The Entropy Centre Review (isthatjames123)
I love portal and this game was clearly heavily inspired by it but i find it hard to recommend because of some major issues. which is a shame cos i wanted to like this and was looking forward to it for a while.
for one this game feels a lot like a portal mod. everyone is here. cubes, faith plates, light bridges it all works just like portal the only difference being you rewind objects to move them instead of using portals. so if you have played portal dont expect many new mechanics. even the environments are similar to portal, there are test chambers like portal and there is a wisecracking companion following you the whole time. even the music is very portal like (although not as memorable in my opinion)
the puzzles themselves feel VERY similar. almost every solution is just place the thing in the last place you need it then the first place you need it and then rewind. also there is often arrows on the ground or outlines of where to put things so even working out where things go isnt a puzzle. at one point the wisecracking companion straight up told me the solution to a puzzle before i had the chance to even look around the room adding insult to injury. a lot of the puzzles can be broken in some way aswell sometimes needing to reload the level to fix hinting that this game wasnt tested very well although maybe they were left in for speedruns? annoying that i found them on a casual playthrough tho. also at one point it adds this stupid river mechanic to replace the excursion funnels in portal where you have to drop a cube in the river and pick it up again so that when you rewind you can leave it in the river to float down to you later. i assume this is the intended solution to these river puzzles cos i did a lot of them like this but dropping and picking up the things from the river is clunky and annoying it felt like i wasnt supposed to do it. and because i guess my character cant swim in 3 inches of water if you ever get to close to the river you die and have to play the whole level again. this was about the point i gave up on the game.
the story is interesting although im 5 hours in and it hasnt progressed at all if you have watched the trailer dont expect and more story until atleast the 5 hour mark. i cant say if there is more beyond that as my patience has been tested enough already.
the writing just isnt as good as in portal. many of the "jokes" just fell flat to me and with the story not actually moving along with you it mostly feels like filler. which brings me to my next point there is SO much walking around and just doing the same shit you have been doing in this game. i would say of the 5 hours i played about 40 minutes was actual new ideas being shown the rest was just walking around getting to the next area. they disguise this as set pieces that i think are supposed to feel tense or atleast like you are sneaking around the rat dens from portal but it basically comes down to walk, see a large pillar slowly fall towards you, rewind said pillar, continue walking.
as for the secrets in this game as a dev that was clearly inspired by portal they really missed the point of them. for one many times when i thought i was going to find a secret it was just a dead end (sometimes requiring to reload the level to get back) and the rest of the time it was just a PC with an email that added absolutely nothing to plot. for example early on there is an exact copy of the first puzzle in portal with the single cube and button that opens the door and in portal if you throw the cube through the door while on the button glados gives unique dialogue and opens the door in this you end up having to reload the game and nothing happens. there are many missed opportunities like this and the ones they do take are really not worth it.
so in short unless you are really sold on the concept enough to sit through a lot of waiting around or you just havent played any of the MANY similar games that are better than this i would not recommend it.