Subjective. I found beauty in the psychedelic flashes of light from the towers. Also, I think the story fit well enough, in fact I’ll go far enough to say that I don’t think it could have been pulled off any other way.

The brilliance of Portal was that the game was tied to the story:It wasn’t just text or audio pieces here and there, the way you learned to use the portal gun with greater skill allowed more freedom and to question what you saw in the world, that would be impassable obstacles in other games. As you are doing this, you learn more and more about Glados, about whats going on, making you question things until that brilliant moment in Test 18 when you break your allegiance to Glados completely.

The story of Portal is a simple one, but well told with great humor and witty dialogue, and melded with the game. Immortal Defense, from what I’ve played, has a more complex story, but that does not entail a better one, nor will every player agree with the philosophical viewpoint of the author.

In the end, I believe Penny Arcade’s reward was accurate. The writing of Portal is IN the game. In Immortal defense, its merely an addition to, it doesn’t really alter your perception of the game world presented. It would be akin to chopping up Dante’s Inferno, and placing bits of its it before every level in Q-bert.