When I first started up Toxic Game’s Q.U.B.E., the loading screen displayed two shiny futuristic black and white gloves. I thought, “Huh, kinda reminds me of the Portal gun.” Then my character woke up in a sterile white room, in a first person perspective. No tutorial, no waypoint, and no instructions. Of course, the first thing I do is pull the right trigger. My right hand raised in a “force push” gesture, and a small orange glowing dot appeared on the white square I was looking at. The same thing happened for for the left side, except that the dot was, of course, blue. I was excited to continue on. Portal is one of my favorite games; it inspired my first tattoo for Christ’s sake. But looking back, it’s hard to tell if Q.U.B.E. was a love letter to, or a shitty copy of, the best puzzler I’ve ever played.
Now I don’t mean it’s a shitty game (entirely). It just didn’t live up to the expectations I had set for it at first glance. The minimalist design left a lot of resources for graphics, textures, and proper physics, all of which were really good. Most of the puzzles felt easy though, with maybe two or three notable exceptions. Q.U.B.E. gives a trophy/achievement for completing “the hardest puzzle in the game,” which was satisfying. (But that wasn’t the one that took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out.)
The mechanics are easy to grasp. All the walls are made of white squares. A few different colored squares can be activated so the player can walk and/or jump from point A to B. Left to extrude, right to intrude. Different colored blocks move in different ways. A single red square can be pulled out to create a pillar of up to three cubes. Three adjacent yellow squares can make a three-tiered step pattern. Etc., etc., easy peasy. Things slowly (very slowly) increase in difficulty as new colors are added and new goals arise. You moving to a certain point becomes moving a green block to a certain point becomes rolling a green ball to a certain point. Later the blocks’ power goes out, and can be restored by maneuvering a live wire to touch them, and later hitting them with an orb that looks like Wheatley and Guilty Spark’s robo-baby.
The game’s biggest flaw is its attempt at a story. Besides the hero, there are two characters you meet. First is Captain Novack, who says she’s broadcasting from the ISS, and that you’re in a ship hurtling towards Earth. You’re the only one on board, and are tasked with “deciphering and dismantling the ship from the inside” in order to save the world. I immediately didn’t care; that shit made no sense. Later another transmission comes through from the mysterious and possibly mad 919, a man who tells you that Novack is full of shit and testing you in an underground lab for malicious purposes.
P.S. You have amnesia and don’t know who to believe.
P.P.S. There isn’t anything in the entire game that makes you care who to believe.
As for sound, there’s a pretty, but fairly uninteresting and repetitive piano piece throughout the game. Rupert Evans’ portrayal of 919 comes across as flat and uninspired, especially considering the gravity of his messages. Novack, however, is excellently played by Rachel Robinson (Final Fantasy‘s Fang), showing a wide range of intensity and emotion. The real problem here is how sparse the dialogue is. Portal‘s GLaDOS had some dry, sarcastic remark after every room cleared. You hear from both Q.U.B.E. characters around ten times in this 3-5 hour game. There isn’t anything but pure determination to keep you going.
Bottom line: the game is okay. There are definitely worse ways to spend ten bucks, but that’s the same price as Portal on Steam right now. And you really might as well find The Orange Box online for less than that. But if manipulating space-time and battling murderous passive-aggressive AI isn’t your speed, playing with colored blocks just might scratch your puzzling itch.
Q.U.B.E.: Director’s Cut is available for download on PC, PS3, PS4, XBox One, and Wii U, with a Mac version on the way.
*A copy was provided for review*
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