Developer: Toxic Games
Publisher: Toxic Games
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOs
Tested on: PlayStation 4
Q.U.B.E. Director’s Cut – Review
Q.U.B.E.’s life started back in 2011, created by Toxic Games. Q.U.B.E. started off as a student project of one of the founding members of this developers group. Q.U.B.E. is short for Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion. It’s a puzzle game with a physics element. Time to dust off the grey matter and start solving the puzzles.
Story
Imagine waking up in a completely white room. The walls and floors are tiled and the whole thing looks sterile. You’ve gone mad haven’t you? Imagine hearing voices. A second equally as ominous sign of madness, right? Only you haven’t gone mad. The voice is that of Commander Novak, which informs you of the state the world is in. You see, the room you are in is part of a bigger structure which is hurtling toward Earth and will probably wipe out all life as you know it. It seems you’ve been out cold for fifteen days and you probably are going to have amnesia. So as you progress she fills in some blanks but you’ll notice things might not be what they appear to be. Doubt will eat away at you. The suspense builds up, right up to the very last part of the game.
Graphics
The graphics of the game are crisp and beautiful. There are some parts where the game has improved over the PC version, but at certain points it has taken a step down from it. Most noticeably are the crumbling walls. At times you’ll come across a wrecking ball in the game, which will proceed to knock down obstacles. In the PC version, the wall just crumbled away, quite naturally, whilst in the PS4 version, the walls explode into a black fog, which looks unnatural. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the game’s visuals. Colour coded puzzle elements make it so that finding your way around a puzzle and knowing the limits of the elements is easy.
Sound
What can be said about the sound, is that the voice acting is top notch. Q.U.B.E. is often portrayed as a ‘Portal’ clone, and in some regards that might strike as true. If there’s one thing it does differently from Portal and even better, it’s the voice acting. Portal has great voice acting, but you know from the start the voice you hear is not human, so you aren’t really surprised when things go south. In Q.U.B.E. you’ll be guided by human voices, and if there’s one thing that humans can do that computers can’t unless they are programmed too, is deceive. At one point in the game you’ll really start to wonder what exactly is going on, and your doubt will be fed with every voice log you’ll hear. It adds to the oppressive feel of the environment and makes the loneliness complete. The music can be perceived as minimalistic. However it serves its purpose to make the feeling of isolation complete. It’s a soft sweet soothing lullaby which goes hand in hand with the sterile environment. Before long you’ll even start wondering why you should even finish one more puzzle as the stress mounts.
Gameplay
Q.U.B.E, is a indie puzzle game, in which you manipulate certain structures so you can find your path around the place. A little rundown of the different structures and what they do, just to paint the picture. The red blocks, can be extracted or retracted into the floor or walls up to a certain length. The yellow blocks can be manipulated in such a manner that whichever of the three blocks you point at will change the shape of the structure while blue blocks are launch pads. The purple arrows shift the part of the room they are on around.
Q.U.B.E. starts off easy, as the first four sections will teach you the ropes and you’ll only once or twice be offered a puzzle that will tax your grey matter by using the physics engine. After this the story starts seeping through and the tone of the game shifts. You’ll no longer be running around sterile white tiled rooms, but you’ll also be traversing pitch black rooms, lighting switches to activate blocks so you can manipulate them, guide balls through mazes and finally you’ll have the chance to build your own puzzles with the power of the gloves that let you choose which blocks get which property. The physics engine works perfectly and makes the puzzles bearable, because nothing is more annoying than trying to finish a physics based puzzle with a physics engine that’s buggy. What sometimes makes the puzzles annoying is the fact that aiming can be rather tedious. Pinpointing your cursor while moving, which is necessary in some puzzles, can make things complicated. Puzzles will sometimes pull the wool over your eyes as they make it seem like you have to use elements you don’t really have to use.
Although you will have enough puzzles to tackle, Q.U.B.E. Director’s Cut is short. In its beauty and simplicity you’ll be left with wanting more. The game can be finished in about four hours and though this helps the narrative, Q.U.B.E. could have been several hours longer, but then again, better finish on a high note. Once you’ve finished the story mode, or if you want to omit the whole campaign, you can dive into the ‘against the qlock’ mode. In this mode you’ll race to the finish line in an obstacle course. The lower your time is the higher the medal you are awarded. Several power ups will aid you in your race to the finish, among which speed boosts, jump boosts and the ability that will reduce your time.
Conclusion
Q.U.B.E. Director’s Cut has been unleashed on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, joining the PC and OS X version. If you are into puzzle games, you’ll love the game, however short it is. The story is suspenseful and the narrative tone makes the game fast paced. Portal comes to mind when you play, but don’t be mistaken, it shares similarities, but it doesn’t copy it outright which makes it worth checking Q.U.B.E. Director’s Cut out.
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