The Entropy Centre - lasrever emit tuoba LATROP

                                                                                                                                                                        "Good artists copy,           

                                                                                                                                                                          great artists are thieves" Ⓒ Pablo Picasso.

In the case of The Entropy, the Spanish-French progenitor of Cubism was damn right. But not everyone knows what the great artist meant in his famous statement. He meant that while mediocre artists copy blindly, the great ones go to the heart of the work, take it apart, figure out how it works, and then walk their fingers over the right emotional keys and produce "Beethoven's tenth symphony.

Stubby Games went further in borrowing - not only have they almost faithfully transferred the Portal 2 entourage, but also mimicked Christopher Nolan's handwriting. The recipe for the cocktail sounds interesting, but what does The Entropy Center have to offer in fact?

The Entropy Centre - Official Gameplay Overview Trailer

If the mountain does not go to Mohammed, Mohammed goes to the mountain

We all know Gabe Newell can't count to three. Most likely, we will never see Valve's Dota, Half-Life and Portal threequels. Well, about the third Portal, now we have The Entropy Center. The game exactly repeats the concept of the mastermind, the main difference is the main tool of the protagonist: instead of a portable device for creating portals Aperture Science from Portal, in The Entropy Centre is to wield a gravity gun, which rewinds time in the kill zone. Apparently, someone was very impressed with Nolan's The Cause. Nolan - all that pseudoscientific jargon about the entropy of time, about reverse objects from the future and, most importantly, the storyboard in reverse is also in The Entropy Centre. Of the near-authored elements, only the time cannon.

Ironically, the time cannon pulls the blanket of viewers' sympathies. The lovable robot Astra is the game's key narrative engine, playing the roles of guide, storyteller, faithful companion, comedian, and sometimes babysitter. Against Astra's charisma, even the unusual gameplay experience and even the nostalgia of Portal 2 sometimes pales in comparison. A naively erudite AI that echoes human emotion without understanding what "emotion" means in principle; inept encyclopedic, high-minded reactions in deliberately complicated, scientific language to mundane things and ever-positive explanations for scary things are all the things that made Astra the most charming female character of the year. Alsina Dimitresca will have to move on, for Stubby Games has gone a little overboard, Astra has outshone everyone and everything. Even in this review, Astra came out on top. For a moment, we have almost Portal 3 here, and we're talking about a pixelated face...

Dividing the game into levels is still okay...

...if you logically ground these levels in the universe. The Entropy Centre has approached this question in an original way: the game's protagonist named Arya wakes up in an abandoned office of some abandoned science complex, has no memory of the past and the first thing we see is a surreal dream. It is so Nolan's style to plant subtle hints as the story progresses, loading the Chekhov gun with unexpected plot twists.

A metallic voice speaks to us over the loudspeaker, bringing us up to speed. It turns out that Arya will be recovering from amnesia not even on earth, but on a lunar station. As Nolan bequeathed, the plot unfolds on a universal scale, and only the protagonist is able to save the world. Earth explodes before our eyes, the only way out is to rewind the planet with a huge time cannon...

And all of the above events are just the beginning of the plot in the first level. There's more to come. Nolan's handwriting is too obvious, even the ambient playing in the background is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the official soundtrack of 2020's Dovodo. So the visuals and audio track Stubby Games didn't plagiarize, but successfully combined elements that already work. But with the gameplay The Entropy Center missed a bit, after all, is not a chaotic Portal 2...

Think inside out

If Portal 2 was a space-based puzzle, but The Entropy Centre is mostly about getting one box to "2" and then to "1". There is little platforming in The Entropy Centre as such, but the challenges the player faces are original: how to traverse two consecutive hills and leave both mobile ramps on the platforms if there are only two on hand; hence, the second ramp will be left behind?

Right. You have to rewind in time the first springboard you picked up so that it is nearby and stands on the platform. As strange as it may sound, objects have body memory-they "remember" where they were before. This mechanic is the basis of 90% of the gameplay of The Entropy Center - the movement of all sorts of boxes, ramps and fuses to open doors in places where they could not be by normal circumstances. Sound complicated? Stubby Games thought so, too, so the first half of the game is more of a protracted learning experience than a real mental challenge. All you'll need is a modicum of wit and an understanding of the sequence of actions. You won't get overwhelmed by yet another impossible puzzle. Yes, at first you'll have to learn to think backwards, forever shuffling causes and effects, but once you get used to it, the game lends itself. For every puzzle you solve, you get praise from Astra and a dose of dopamine from realizing your deductive genius.

Too Linear Game

But no one will let you jump all over the map. Unlike Portal 2, the leveldesign of The Entropy Centre dictates only one solution and only one path. They won't even let us explore the abandoned lunar complex to our hearts' content. All events are strictly scripted, even the first meeting with the successor of automatic turrets in the form of... toasters with a screen (?) is exclusively staged. These buggers will get on your nerves, but not as much as the notorious turrets did:

These tomboys only look cute. In fact, they are worse than SkyNet from "The Terminator. You don't believe me? Okay, I wouldn't believe it myself, but in Portal 2 and The Entropy Center the enemies are too cute, even if they cause problems sometimes - alas, that's the thing, that's the canon. How can you seriously fear/hate/avoid a character like this:

To dilute the puzzles and pseudo-shooter, the game sometimes throws in staged scenes. We are not talking about any Call of Duty with the fall of the Eiffel Tower, but the mechanics of rewinding time in staged scenes is involved: the complex will collapse right in front of the protagonist, time reversed - and a whole bridge:

The staging is not stellar, but it allows you to relax your brain after the next couple or three levels. If there were no staged scenes, going through The Entropy Center would not have been the easiest task. After all, over time you get tired of thinking about puzzles, you want to turn off your head and relax.

Is it worth it?

If you're not a fan of Portal diology, I suggest getting The Entropy Centre at a good discount. The game is well done, but it's too niche a product that requires a lot of brainwork. Not everyone likes to think about something in video games, especially if you work with your head. But for a weekend game The Entropy Center is fine, but not for beer.