Sorry but i'm still not convinced by portal's 'breakthrough' yes you can put the portals in different places but its still very linear and very limited, you can't put a portal ANYwhere you want to you have limited places to put it which means all in all, its not an infinate amount of possibilities.
If the portal gun was in something like half life 2? Then yes, much more open and more fun to exploit.
Dont get me wrong i LOVED portal and yes i know its only concept and early days, but i wouldn't say it brought as much to the table as a title like crysis?
Volumetric shadows, advanced particle effects, directx 10 and the ability to use the nanosuit any-which-way you want right from the moment you take control, the levels are insanely massive with very few loading points considering the size of the scenery that to me is a pretty big step. Then add to that each of these massive levels has to be made as such that any and all of the nanosuit functions have a part to play from a number of different styles of play.
The massively destructive environment which has been missing from the half life 2 engine for SO long was amazing in crysis.
I'm sorry but portal didn't bring as much to the table for me as what crysis did in terms of 'breakthrough' if you compare the image quality of half life 2 engine games to crysis there is just no comparison.
Valve is patching odds and ends to their engine as they release new things not massive breakthrough's in technology, their physics engine is starting to feel dated and restricted in comparison to new titles and they haven't adopted anything new graphically for a long time now. I would have thought they would be hot on the heels of directX10 just like they were with 64 bit.
Crysis is one solid outright breakthrough package as a whole and i feel quite strongly it should have been top in breakthrough category.
