We Can Now Play 'Portal'... On The Nintendo 64

Ever felt nostalgic for a time that never existed?
We Can Now Play 'Portal'... On The Nintendo 64

We recently covered Bloodborne PSX and Bloodborne Kart. Those are “demakes”, or downgraded versions of more recent games made to look like retro titles – think remakes that look "bad", but intentionally. Those awesome demakes are meant to look and play like PS1 titles, but they are intended to run on a PC – hardware that's easier to program for, and ironically very likely to be more powerful than a PS4. That's not the case with all demakes, however. The best possible outlier is Portal 64, a demake of the original Portal made by absolute madman James Lambert that runs on the now ancient and alien Nintendo 64 hardware.

James Lambert, Valve

The result is like a temple Ocarina Of Time that got cut for being too wild for its time.

Yeah, one of the things that a lot of people think when they look at Portal is “whoa, no way this could've been made before the advent of the very revolutionary technology of the year 2007”, but it turns out it totally could have. While it could perhaps be impossible for the Nintendo 64 to nail the tone of the first game because the N64's cartridges would in no way be able to handle Portal's dialogue (because it's too awesome, yeah, but mostly because they didn't have enough space for it), that's about the only limitation. The other thing that set the game apart, the incredible portal mechanics and physics, are something we totally could've gotten way back in ‘97. 

James Lambert, Valve

We get to do all sorts of wacky stuff, even though the N64 wasn't known for its advanced physics.

James Lambert, Valve

Dear readers, please feel free to use the trippy imagery above to get hypnotized into forgetting that '07 is farther from present times than it is to the release date of the Nintendo 64.

Now the only thing we still need to learn is whether the N64 would handle the “Crushed between two portals” experiment.

Top Image: Valve

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