other mechanics like propulsion and repulsion gel are in, which can be manipulated with the flipper buttons. Once you dig even deeper, you’ll find that you can do things like destroy the Turrets on the main board.

It’s surprisingly detailed, and any fan of the series will likely enjoy an afternoon with it. It helps that the core packages involved are free downloads. Portal Pinball is out next week as an add-on for Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2. It is priced at $2.99 on PC and consoles, and $1.99 on mobile.