Video Game “Portal” Makes It Into The Curriculum

Holy crap, I wish I could transfer to Indiana’s Wabash College (unfortunately, though, it’s an all-boys college…).  Why is that? Because instead of sluffing off on homework to play video games, my homework could actually be a video game there!  Valve’s Portal is being integrated as a mandatory part of a freshman class that discusses classical and contemporary works.

One of the professors of the course and a gamer himself, Michael Abbot, proposed Portal for the course after reading an article comparing the game to an older sociology text. 

Apparently, the game isn’t required for every class for the course (that would be thousands of students), and is instead being “tested out” on a few classes.  Since the game is very short (a couple of hours for most gamers), the classes will perform an “in-class playthrough”, which I’m assuming would involve one person playing the game on a projector screen or similar.

I think this is really cool!  I love Portal, though I will admit that I’ve never actually taken the time to play through it.  I might have to now that it’s considered “college material”.

To see a little bit of the gameplay yourself, check out this trailer for it!