I think you're wrong about the "you're not going to appreciate it near as much as the people that bought it in 2007" part, since I too played it when Portal 2 came out, and was still amazed by it.
People like G La DOS a lot because of her dialogue, mainly. As for the Companion Cube... it's all in the memes, man. =P
The thing about the Companion Cube is it is just a box with a heart on it, that's basically the joke in the game, how it's really silly to attach feelings to such a pathetic attempt at manipulating emotion (and then sticking that bit at the end of the level).
I'm sure most of the reason why it was doing well in greatest character battles was because people love the idea of doing something as ridiculous as voting for the inanimate box with a heart painted on it. Same with the t-shirts
Well, this review makes me kind of sad. I understand your experience, as I've gone through it with many games. I also agree with your assessment of the overused memes and your confusion over the Companion Cube. I too was a late-comer to Portal—not quite as late, but late enough to have had the fixation on certain specific elements of the game drilled into my skull. But I still liked it. I didn't derive my joy from the cake being a lie, or from the irony of the companion cube. There were better and funnier things about the game for me. And heck, I played "Narbacular Drop," the proto-Portal, before I played Portal so it wasn't even all that fresh of an experience. And I guess that's why this makes me sad, because despite all that I still loved Portal, and it's too bad that you couldn't love it to. But I am a huge fan of the puzzle gameplay, so I guess that explains a good chunk of it.
Incidentally, the rabid fan reaction to the Space Core of Portal 2 is something I don't get either. Again, there were other much funnier things in that game, most of which went unspoiled because I guess no one else thought they were that funny. People are so weird.
I feel like the other thing that a lot of latecomers (myself included) miss out on is that we don't really get the chance to see this as a simple puzzle game with an anonymous voice that occasionally makes jokes; everyone knows GLaDOS is the Big Bad instead of having the implications escalating until she outright tries to kill you.
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Which is coincidentally why people probably won't enjoy System Shock 2 as much now that it's widely available. :(
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I guess there are worse ways to spend 3 hours.
I played Portal long after the Orange Box originally debuted. I originally bought the Orange Box for one reason, and one reason only: Team Fortress 2. So on the eve of Portal 2's release, I finally gave this little game a shot, having heard it's completely amazing from start to finish.
Eh. It was all right. I'm not terribly fond of physics puzzles, but the pacing is gradual enough that the game tends to build up slowly, adding a new fold to each puzzle, and that's pretty good. However, the humor was mostly lost on me. That's what happens when people repeat memes over 9,000 times and then you view the original work. The humor doesn't seem half as clever if you've heard it before. And while I liked that story largely wasn't forced upon you, the story itself is nothing you haven't seen before. Mad AI, sure. We've seen it in 2001, Marathon, System Shock, etc. The only thing that separates this one is that it's an excessively petty Rogue AI. I can't explain why people like the Companion Cube so much. It's just a box with a heart on it.
I think the people that initially played it went in with no expectations, but I went in with the expectations of this "perfect" game, and was disappointed. So I had sort of the reverse experience of others. I think Portal is one of those games you had to be there for to get the full effect- you're not going to appreciate it near as much as the people that bought it in 2007 and still rave about it because there were no expectations then. It's a decent game, but it's worth waiting for one of those days when Valve gives it away.
I don't regret playing it, but it's not special to me.