GAME: Q.U.B.E. Director's Cut
CREATED BY: TOXIC GAMES and GRIP GAMES
Q.U.B.E. has been out for 4 years already as a cult puzzler, which almost inevitably, will be compared to a certain Valve brain teaser featuring a gun with dual polarities. I shall try very hard not to speak it's name here. Through ID@Xbox it has received a release with new features and some additional story, but is it really enough to justify a game that even on its original outing was known for a very short timescale?
The game has you stuck on what looks like a space shuttle that has been padded in case you go mental, as the whole environment is made up of cubes. The gloves you wear have the ability to manipulate certain ones that are coloured and these need to be done to complete the level, more or less in a generic puzzle style. It does what it says on the tin and it is a very good case of what you see being what you get.
As an actual tweaker of the grey cells it does a pretty decent job. The grading of puzzles as you go on can be steady and doesn't tax you too much. The main plus point is that although the game scenery may look similar a lot of the time, the actual tasks set for you to do are different. Some will involve moving balls from one location to another using various block dynamics, whilst another will have you move parts of the whole room to make things line up. A lot of it will be mostly creating a route from point A to B, but it's nice to have the monotony broken.
The additional story contained should add some gravitas to what was contained in the original, but although it does break the monotony a bit, the fact that the scenery is so mind numbingly dull doesn't help anyone. At least in "That game I cannot say" we had breaks in the visuals and when you got near the end it really did change a bit more drastically than this does. It is literally always looking like you're stuck in a padded cell for the whole 3 or 4 hours you're playing Q.U.B.E. Director's Cut.
The story itself does lean rather a lot towards the Valve masterpiece, in that there are two sides gnawing away at your head in the hope they will win over your conscience. I won't say who is right or wrong, but you get the idea of it soon enough. It is a nice touch, like I say, but it does feel like a bolt on idea. Another thing which is of a very similar feel is the beat the qlock element. This does feel like an afterthought and for me just doesn't work, at least not well enough to keep at it for leaderboard prowess.
To give an example, I tried going through the first few levels and actually got bored after two. The controls are too fiddly to do anything that helps saves time and the targets are too strict even with collectables.
The main game itself suffers from some truly irritating things. That control system could be a lot better. Trying to get your aim in for a certain block set to time a ball rolling down a slope can be very irritating, almost to the point of turning the game off. That story might work some of the time, but it grates after a while, so much so that you're not bothered about the female lead dropping out of orbit, as it is much less of a distraction for you so that you can complete the puzzles.
These are of course the main reason why you're playing this in the first place. Now, I wouldn't be lying if I said that this was a damned sight better than their other XBox One title, "TOWER OF GUNS" (which I pretty much slated) and I have to say that the puzzles are well thought out and keep you going for a
while. Each of the 7 sectors stay fresh by introducing new elements that keep you entertained, rather than pulling your hair out, but some of them, when mixed with the controls, can be fiddly and cumbersome. An auto aim assist would have been lovely for when you were puzzle solving, but beggars can't be choosers.
The thing that gets lost in all of this is that the price tag isn't that high. I mean, it is less than a tenner and in arcade terms nowadays, that is pretty good. It runs at a solid 60 fps and in 1080p and doesn't have any major gripes or bugs to report.
Q.U.B.E. - Director's Cut does what you bought it for, it is a puzzle game with a simmering story, loads of opportunities to tax the little gray cells when required and even though it can get repetitive visually, it doesn't look like the worst thing in the world. It does enough to not get dull that often and you do literally get what you pay for, but at the end of the day it really boils down to whether you think that paying seven or eight pounds is small enough for a single playthrough game which will last about 4 hours.
I'd say this is worth a punt if you're into the more taxing games on the arcade side of things and it is a smaller price to pay than most. It isn't perfect, that is for sure, but you can forgive the little annoyances simply because it is a decently thought out brain taxer. It may not involve a teleportation gun and Steven Merchant, but it is a lot less money. Mind you, should Portal 2 become available on backwards compatibility..... Could be a different story. Worth a little punt in the meantime now though.
