Q.U.B.E: The Director’s Cut – Review
Q.U.B.E. is a fun and challenging puzzle game that launched in 2011. In 2014 the developers decided to give the game a come-back by bringing Q.U.B.E: The Director’s Cut on the market. It’s always interesting to see another side of a game and that’s exactly why I was thrilled to try out this brand new edition of Q.U.B.E.
Story
You wake up, dizzy and disoriented. On the background there’s a voice talking about you. When she notices that you’re awake, she’s able to tell that you’ve been out for 15 days. Apparently your character did some space travel which immediately explains the dizziness. The voice, later identified as Commander Novak, gives you an instant warning that amnesia is fairly common when doing a space cruise. So here you are, trapped in a white, blocked environment with only an unknown voice to keep you company and while wearing a fancy life suite.
While progressing through the game, Commander Novak will enlighten you piece by piece about the life you left behind on Earth. Even some darker secrets start to surface but I’ll let you discover that on your own. The story in total is enjoyable and keeps you going between times of silence (for example: when Commander Novak is “out of range”). It even succeeds in keeping things interesting by providing some nice twists later on in the game.
Graphics
Saying that the areas look unique and colourful isn’t really possible as environments are quite bland and more of the same. That’s understandable as it fits the whole story and puzzle part of the game. I’d be lying if I said that the white and grey didn’t feel monotonous after a while but as the player will be searching the area for COLOURED blocks mainly (you know, to solve puzzles) instead of admiring the plain walls, it doesn’t matter all that much. The life suit you’re wearing has the great feature of showing you the colours of the blocks your pointing at. It’s a rather small detail but heck, it does look awesome and futuristic!
Just a fair warning for those gamers that are sensitive to motion sickness. As the game plays in first person and you’ll be turning, jumping and rotating parts of the room around, it MIGHT be possible that a certain nausea kicks in. The game’s colour palette and overall look is comparable to Mirror’s Edge and quite some people (including myself) felt really off after playing that game for a short period of time. Luckily, I can say that personally, I haven’t had any problems with Q.U.B.E. so far!
Sound
There’s not much of a soundtrack to be found in Q.U.B.E. Some eerie tunes can be heard on the background but nothing to get overly excited about. However, the voices that you hear through your life suit sound really convincing and believable. It surprising to see how easy it is to get sucked in the game, listening to the voices, the only thing that reminds you of the “real” world while stuck inside a squared prison.
Gameplay
The controls are pretty intuitive and easy to grasp. With the regular WASD buttons, you can move the character around while making the occasional jump with the space bar. Most of the fun happens with the mouse though as you’ll be using it to manipulate blocks and other aspects in a room. Each colour of a block represents a certain ability. For example: red blocks can protrude out of the wall/floor, blue blocks can be used as a launching pad, green ones can be moved by other blocks and so on. It all starts fairly simple but in no time, an area will be filled with blocks from all colours, arrows with specific abilities and/or balls that need to be moved to a certain spot. The building up concerning difficulty is slow but steady and it gives the player more than enough room to get familiar with every game mechanic.
It’s great to see how the game tries to keep the player challenged by providing new elements over time. Don’t let the title mislead you, there’s definitely more to Q.U.B.E. than simple blocks and squares. In the beginning the puzzles won’t feel like too big of a deal but let’s be honest, what puzzle game let’s you figure out the hardest situations right from the start? At the end, you might find yourself even frustrated by certain problems you can’t quite figure out. My advice: just keep fiddling with all the elements nearby and don’t go cheating by looking up a guide. It’ll take away a great deal of satisfaction in the end and isn’t that exactly the reason to play games like this?
Some small problems keep this game from being great. For one thing, the controls didn’t fully cooperated throughout the game. Sometimes it proved to be quite the challenge to jump from one ledge to another. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the game’s difficulty that bothered me, but it felt like it was way too easy to “miss” a certain spot. You must be exactly in the right lane to jump somewhere and land on the platform. If not, you’ll probably see yourself trying to make the same jump a couple times in a row. The difficulty level of some of the puzzles might not be for everyone, but that’s something pure subjective so it’d be unfair to call it a genuine problem.
Conclusion
If you like games like Portal, The Ball or even Twin Sector, then Q.U.B.E: The Director’s Cut is certainly up your alley. The game offers tons of puzzle fun and the narrative is quite exciting. Graphically, the clinic environments aren’t that enjoyable to walk through (we all like some eye candy) but I’d honestly couldn’t come up with a fitting alternative for a “cube”. Are you looking for a game to give that grey mass of yours something to do, then Q.U.B.E. is the game to get.
Q.U.B.E: The Director's Cut - Review,
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